The dark shadows of the British Empire

Racism in Europe

If slavery and extermination of native peoples were the foundations of the creation of the United States, colonialism and exploitation stain the history of the United Kingdom

Rafael Ramoslondres

Not even the Beatles are safe from the controversy and the debate that has been organized on racism following the death of George Floyd.Penny Lane, the name of one of her songs, is a street dedicated to James Penny, a slave trafficker from Liverpool.Some have taken out of the sleeve the theory that in reality it refers to the fact that to cross a bridge there was at the time that paying a “penny” (pence), but not even Donald Trump would think of such a pilgrim theory.

Las oscuras sombras del imperio británico

Cities such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow prospered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of slavery, not only because of the benefits it generated in itself for investors the sale of human beings captured in Africa to the owners of plantations of the plantations of the plantations ofCaribbean and the American colonies, but for the intermediation of bankers, merchants and insurers.It meant work for farmers, fabric manufacturers, captains and ship crews.You had to be very brave (some were, like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson) to campaign for abolition, which did not definitely arrive until 1833.

They are not saved from the stigma of racism not even prime ministers such as Churchill, Peel and William Gladstone

Marked by racism (and colonialism, which is his cousin brother) have been British primeof Liverpool whose father was a slave who enriched himself immensely).Also King Guillermo de Orange (born in Holland, idolized by the Protestants of the Ulster and detected by Catholics);Cecil Rhodes, who expanded the confines of the Empire to Austral Africa (Rodesia, today Zimbabue, was baptized in his honor), and Robert Clive, who did the same in India.

The British cities are full of streets and statues in their names, and the authorities have covered many of them with wooden plates to protect them from the graffiti and that do not run the same fate as the Edward Abston, the Bristol merchant who created the real companyAfrican, responsible for traffic of 85.000 slaves.Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that throwing or painting them is not just a crime but also equals denying the history of this country.Those who do, however, are tired of waiting for something to combat racism and discrimination, apart from preparing reports.

In total, between 1662 and 1833, Great Britain transported 3.4 million slaves between Europe, Africa and the Americas.In full swing of the disgusting business, the annual investment became two million euros, and any person could buy shares on the journey of a ship.If the trip was fruitful (first way he wore human beings and back, sugar and tobacco), the profits could be substantial.Many people were involved.The Scottish aristocrats and commercial classes pressed for the union of the crowns with England in 1707 with the eye on their participation in the activities of the Empire, including slavery.The Constitution of 1688 granted Protestant whites the status of "free men", safe from arbitrary detention.The implicit consequence was that the rest was not.

From 1622 to 1833 Great Britain transported more than three million slaves to the Americas

The "Act of the Slave Trade" of 1788 regulated the activity, which by then was usual, with all kinds of stipulations, such as the maximum number of blacks that a ship could transport (just like today buses or airplanes with the number of number ofpassengers).Liverpool got relatively late in the business, but his footprints are present everywhere, and not only at the Penny Lane de los Beatles.In the engravings of the town halls, on the facades of historical buildings such as Cunard.At the end of the 18th century, about twenty ships - designated and built for their sinister purpose - undertook the transatlantic trip from Bristol, 42 from London and 131 from the city of Merseyside.One in ten citizens benefited, including food vendors, string manufacturers and gunpowder.40% of income came from slavery.

Before Liverpool, in the seventeenth century, the British capital of the slave traffic was Bristol, and the main operations center of the Real African company, based in London.The city had had more than a hundred years contact with the Western Indies, and saw an opportunity in the development of sugar and cocoa cultivation in the Caribbean, and tobacco and cotton in the North-Cricane.The ships unloaded in America the slaves and the goods that were attractive on the other side of the Atlantic (fabrics, knives, guns, wine, beer, jewelry...), and carried the New World Exotic Products.Racism was so rooted in the city that the bus company only used white drivers until 1963.

Numerous streets of Glasgow, such as the central Buchanan Street, are named after merchants that were enriched with slavery, and local merchants supported the Confederation in the United States Civil War.The University of the City acknowledged a couple of years ago that it had benefited with twenty million euros of human traffic, in the form of gifts and donations of patrons linked to it.In London, historical buildings such as the Guilhall of the City and the Indian dock were the epicenter of slavery.

"Dr. Livingstone, I suppose," said Henry Stanley when he finally found the explorer in an expedition sponsored by a London newspaper."Mr. Stanley, politician and colonial administrator, known for his racism and brutal treatment of Africans," someone could have told him, if the shifts had changed, with today's political values.His statue in Denbight (Wales) is one of those that is in danger.

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