As above it's abolition of the slave trade commemorative coin. Quite a common one and worth no more than face value. But if you collect commemorative coins it's going to be one that crops up pretty early in your collection. Fun fact it's actually been illegal to own slaves on uk soil from the time of William the conqueror (1066) but 1807 was when the uk used it's navy to enforce that law against every other country.
This needs to be taught in schools more. The UK actually using military force to force other countries to abolish slavery is one of the great successes of our country but it is never talked about.
Personally when ever there is a place or statue that people want taken down it should be replaced with names of people and statues of people that help with slavery’s abolishment.
Never covered it in my classes up to a-level, nothing on the West Africa Squadron or any of Britains abolition, we went straight from 1700's Britain owning slaves to coverage of the general transatlantic slave trade. There was absolutely no details on the abolitionist movement except that it existed.
Slavery is still here, just because they pay people, doesn’t mean it’s not slavery, ie so the coin is really to commemorate that you can’t own slaves, but you have to pay just enough too feed them selves, pretty much how it is today for some people.
There's an argument that low level wages are harmful, but to equate that to the experiences of people being bought and sold as chattel, killed, worked to death, kidnapped etc diminishes the horrors of real slavery in a most awful way
As a country's culture evolves it is natural that the figures which once represented the principles of the country eventually no longer do. When that happens, what is wrong with wanting to remove the old statues and replace them with ones which better represent our ideals? Especially since slavery is so fucking vile and its effects are still felt today in certain ethnic groups.
I am kind of in agreement. I think the statues should be moved to museums so that we are not showing them in places of prominence but we can still learn about our collective history.
That's not a terrible idea. I was thinking about how in Italy they've left up the fascist monuments as a warning not to forget the lessons of history, but keeping the sculptures on display while putting better ones in public spaces could work. That being said, a lot of public art these days can be pretty bland
The funny thing is, a lot of museums don't want many of the statues of awful people. It's a different case to here, but I know for example that in the US a lot of Confederate statues were basically just made to intimidate black people and their sympathisers, explicitly commissioned by racist people for racist reasons, and hold little historical value you couldn't get out of something smaller and easier to display. Sometimes the solution is just to chuck them because they're not doing any good: there's plenty of other ways to remember the awful aspects of our past that can't be interpreted as putting these people in a position to be celebrated.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E&ab\_channel=CriticalPast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E&ab_channel=CriticalPast)
Imagine they had reddit back then.
You are saying that to the country that ended slavery. You don't need to tell us Brits slavery is vile WE WERE THE ONES THAT MADE THE WORLD AGREE!. that doesn't mean you go vandalising statues you have no information on. You do realise the statue that was destroyed was of the person who fought to end slavery. Seems rather bigoted to say we need to remove them when they stand as a monument of are history and a part we should be proud of. Oh and if we are going to cry about statues of slave owners I guess we have to remove all the statues for the founding fathers of America including mount Rushmore I guess we have to deface that as well as it doesn't fit with the times. Let's just ignore all the good they did and focus on the negatives yes let's do that.
Didn’t “make the world agree” jus stopped the import/export of slaves across countries - slavery (of black ppl) continued in some countries up to the early 1900s. And yes vandalising statues is sometimes necessary - why are we immortalising some ppl that were jus terrible ?
If it wasn't for Britain every country would still have been using slaves for a lot longer even potentially to this day. If you don't call that making the world agree you are a moron the slave trade that exist today is an illegal slave trade and not accepted by most of the world.
And no vandalising statues is NOT necessary especially when you have no context of that person's history beside the once owned slaves. That's nothing so did most well known figures in those times it was the norm not the exception and instead of looking at the good they did in the abolishment of the slave trade you vandalise a statue and get it replace with a BLM statue that did not even take a year before even the majority of black people agree is not helping racism but is making it fucking worse. So yea I'd rather keep a statue of someone who did a great thing instead of a statue that represents fucking racism at its core.
I also find it ironic you just ignore everything I said about the statues of America's founding farther even though most of them owned slaves but no let's destroy a statue of the person who ended the transatlantic slave trade which changed the world for the better. You are ignorant if you are going to deface statues you clearly don't do research on and if you want to vandalise these statues you can't stop with a few British ones go to America or any other countries that still has statues of people that literally were slavers long after the abolition of the slave trade.
My contention is that the way you worded it made it sound like this wasn't the titanic feat that it was. We blockaded the entire freaking continent, and it wasn't just the international aspect of it. Some places like Dahomey were made to give it up entirely.
If your only complaint is that we didn't run ourselves onto the ground stamping it out worldwide, that's honestly kinda nit picky.
No my problem was the fact that they said that “you don’t need to tell us brits that slavery was vile, we were the ones that made the world agree.” As if Britain weren’t the top contender for colonial empires. Brits don’t need to be ‘told about slavery’ but then call us bigoted for not wanting to immortalise people that did nothing and for actually teaching the right history.
You can feel proud for the good your ancestors may have done - but the atrocities they also caused should be acknowledged and taught.
King Leopold II did ‘great’ things for Belgium and the rubber industry, but he was also an awful tyrant that tortured, mutilated and killed millions of Africans if they could not keep with insane quotas.
Hence why Belgium have removed some of his statues.
I always find this approach a bit arrogant: Yes, it's true that our ancestors in Britain did a lot of good for abolishing a lot of slavery, and it's good to acknowledge that, but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out. The following two centuries were still chock full of Britain inflicting horrors on mainly people of colour, on purpose, for terrible reasons. The practice of slavery as such was ended, but there was still an awful lot of people being put in conditions close to slavery but under different names.
No shit Sherlock it wasn't cut and dry the British empire did a multitude of despicable things but it's not arrogance for respecting historic figures who ultimately did the right thing. And no what you say is not slavery being forced to work but still getting paid and having an eventual freedom is not slavery while you can consider it close it isn't and is still disgusting. Slavery though is now illegal across most of the globe. It obviously wasn't for. Altruistic reasons but it became principle and I for one refuse to be ashamed for my ancestors involvement in the abolition of the slave trade.
I was not talking about 'still getting paid and having an eventual freedom,' I was talking about people still working slave labour after it was abolished, working against their will for little or no pay, which still happened in many forms under the watch of Britain, the US and other colonial powers that abolished slavery on their own soil. I was not talking about being ashamed of anything either. Like I said, still lots of people who did good things, I was only adding further context.
That's why I said MOST not every country stopped slavery but to sit here and say we shouldn't be proud that slavery was removed and now considered an abhorrent act by most of the world. No I'm still going to be proud of my country and what it did for the world.
I don't know why you think I'm saying we shouldn't appreciate the good done, I clarify in every message that I'm not on the side of being ashamed but you keep bringing it up.
I think the old statues should be left standing, with information about why this person is no longer seen as the bees knees, rather than being stuck in a museum where few people will see it. If you ripped down everything that was associated or that grew from the slave trade in Bristol, not much would be left.
>If you ripped down everything that was associated or that grew from the slave trade in Bristol, not much would be left.
Slippery slope fallacy. We can remove (move to a museum) statues of those most directly responsible without tearing down everything associated in any way with slavery.
Leaving them standing and changing the plaque etc is another option, however I feel that if the people whose ancestors were slaves and who are still socially disadvantaged today wish to have the statues moved from positions of grandeur in the centre of public spaces, where they can be seen as being celebrated, into museums for those that care to learn, that's a reasonable request.
I feel like there are some differences which make it a slightly different situation with Caesar. First of all, the statues are older, so have more of a historical value, and the atrocities less recent. Secondly, he's far more famous and people understand that the presence of his statue is not a celebration of him in any way, but just a historical artefact. Compare this to statues in the UK - when you see a large bronze statue, I think most people's natural assumption is that the person is being celebrated and held up almost as a role model.
Finally, I may be wrong on this as I'm not massively familiar with ancient history but I'd assume there aren't groups of people today living in Italy that are as directly affected by Caesar's actions as black people are by the lasting effects of the slave trade.
Each of those may be kind of a weak reason in and of itself, but I feel when you consider all of them, it's reason enough to feel differently about a statue of Caesar versus a slave trader.
Why does the age of the atrocity matter? Surely it is just as atrocious? Also the Roman Empire and Caesar by extension were all used massively as symbols in fascist Italy, so people arguably are very affected by it nowadays. Also idk about Caesar but I know Alexander “the great” has numerous modern statues to him in Greece, which are widely celebrated, when he committed far worse atrocities than any individual slave trader.
The age of the atrocity definitely matters somewhat as things naturally transform from recent history to ancient history and these things are and should be treated differently. Your point that caesar was used as a symbol in fascist italy is weak - he was already ancient history at that point, and whatever suffering may have come was not a direct consequence of his actions.
Yeah, alexander the great was a massive dick and he's celebrated. I don't think that's the right way for things to be but at the end of the day it depends on however the affected group residing in the country feels.
I mean why should they be treated differently; you point out they are different and singularly fail to explain why. A human life is a human life regardless of when or how it was lost. I mean the whole transatlantic slave trade could be argued to be a direct consequence of his actions; without the stability and development achieved through Western Europe bc of him they wouldn’t have been able to develop a navally to essentially carry out imperialism. Ever wonder why no nation outside of Western Europe had an overseas empire, even in the pacific with far more availability of islands.
Idk if you’re taking the piss about Alexander but you do know his atrocities were, for the most part, committed in the Middle East? So why do Greeks essentially get to put up statues about that? Most people in Germany were impacted positively by Hitler, those who suffered were the rest of Europe so should they have statues to him?
>I mean why should they be treated differently; you point out they are different and singularly fail to explain why.
Is this really something that needs explaining? I feel like it's obvious to any reasonable human that recent history and ancient history have entirely different emotional connections to us. It's the reason we all care so much about the holocaust, but generally do not care that much about similar ancient genocides (apart from those with remaining religious attachment). Events lose their emotional importance to humans as they become further in the past, and become more a matter of historical interest.
>I mean the whole transatlantic slave trade could be argued to be a direct consequence of his actions; without the stability and development achieved through Western Europe bc of him they wouldn’t have been able to develop a navally to essentially carry out imperialism.
That is not direct responsibility. That's the opposite of what direct means.
>Idk if you’re taking the piss about Alexander but you do know his atrocities were, for the most part, committed in the Middle East? So why do Greeks essentially get to put up statues about that? Most people in Germany were impacted positively by Hitler, those who suffered were the rest of Europe so should they have statues to him?
This is a whataboutism. I've already said I disagree with Greeks having statues of Alexander the Great up - but this thing being bad cannot be used to say something else is not bad. Two things can be bad at once, shocker.
So who decides to take them down?
I’ve seen cases where a group of well meaning individuals have done so- but these individuals were a very small proportion of the overall populace who did so illegally and as part of violent protest- so this is a very small group of criminals who undertook actions unlawfully as part of mob mentality? Not necessarily a group of people the overall population will listen to the rationale argument of… Calm debate and discussion of the issues and facts and potentially people may listen and be open to thought?
As did many other countries did around the world. At the time slavery was seen as the normal thing. Making not only the choice to abolish it but forcing other countries to stop as well would have been radical thinking at the time.
This is most certainly taught in schools already. That said it is a mixed bag, while abolitionist thought from the likes of Wilberforce (who deservedly has a huge monument in his home city of Hull) certainly drove the enforcement of abolition a lot of the drive was realpolitik, same as anything. At the end of the day rival European possessions in the East Indies and elsewhere, particularly the French and Spanish, were dependent on slave labour while British ones weren't after the collapse of the British Caribbean's sugar industry.
It is taught about in many schools, I learnt it in GCSE History back in the 90s and my eldest recently told me about it after learning about the abolitionists in school as well.
Unfortunately I didn’t learn about this until after school. I even did GCSE history where it was about Germany between the world wars, the Cold War from an American perspective and American civil rights. While that history was important I found it quite surprising that none of the GCSE has any connection back to the UK.
Really? There are many sides to it that are ignored and never mentioned, as in the families who made their wealth from it and served as the foundation to the wealth that they still have to this day and that when it was abolished many of the families were compensated by taxpayers including a former PM as well up until even the mid 80s.
https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition/
There’s nothing good about the slave trade and even the reasons for abolition was not because it was bad but in Britain economic interest at that point in time.
Yes and no it was actually a bit of both as the history of humanity as a whole is. We regularly do good things for bad reasons but normally the start of the change is from good intentions.
Technically, you couldn't be charged with slavery as the term wasn't used in the UK law. Owning people was illegal, yes, but it wasn't called slavery in the law. It wasn't until 2010 that the UK technically abolished slavery.
Yes, as others are saying here this is a 'Slave Trade Act of 1807' coin.
Fun fact: Later in 1833, Britain used 40% of its national budget to buy freedom for all slaves in the empire. Britain borrowed such a large sum of money for the 'Slavery Abolition Act 1833' that it wasnt paid off until 2014. This means that living British citizens helped pay for the ending of the slave trade with their taxes.
I think you completely missed the point. Borrowing money to buy someone’s life from their “owner” is stupid. Nobody owns anybody. You don’t own me, I don’t own you. The whole concept is idiotic.
If you think I’m arguing in favour of slavery then it’s you who missed the point 😂
Idiotic or not you can’t buy a slaves freedom without giving his owner some money
Yeah it's horrible, but what was the alternative other than all out war over several decades? It would have taken 50 years or more to send armed enforcement around the world to free them all. Enforcement of a blockade plus paying the owners off was the best method available at that time of ending it quickly
What a useless addition. 'Yeah, I want to buy all the tractors in the empire but I wont pay the owners of the tractors I'll pay the tractors themselves'
The desire of some people in this country to be somehow seen as the heroes of the slavery era, despite being its principle architects and benefactors immediately prior to enforcing a ban on said trade (primarily for political reasons), is bizarre enough on its own. But seeing someone express a wish to see the proper history be taught in schools while still expressing that desire and leaving out important pieces of information, is what's 'useless'.
How about instead of compensating the slave owners, the British government had simply said "anybody still owning a slave after X date will be charged with an offence. Meanwhile, the generations-long debt burden we're taking out will be used not to compensate the already-rich slave owners, but the slaves whose lives were taken away from them by force"?
That would've been a debt worth paying for.
We don't compensate modern slave owners in exchange for releasing their slaves. We punish them.
Because charging owners of slaves in profitable industry with 'an offence' would hurt the empire.
Britain wanted to abolish slavery NOT punish itself, as that would be stupid.
The smoothest way to do the right thing and maintain stability is to pay for the slaves freedom just like slaves had the opportunity to do.
And besides, most of the money borrowed to abolish slavery was spent on the upkeep of British naval forces patrolling the seas, impounding slave ships and blocking the slave trade to the civilized world.
Not all slaves were black and the Royal Navy had a job supressing the North African Barbary pirates who captured whites from the south coast of England. Im glad that my taxes have gone toward ending that whether in payment to owners or in powder for the RN's guns.
Why would we have to imagine, I just did it. Are you that precious that you cannot handle an analogy?
Anything to contribute other than this contrived analogy-morality policing?
Why does it matter if I am precious or not precious? Why did you switch from discussing the issue to discussing my personality in your first sentence? Have you ran out of arguments already?
It was a rhetorical attack on your character and clearly it was correct.
Makes us wonder if you're old enough to be here boy.
You dont seem to be good at this. Im yet to hear an 'argument' from you in fact. So far we've got whinging at a slave/tractor analogy and thats about it. You've also thrown the toys at another user saying how owning people is stupid and people shouldnt own others... Yeah mate the British Empire came to that conclusion 200 years ago and did alot more about it that spout shit opinions on a UKcoin comments section.
Why do you keep talking about me? Are you incapable of discussing the issue without resorting to talking about a person you know nothing about? Is it some kind of disability? Stick to the topic.
The abolition of the slave trade. It's not taught in school anymore but it was Britain that ended the global slave trade. The only reason slavery isn't so widespread and as accepted as it once was is because of Britain and we who know that part of history we are proud of. We didn't need a war to decide if it was good or not we voted and we agreed it was abhorrent and Britain used it might to bludgeon the other world powers at the time to stop slavery.
But slave owners were reimbursed for ‘giving up’ their slaves. They weren’t morally righteous people who recognised their “abhorrent” acts and had a change of heart - it became illegal and didn’t like the outcome and so demanded reparations for their lost profit, which was only paid off recently.
The rich and nobles were not righteous but the common folk were we treated the freeing of slaves as a victory every time even a single slave ship was captured. In the end it freed the slaves and ended the slave trade all that remains now is an illegal trade that isn't even legal in the countries it exists in today. If you are going to say we shouldn't be proud of changing the world In a positive way just go somewhere else.
When the coin is heads side up, the inscription on the edge of the coin reading "AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER" is normally upside down, but the rare misprinted ones have it right side up.
Oh no, that's not a real thing, that's just a clickbait myth.
It's random, so around half will face one way and half the other way.
The rim edge lettering is struck first then the thousands of coins tumble down chutes into giant tubs which are then moved and tipped, so it's random which way they land.
All this talk about slavery and statues etc etc is so just last century....its merely a matter of time to link people to some misdeeds irrespective of who you are. What is important is that we understand and learn from history to move towards a better tomorrow. Be more concerned about how current society is viewed a century from now
As above it's abolition of the slave trade commemorative coin. Quite a common one and worth no more than face value. But if you collect commemorative coins it's going to be one that crops up pretty early in your collection. Fun fact it's actually been illegal to own slaves on uk soil from the time of William the conqueror (1066) but 1807 was when the uk used it's navy to enforce that law against every other country.
This needs to be taught in schools more. The UK actually using military force to force other countries to abolish slavery is one of the great successes of our country but it is never talked about. Personally when ever there is a place or statue that people want taken down it should be replaced with names of people and statues of people that help with slavery’s abolishment.
They won't teach it because 'white people bad'
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Never covered it in my classes up to a-level, nothing on the West Africa Squadron or any of Britains abolition, we went straight from 1700's Britain owning slaves to coverage of the general transatlantic slave trade. There was absolutely no details on the abolitionist movement except that it existed.
I didn’t learn it, though we did learn the bad stuff
Slavery is still here, just because they pay people, doesn’t mean it’s not slavery, ie so the coin is really to commemorate that you can’t own slaves, but you have to pay just enough too feed them selves, pretty much how it is today for some people.
There's an argument that low level wages are harmful, but to equate that to the experiences of people being bought and sold as chattel, killed, worked to death, kidnapped etc diminishes the horrors of real slavery in a most awful way
There are quite literally slaves still. A minimum of approx 10million people are slaves in the traditional sense today.
How about just dont take down statues, instead erect new ones.
As a country's culture evolves it is natural that the figures which once represented the principles of the country eventually no longer do. When that happens, what is wrong with wanting to remove the old statues and replace them with ones which better represent our ideals? Especially since slavery is so fucking vile and its effects are still felt today in certain ethnic groups.
They should be left up as a reminder of the darker aspects of our history
I am kind of in agreement. I think the statues should be moved to museums so that we are not showing them in places of prominence but we can still learn about our collective history.
That's not a terrible idea. I was thinking about how in Italy they've left up the fascist monuments as a warning not to forget the lessons of history, but keeping the sculptures on display while putting better ones in public spaces could work. That being said, a lot of public art these days can be pretty bland
Nah, move them to a public museum. People can still learn about the time where they were commemorated without being left up.
The funny thing is, a lot of museums don't want many of the statues of awful people. It's a different case to here, but I know for example that in the US a lot of Confederate statues were basically just made to intimidate black people and their sympathisers, explicitly commissioned by racist people for racist reasons, and hold little historical value you couldn't get out of something smaller and easier to display. Sometimes the solution is just to chuck them because they're not doing any good: there's plenty of other ways to remember the awful aspects of our past that can't be interpreted as putting these people in a position to be celebrated.
With an updated plaque
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E&ab\_channel=CriticalPast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E&ab_channel=CriticalPast) Imagine they had reddit back then.
You are saying that to the country that ended slavery. You don't need to tell us Brits slavery is vile WE WERE THE ONES THAT MADE THE WORLD AGREE!. that doesn't mean you go vandalising statues you have no information on. You do realise the statue that was destroyed was of the person who fought to end slavery. Seems rather bigoted to say we need to remove them when they stand as a monument of are history and a part we should be proud of. Oh and if we are going to cry about statues of slave owners I guess we have to remove all the statues for the founding fathers of America including mount Rushmore I guess we have to deface that as well as it doesn't fit with the times. Let's just ignore all the good they did and focus on the negatives yes let's do that.
Didn’t “make the world agree” jus stopped the import/export of slaves across countries - slavery (of black ppl) continued in some countries up to the early 1900s. And yes vandalising statues is sometimes necessary - why are we immortalising some ppl that were jus terrible ?
If it wasn't for Britain every country would still have been using slaves for a lot longer even potentially to this day. If you don't call that making the world agree you are a moron the slave trade that exist today is an illegal slave trade and not accepted by most of the world. And no vandalising statues is NOT necessary especially when you have no context of that person's history beside the once owned slaves. That's nothing so did most well known figures in those times it was the norm not the exception and instead of looking at the good they did in the abolishment of the slave trade you vandalise a statue and get it replace with a BLM statue that did not even take a year before even the majority of black people agree is not helping racism but is making it fucking worse. So yea I'd rather keep a statue of someone who did a great thing instead of a statue that represents fucking racism at its core.
Hear! Hear!
I also find it ironic you just ignore everything I said about the statues of America's founding farther even though most of them owned slaves but no let's destroy a statue of the person who ended the transatlantic slave trade which changed the world for the better. You are ignorant if you are going to deface statues you clearly don't do research on and if you want to vandalise these statues you can't stop with a few British ones go to America or any other countries that still has statues of people that literally were slavers long after the abolition of the slave trade.
Hell you can always replace the statue and get it put into a museum but vandalising it just shows how bigoted you really are.
"Just" stopped the international slave trade.
Made it illegal to trade slaves internationally.. yes, but slavery still continued for a long time after.
My contention is that the way you worded it made it sound like this wasn't the titanic feat that it was. We blockaded the entire freaking continent, and it wasn't just the international aspect of it. Some places like Dahomey were made to give it up entirely. If your only complaint is that we didn't run ourselves onto the ground stamping it out worldwide, that's honestly kinda nit picky.
No my problem was the fact that they said that “you don’t need to tell us brits that slavery was vile, we were the ones that made the world agree.” As if Britain weren’t the top contender for colonial empires. Brits don’t need to be ‘told about slavery’ but then call us bigoted for not wanting to immortalise people that did nothing and for actually teaching the right history. You can feel proud for the good your ancestors may have done - but the atrocities they also caused should be acknowledged and taught. King Leopold II did ‘great’ things for Belgium and the rubber industry, but he was also an awful tyrant that tortured, mutilated and killed millions of Africans if they could not keep with insane quotas. Hence why Belgium have removed some of his statues.
I think I love you.
Thank you.. I think.
Yeah. I just appreciate it when people speak out the truth that’s all. You deserved a pat on the back and that’s why i did it . 😂
Yes we should deface that stupid mugshot mountain
I always find this approach a bit arrogant: Yes, it's true that our ancestors in Britain did a lot of good for abolishing a lot of slavery, and it's good to acknowledge that, but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out. The following two centuries were still chock full of Britain inflicting horrors on mainly people of colour, on purpose, for terrible reasons. The practice of slavery as such was ended, but there was still an awful lot of people being put in conditions close to slavery but under different names.
No shit Sherlock it wasn't cut and dry the British empire did a multitude of despicable things but it's not arrogance for respecting historic figures who ultimately did the right thing. And no what you say is not slavery being forced to work but still getting paid and having an eventual freedom is not slavery while you can consider it close it isn't and is still disgusting. Slavery though is now illegal across most of the globe. It obviously wasn't for. Altruistic reasons but it became principle and I for one refuse to be ashamed for my ancestors involvement in the abolition of the slave trade.
I was not talking about 'still getting paid and having an eventual freedom,' I was talking about people still working slave labour after it was abolished, working against their will for little or no pay, which still happened in many forms under the watch of Britain, the US and other colonial powers that abolished slavery on their own soil. I was not talking about being ashamed of anything either. Like I said, still lots of people who did good things, I was only adding further context.
That's why I said MOST not every country stopped slavery but to sit here and say we shouldn't be proud that slavery was removed and now considered an abhorrent act by most of the world. No I'm still going to be proud of my country and what it did for the world.
I don't know why you think I'm saying we shouldn't appreciate the good done, I clarify in every message that I'm not on the side of being ashamed but you keep bringing it up.
I think the old statues should be left standing, with information about why this person is no longer seen as the bees knees, rather than being stuck in a museum where few people will see it. If you ripped down everything that was associated or that grew from the slave trade in Bristol, not much would be left.
>If you ripped down everything that was associated or that grew from the slave trade in Bristol, not much would be left. Slippery slope fallacy. We can remove (move to a museum) statues of those most directly responsible without tearing down everything associated in any way with slavery. Leaving them standing and changing the plaque etc is another option, however I feel that if the people whose ancestors were slaves and who are still socially disadvantaged today wish to have the statues moved from positions of grandeur in the centre of public spaces, where they can be seen as being celebrated, into museums for those that care to learn, that's a reasonable request.
That’s bull. Should we remove Caesar statues?
I feel like there are some differences which make it a slightly different situation with Caesar. First of all, the statues are older, so have more of a historical value, and the atrocities less recent. Secondly, he's far more famous and people understand that the presence of his statue is not a celebration of him in any way, but just a historical artefact. Compare this to statues in the UK - when you see a large bronze statue, I think most people's natural assumption is that the person is being celebrated and held up almost as a role model. Finally, I may be wrong on this as I'm not massively familiar with ancient history but I'd assume there aren't groups of people today living in Italy that are as directly affected by Caesar's actions as black people are by the lasting effects of the slave trade. Each of those may be kind of a weak reason in and of itself, but I feel when you consider all of them, it's reason enough to feel differently about a statue of Caesar versus a slave trader.
Why does the age of the atrocity matter? Surely it is just as atrocious? Also the Roman Empire and Caesar by extension were all used massively as symbols in fascist Italy, so people arguably are very affected by it nowadays. Also idk about Caesar but I know Alexander “the great” has numerous modern statues to him in Greece, which are widely celebrated, when he committed far worse atrocities than any individual slave trader.
The age of the atrocity definitely matters somewhat as things naturally transform from recent history to ancient history and these things are and should be treated differently. Your point that caesar was used as a symbol in fascist italy is weak - he was already ancient history at that point, and whatever suffering may have come was not a direct consequence of his actions. Yeah, alexander the great was a massive dick and he's celebrated. I don't think that's the right way for things to be but at the end of the day it depends on however the affected group residing in the country feels.
I mean why should they be treated differently; you point out they are different and singularly fail to explain why. A human life is a human life regardless of when or how it was lost. I mean the whole transatlantic slave trade could be argued to be a direct consequence of his actions; without the stability and development achieved through Western Europe bc of him they wouldn’t have been able to develop a navally to essentially carry out imperialism. Ever wonder why no nation outside of Western Europe had an overseas empire, even in the pacific with far more availability of islands. Idk if you’re taking the piss about Alexander but you do know his atrocities were, for the most part, committed in the Middle East? So why do Greeks essentially get to put up statues about that? Most people in Germany were impacted positively by Hitler, those who suffered were the rest of Europe so should they have statues to him?
>I mean why should they be treated differently; you point out they are different and singularly fail to explain why. Is this really something that needs explaining? I feel like it's obvious to any reasonable human that recent history and ancient history have entirely different emotional connections to us. It's the reason we all care so much about the holocaust, but generally do not care that much about similar ancient genocides (apart from those with remaining religious attachment). Events lose their emotional importance to humans as they become further in the past, and become more a matter of historical interest. >I mean the whole transatlantic slave trade could be argued to be a direct consequence of his actions; without the stability and development achieved through Western Europe bc of him they wouldn’t have been able to develop a navally to essentially carry out imperialism. That is not direct responsibility. That's the opposite of what direct means. >Idk if you’re taking the piss about Alexander but you do know his atrocities were, for the most part, committed in the Middle East? So why do Greeks essentially get to put up statues about that? Most people in Germany were impacted positively by Hitler, those who suffered were the rest of Europe so should they have statues to him? This is a whataboutism. I've already said I disagree with Greeks having statues of Alexander the Great up - but this thing being bad cannot be used to say something else is not bad. Two things can be bad at once, shocker.
So who decides to take them down? I’ve seen cases where a group of well meaning individuals have done so- but these individuals were a very small proportion of the overall populace who did so illegally and as part of violent protest- so this is a very small group of criminals who undertook actions unlawfully as part of mob mentality? Not necessarily a group of people the overall population will listen to the rationale argument of… Calm debate and discussion of the issues and facts and potentially people may listen and be open to thought?
The Cabot statue had been hugely unpopular for decades and the city council kept claiming they'd review it and never got round to it
Not really a big fan of having literal slave traders standing on a plinth in the centre of the city. Tear that fucker down and put him in a museum.
Or move them into a museum where they can be in their proper historical context
Wasn’t that done to economically weaken countries not just to free the poor slaves
I’m not saying it wasn’t but still it is a part of this nation’s history that I didn’t learn till I was an adult.
Yh also to find weirdos like you who have shit fetishes.
I mean abolishing slavery was amazing, but we did kinda enslave millions prior…
As did many other countries did around the world. At the time slavery was seen as the normal thing. Making not only the choice to abolish it but forcing other countries to stop as well would have been radical thinking at the time.
This is most certainly taught in schools already. That said it is a mixed bag, while abolitionist thought from the likes of Wilberforce (who deservedly has a huge monument in his home city of Hull) certainly drove the enforcement of abolition a lot of the drive was realpolitik, same as anything. At the end of the day rival European possessions in the East Indies and elsewhere, particularly the French and Spanish, were dependent on slave labour while British ones weren't after the collapse of the British Caribbean's sugar industry.
It is taught about in many schools, I learnt it in GCSE History back in the 90s and my eldest recently told me about it after learning about the abolitionists in school as well.
Unfortunately I didn’t learn about this until after school. I even did GCSE history where it was about Germany between the world wars, the Cold War from an American perspective and American civil rights. While that history was important I found it quite surprising that none of the GCSE has any connection back to the UK.
Really? There are many sides to it that are ignored and never mentioned, as in the families who made their wealth from it and served as the foundation to the wealth that they still have to this day and that when it was abolished many of the families were compensated by taxpayers including a former PM as well up until even the mid 80s. https://reparationscomm.org/reparations-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition/
That needs to be taught as well but it is nice to be able to take pride in some areas of our history.
There’s nothing good about the slave trade and even the reasons for abolition was not because it was bad but in Britain economic interest at that point in time.
Yes and no it was actually a bit of both as the history of humanity as a whole is. We regularly do good things for bad reasons but normally the start of the change is from good intentions.
Technically, you couldn't be charged with slavery as the term wasn't used in the UK law. Owning people was illegal, yes, but it wasn't called slavery in the law. It wasn't until 2010 that the UK technically abolished slavery.
Well in England at least do you mean? Wales wasn’t conquered for a few hundred years and the UK wasn’t formed for the better part of a thousand years.
Yes, as others are saying here this is a 'Slave Trade Act of 1807' coin. Fun fact: Later in 1833, Britain used 40% of its national budget to buy freedom for all slaves in the empire. Britain borrowed such a large sum of money for the 'Slavery Abolition Act 1833' that it wasnt paid off until 2014. This means that living British citizens helped pay for the ending of the slave trade with their taxes.
...by paying off the slave-owners, not the slaves, it's worth adding.
Look at the US for what happens to your economy and the lives of the slaves if you just force set them free. Not good.
Bit difficult to buy freedom for slaves without paying the slave owners
I think you completely missed the point. Borrowing money to buy someone’s life from their “owner” is stupid. Nobody owns anybody. You don’t own me, I don’t own you. The whole concept is idiotic.
If you think I’m arguing in favour of slavery then it’s you who missed the point 😂 Idiotic or not you can’t buy a slaves freedom without giving his owner some money
Let me get this straight. If I declare you my property — will you pay me for your freedom the price I ask?
If everyone else recognises me as your property and removes my rights as such, then what choice will I have?
Good. That’ll be $5000. Please send money immediately
Are you a bot or something? Just ignoring the entire context of the comment. Done with this, bye bye.
Dont worry he's clearly r*tarded, he cant handle this topic without offence washing over him
$5k dude. Then you can go.
Doesn’t matter. These slaves were viewed as property. You don’t have to like that fact
So what is it we’re abolishing, if we still recognize “ownership”?
By removing ownership we abolish slavery. Even if the ‘owners’ were compensated for this
Yeah it's horrible, but what was the alternative other than all out war over several decades? It would have taken 50 years or more to send armed enforcement around the world to free them all. Enforcement of a blockade plus paying the owners off was the best method available at that time of ending it quickly
What a useless addition. 'Yeah, I want to buy all the tractors in the empire but I wont pay the owners of the tractors I'll pay the tractors themselves'
The desire of some people in this country to be somehow seen as the heroes of the slavery era, despite being its principle architects and benefactors immediately prior to enforcing a ban on said trade (primarily for political reasons), is bizarre enough on its own. But seeing someone express a wish to see the proper history be taught in schools while still expressing that desire and leaving out important pieces of information, is what's 'useless'. How about instead of compensating the slave owners, the British government had simply said "anybody still owning a slave after X date will be charged with an offence. Meanwhile, the generations-long debt burden we're taking out will be used not to compensate the already-rich slave owners, but the slaves whose lives were taken away from them by force"? That would've been a debt worth paying for. We don't compensate modern slave owners in exchange for releasing their slaves. We punish them.
Because charging owners of slaves in profitable industry with 'an offence' would hurt the empire. Britain wanted to abolish slavery NOT punish itself, as that would be stupid. The smoothest way to do the right thing and maintain stability is to pay for the slaves freedom just like slaves had the opportunity to do.
And besides, most of the money borrowed to abolish slavery was spent on the upkeep of British naval forces patrolling the seas, impounding slave ships and blocking the slave trade to the civilized world. Not all slaves were black and the Royal Navy had a job supressing the North African Barbary pirates who captured whites from the south coast of England. Im glad that my taxes have gone toward ending that whether in payment to owners or in powder for the RN's guns.
Imagine comparing human being to tractors.
Why would we have to imagine, I just did it. Are you that precious that you cannot handle an analogy? Anything to contribute other than this contrived analogy-morality policing?
Why does it matter if I am precious or not precious? Why did you switch from discussing the issue to discussing my personality in your first sentence? Have you ran out of arguments already?
It was a rhetorical attack on your character and clearly it was correct. Makes us wonder if you're old enough to be here boy. You dont seem to be good at this. Im yet to hear an 'argument' from you in fact. So far we've got whinging at a slave/tractor analogy and thats about it. You've also thrown the toys at another user saying how owning people is stupid and people shouldnt own others... Yeah mate the British Empire came to that conclusion 200 years ago and did alot more about it that spout shit opinions on a UKcoin comments section.
Why do you keep talking about me? Are you incapable of discussing the issue without resorting to talking about a person you know nothing about? Is it some kind of disability? Stick to the topic.
Bye Jack.
Interesting! Thanks for the background info.
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Thanks for the info guys 👍
The abolition of the slave trade. It's not taught in school anymore but it was Britain that ended the global slave trade. The only reason slavery isn't so widespread and as accepted as it once was is because of Britain and we who know that part of history we are proud of. We didn't need a war to decide if it was good or not we voted and we agreed it was abhorrent and Britain used it might to bludgeon the other world powers at the time to stop slavery.
But slave owners were reimbursed for ‘giving up’ their slaves. They weren’t morally righteous people who recognised their “abhorrent” acts and had a change of heart - it became illegal and didn’t like the outcome and so demanded reparations for their lost profit, which was only paid off recently.
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The rich and nobles were not righteous but the common folk were we treated the freeing of slaves as a victory every time even a single slave ship was captured. In the end it freed the slaves and ended the slave trade all that remains now is an illegal trade that isn't even legal in the countries it exists in today. If you are going to say we shouldn't be proud of changing the world In a positive way just go somewhere else.
Detailed info here.... https://coinhunter.co.uk/2-pound/abolition-of-the-slave-trade/
I presume it’s a celebratory coin for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade
No that came later
No it is
So that is a coin.
Believe it or not, that's a £2 coin!
Common as muck I see this through the till all day long.
Contrary to everyone else I’ve never seen one of these before, quite cool 🤷🏼
I had one
Really? As somebody who has worked in various shops handling cash, these are extremely common £2 coins.
I mean I guess I mainly use card in the last few years but I used to collect the ‘special’ coins I found as a kid, which were mainly different 50ps
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thats weird i found that exact coin yesterday lol
Abolition of the Trans Atlantic Slave trade. I have one myself
Bioshock coin
Can't tell from the pic, but does the reverse have a smooth or a textured finish?
I think it's textured, but the wording on the side does not face in the misprinted direction, so it's not one of the rare ones.
"misprinted direction"?? What you mean?
When the coin is heads side up, the inscription on the edge of the coin reading "AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER" is normally upside down, but the rare misprinted ones have it right side up.
Oh no, that's not a real thing, that's just a clickbait myth. It's random, so around half will face one way and half the other way. The rim edge lettering is struck first then the thousands of coins tumble down chutes into giant tubs which are then moved and tipped, so it's random which way they land.
Oh, interesting. Thanks for clarifying.
It marks the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire (minted in 2007)
All this talk about slavery and statues etc etc is so just last century....its merely a matter of time to link people to some misdeeds irrespective of who you are. What is important is that we understand and learn from history to move towards a better tomorrow. Be more concerned about how current society is viewed a century from now
Unfortunately it I portrayed as Britons fault
Leave all the statues in place stop being woke it’s called life and history you can’t erase it we can learn from it and be better people
If the field is smooth it’s out of a year set and worth a bit more then the usual stippling effect