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Comment by JetSetWilly | Hacker News Reader

Except it was the British Empire that persecuted slavery and brought to an end the slave trade far in advance of other nations.

What people forget is that the norms of the past are not the same as the norms of today. At one time, slavery was normal across vast swathes of the planet. That it isn't today, is in part due to a moral revolution that took place in Britain and resulted in a policy change by the British empire - despite its own commercial interests - to abolish slavery and the trade in slaves, even while nearly all other countries in the world at the time were totally fine with it.

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> Except it was the British Empire that persecuted slavery and brought to an end the slave trade far in advance of other nations.

I think you may not be aware of the graylevels within that statement. It is true that the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished the African slave trade. But you need to know the details to realize why the powers that be allowed that to happen. Also, it is worth mentioning that while the same 1833 act made an explicit exception for territories possessed by the East India company. Further, slavery was replaced by indentured labor. This is why you find large populations of non-African slave descendants in many countries. If you've ever vacationed in Trinidad, you'll notice lots of Asians (Indian, etc) people. They got there because their ancestors were brought as indentured labor to replace African slaves. In many cases, as is still occurring today in places like Qatar/UAE, indentured labor is just a #define for slavery.

I'll point out that slavery was abolished by the French government following the Revolution (though the slaveholders obviously fought tooth and nail to prevent the law from being applied), before being re-instated by Napoleon (under pressure from his wife, I believe).

Once the economic advantages were outweighed by the political disadvantages.

"while nearly all other countries in the world at the time were totally fine with it". I guess this depends on how you define "country", but lets take it to mean the majority of a population. I'll give you that countries benefiting from the slave trade were clearly fine with it. I sincerely doubt the populations being enslaved were though. (their opinions count right?)

That's the very thing I am talking about. Britain was the first country in which it was a massive political liability to support slavery, and the first country in which the opinions of ordinary people mobilising and campaigning against slavery actually mattered and made a difference.

You can cast this in cynical terms as self interest, but you can do that with any action by any state in history - Britain is hardly unique there.

I don't think its being particularly cynical to say if the industries supported by slavery had not been supplanted somewhat (reducing their political power) then slavery would have continued apace. Politicians have proven adept at taking advantage of popular movements when suitable.

Its basic economics. Had the ruling elite deemed it necessary I'm sure Punch could have been commissioned to print all manner of xenophobic cartoons about subhuman slaves and their barbarism in order to justify the practice further.

This isn't to diminish the efforts of the anti-slavery movement or the individuals involved.

*Edit: Also, yes, this is not unique to any country at all. I'm sure there are a myriad of examples of slavery within any of the countries that Britain colonised throughout history.

very dark yet very accurate

No, they didn't count. That's the whole point.

I'm not sure you realize just how ubiquitous the institution of slavery was prior to the 19th century. Those "populations being enslaved" themselves had slaves when they were strong enough to take them.

Slaves made empires (true empires) possible because captive people are a net positive for the conquerors. You could conquer your neighbors and... sell them to pay for the war, which isn't the case today. Outside Syria, I guess. When the Roman Empire was at its peak citizens could pay their taxes with only two days of work per year.

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