“Unveiling the Forgotten Lessons: How British Schools Shape the Narrative of Empire”
By the late 18th Century, more than half of all the African slaves transported across the Atlantic were carried by British ships. Around the same period, in 1787, campaigners Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp founded the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which raised awareness about the inhumane conditions of African slaves, boycotted goods produced thorugh slavery and petitioned Parliament.
Petitions were led by MP William Wilberforce and after years of failed attempts, in 1807, the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire. But, up to that point, some 11 thousand ships had sailed from British ports with the purpose of transporting and selling people across the Atlantic, with countless thousands dying along the way, and the ones who made it left to a life of slavery, sometimes under extremely brutal conditions.
To their credit, following that date, the Royal Navy took an active role in patrolling the Atlantic waters, cracking down on those traders who defied the ban, as we discussed in our recent video The True Story of the Amistad. However, slavery itself was not abolished until 1838, after which the slave-owners – not the slaves – received compensation from the Government.
Again, you can have a field day by pointing out which atrocities we failed to include in this list. Because had we covered it all, or in any further detail even than we did, this video would likely have set the world record for longest YouTube video of all time. And been not only demonetized, but age restricted as well, as happened to our aforementioned phenomenal video Swept Under the Rug: The Truth About the Japanese Holocaust. But, please be our guest discussing as many such things as you can come up with in the comments.
