American Amnesia about Britainīs Bequest of Slavery

Our historical narrative about slavery in America is badly in need of revision. To prove the point, let us call as witness, W.E.B. Du Bois, the first African-American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University, and the preeminent authority on slavery in America.

In his 1896 book, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, he wrote: "Any attempt to consider the attitude of the English colonies toward the African slave-trade must be prefaced by a word as to the attitude of England herself and the development of the trade in her hands." So be it.

Not too many people know or care that Britain first entered the slave trade with the capture of 300 Africans in 1562, or that she introduced the first African slaves to Virginia on board a Dutch ship in 1619. What is even more arcane is the fact that Britain fought two wars in 1651 in order to wrest the slave trade from the Dutch.

In her book, Black Chronology from 4,000 B.C. to Abolition of the Slave Trade, Ellen Irene Diggs wrote: "The final terms of peace surrendered New Netherlands (including parts of what are now New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut and Delaware) to England and opened the way for England to become the world's greatest slave trader."

It is abundantly clear that Britain dominated and controlled slavery in the northern colonies 125 years before the Declaration of Independence was written, and in the south, even earlier. In fact, Our Nationīs Archives: The History of the United States in Documents, says: "More than 2 million African slaves were imported to the British American colonies and the West Indies in the pre revolutionary era." How can anyone talk about slavery in America without mentioning this fact?

In 1667 Parliament passed the "Act to regulate Negroes on British Plantations." Punishments included a severe whipping for striking a Christian. For the second offense: branding on the face with a hot iron. There was no punishment for "inadvertently" whipping a slave to death.

Between 1680 and 1688 the English African Company sent 249 ships to Africa and shipped approximately 60,000 Black slaves. They "lost" 14,000 during the middle passage, and only delivered 46,000 to the New World.

In Slavery: A World History, Milton Meltzer says, "Slave trading was no vulgar or wicked occupation that shut a man out from office or honors. Engaged in the British slave trade were dukes, earls, lords, countesses, knights - and kings. The slaves of the Royal African Company were branded with initials D.Y. for the Duke of York."

In 1698 British Parliament acted under pressure and allowed private English merchants to participate in the slave trade. The statute declared the slave trade "highly Beneficial and Advantageous to this Kingdom, and to the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging," according to DuBois.

English merchants immediately sought to exclude all other nations by securing a monopoly on the lucrative Spanish colonial slave trade. The Assiento treaty of 1713 accomplished this. Spain granted England a monopoly on the Spanish slave trade for thirty years.

England engaged to supply the Spanish colonies with "at least 144,000 slaves at the rate of 4,800 a year," and they greatly exceeded their quota, according to DuBois. The kings of Spain and England were to receive one-fourth of the profits, and the Royal African Company was authorized to import as many slaves as they wished.

In Slavery and the Slave Trade, James Walvin writes: "In 1781 the British slave ship the Zong, unexpectedly delayed at sea and in danger of running short of supplies, simply dumped 132 slaves overboard in order to save the healthier slaves and on the understanding that such an action would be covered by the ship's insurance (not the case had the wretched slaves merely died)."

Africans who arrived in the West Indies were sometimes sold in advance to plantation owners, or an agent could be paid 15-20 percent for handling the sale. In order to save the fee, the ship's captain was most often responsible for selling the slaves, and his method was the "scramble."

According to Meltzer, the slaves were marched through the town behind bagpipes and drawn up for inspection in the public square. "By agreement with the buyers, a fixed price was set for the four categories of slaves: man, woman, boy, girl. A day for the sale was advertised.

When the hour came, a gun was fired, the door to the slave yard flung open, and a horde of purchasers rushed in, with all the ferocity of brutes....each buyer, bent on getting his pick of the pack, tried to encircle the largest number of slaves by means of a rope. The slaves, helpless, bewildered, terrified, were yanked about savagely, torn by one buyer from another." Already branded once by the trader, the slaves were branded a second time with their new owner's initials.

The Church of England supported the slave trade as a means of converting "heathens," and the Bishop of Exeter held 655 slaves until he was compensated for them in 1833. Trader John Newton had prayers said twice a day on board his slave ship, saying he never knew "sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion," and Sir Francis Drake's slave ship was the named "Grace of God."

American school children should learn about every aspect of slavery and its repercussions, including the triangular trade, slave ships, profits, auctions, branding, whipping, Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the Civil Rights movement. And they should learn about entrenched racism today. But if we are going to cure our real historical amnesia, we have to see slavery in a context that goes beyond a purely "American" experience.

Many other countries in the western hemisphere share a bitter measure of our experience with British implanted slavery. In his 1834 work, Quantitative Approach to Britain's American Slave Trade, K.W. Stetson documented slave populations as follows: Barbados: 82,000, Jamaica: 324,000, Grenada: 23,600, St. Vincent: 22,300, Dominica: 14,200, Trinidad: 20,700, Tobago: 11,600, St. Lucia: 13,300, Virgin Islands: 5,100, Bahamas: 10,100, Bermuda: 4,000, British Honduras: 1,900.

When our children learn that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slave holders, they also learn that both men were born British subjects in Virginia - one of Her Majestyīs largest slave-holding colonies. If that is at all relevant, then certainly it is appropriate to teach them about Britainīs 300-year adventure in the slave trade.

W.E.B. Du Bois was right. Any attempt to understand slavery in America must begin with Great Britain "and the development of the slave trade in her hands". Only then can we produce history without amnesia, and come to terms with racism in all its forms.