[blair’s apology] ten things about british slavery

This blog’s comment on Blair’s apology is drawn from the BBC: The story of British slavery is one of the greatest untold stories in UK history. It's a subject people don't talk about, with most Brits knowing more about slavery in the Deep South of the US. Here are 10 things for those of us who might still be a little hazy on the business:

1. The British were the first big slave-trading nation to abandon the trade. They did this in 1807 when there were still huge profits to be made, and they did it for mainly moral reasons. It took a revolution of the slaves to destroy France's system and a terrible civil war in the US decided the fate of the slaves of the Southern States. In Britain alone slavery was ended by millions of people, black and white, free and enslaved, who decided it could no longer be tolerated.

2. From the ending of the slave trade to the beginning of the 20th Century, the Royal Navy patrolled off the coast of Africa searching for slave trading ships, boarding them and freeing the slaves. The fleet was known as the West Africa Squadrons.

3. Slaves in the British Caribbean didn't produce cotton as they did in the US. Sugar was the crop of islands like Jamaica and Barbados and the slaves who produced it were the world's first industrial workers.

7 more things about British slavery here …