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Recalling Slave Trade…
Feb 22nd, 2007 | 2 responses
Another interesting write-up in The Economist is about slave trade that Britain abolished 200 years ago this week…
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2 Responses to “Recalling Slave Trade…”
And the brits managed to do it without engaging in a civil war and killing millions of their own. Think about that.
Gray, there’s a difference in the circumstances. The British were in essentially eliminating a certain goods trade, as harsh as that sounds. Africans were goods they sold to the colonies. There came a point where the wealth this gave them didn’t comensate the threat of slave revolts and the growing wave of opposition in the public. Within England there were no slaves. Once slavery was gone the farms were still worked and beds were still made in the houses of the rich. In the US abolishing slavery meant huge changes within the nation. Also, the idea that the civil war was fought with the main purpose of freeing the slaves is a bit of a myth that has been perpetuated over the years, slavery was only a part of it, economic differences were the brunt of the matter.