Slavery was abolished 400 years ago

People get a little bit confused with the dates, some believe that slavery ended 400 years ago. European Chattel Slavery lasted for around 400 Years.

The Scope of Slavery

Slavery appears sanitised through education, the government, the church and the media. Images of the staving, destitute, violent and war torn parts of Africa today are weighed up against the relatively comfortable lives of Black people in Europe and the Americas, to suppress the contempt the perpetrators deserve.

European chattel slavery was not just about working for free.

It’s about destroying families.
It’s about defiling others.
It’s about subjugation.
It’s about destroying the identity of Africans.
It’s about racism.
It’s about depopulating Africa.
It’s about under-developing Africa.
It’s about the civil rights struggle.
It’s about equal opportunities.
It’s about famine in Africa due to depopulation.
It’s about brainwashing.
It’s about colonialisation.
It’s about destroying the self esteem of others.
It’s about barbarity.
It’s about subjecting another human being to atrocities that would make Satan look like a saint.

25th March 2007

This is the date for the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade by Britain. The abolition Act was signed on the 25th March 1807 but the abolition of the slave trade actually begun on 1st May 1807. Britain was celebrating themselves, their efforts to remove their guilt without a formal apology, their government, their decision, their act of compassion, their regret, their people (Wilberforce) and not the actual freeing of the enslaved Africans.

Slavery was abolished 200 years ago

The slave trade was abolished 200 years ago. This meant it was still legal to enslave Africans but it became illegal to transport enslaved Africans.

Slavery in British territories ended 1833. The slaves then had to serve a 4 year apprenticeship without pay. Transatlantic slavery finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

Slavery continued under the guise of forced labour in colonial Africa. Slavery was abolished in British occupied Sierra Leone in 1928.

Slavery continues today.

Suffering ended with the end of the slave trade

When slavery was totally abolished in 1838, most of the slaves in the West Indies had to stay on the plantation. They now had to pay rent. They were not allowed to purchase land. They were now financially enslaved. They had no rights. Subjugation was still in vogue. Africans still felt inferior.

The number of casualties

Europeans have massaged a conservative figure of 10 million for the number of Africans who died during the process of enslavement. This low estimate serves to subdue the impact of the scale of the atrocity. This figure does not include the people who died evading capture, the people who died on the march to the slave castles, the people who died in the slave castles, and the people who died during the voyage to the Americas. For every African who landed in the Americas two or three others died. A true conservative European estimate for the misery inflicted on Africans would be 50 to 100 million people.

Africans have estimated that more than 100 million people died through slavery, this figure includes the efforts of Arab nations and the casualties during the process of capture

Africans sold Africans

Africans sold Africans is a euphemism to ease the conscience of Europeans. In reality the demand for African people increased exponentially. Wars were started to supply Europeans with enslaved Africans. A huge cloud of misery descended on Africa to accommodate the European demand for African souls.

William Wilberforce aka Wilberfarce

Africans in the diaspora have a problem with William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce opposed the slave trade but never opposed slavery. He is promoted as the champion of the abolition of slavery but he only lobbied for the abolition of the slave trade. The efforts of others including Olaudah Equiano are deflated to make space for Wilberforce. Wilberforce suggested that blacks should only be whipped at night, as this was better for production. He was also an advocate for Black men being put to work in breeding farms. Slave breeding farms became more popular after the slave trade abolition (1807), which meant an increase in rapes of African girls and women and more forced pregnancies and abortions.

Amazing Grace

This popular hymn was written by John Newton. Newton was the captain of a slave ship, who tortured and murdered many African men and participated in gang rapes of chained African women, some aged as young as 10.

Reverend John Newton, as he later became, was a good friend to William Wilberforce, who despite his conversion to Christianity carried on in the slave trade until he was no longer physically able.

Isn’t that amazing that someone who acted under such divine influence could continue to make profits from oppression.

The Church and Abolition

To say the church had a major role in the abolition of slavery paints an inaccurate picture, one may inclined to believe the church enforced a moral standpoint. The truth is the church had a major role in condemning millions of Africans to slavery. During the days of the abolition the major religion was Christianity. In fact the only legal religions were Christianity and Judaism. It is fair to say that most of the people in the abolition movement were Christian. During the Abolition debate the church did not officially use its power to denounce slavery. Officially the church kept quiet. Bishops had slaves, they kept them and they did not want to free them. Profits from slavery were used to build the church and they did not want to bite the hand that fed them.