Long-lost slave ship and fake riot towns spotlight race at Sundance

Lots of righting White see their numbers dwindling, due to death, and use voter suppression to keep what little political power, they have, the Republican Party is old dying party

People know the history from 150+ years ago.

Affirmative action is reparations. Reparations just perpetuate racial division.

The British Navy established the West Africa squadron in 1807 to suppress the slave trade, it operated until the 1860’s and at its height absorbed a sixth of the entire Royal Navy and Marines and was the longest and most costly moral action in modern history, costing the lives of thousands of British sailors over the period and most people have never heard of it!

Appreciate the acknowledgement @zichi 2:17pm but wasn’t it just a little “more” than “3 million” ?

- 3,415,400 “accounted for” from the aforementioned U.K. maritime records. -

- “Britain was the country that bought & traded the black slaves from Africa to its American colony. More than 3 million people were bought for slaves and transported to America and the Caribbean. Maybe, 500,000 slaves and the ship crews didn’t survive the crossing.” -*

Since slavery was never ‘legalized’ in Britain, any escaped slave was not required to be returned by authorities to their ‘master’. However, British owners of African slaves in England would openly advertise slave-sales and rewards for the recapture of these ‘runaways’.

- “In Britain, there were no large numbers of black slaves.” -

So, by the mid-1700’s, London had the largest African population in Britain, made up of both, some ‘free’ and some ‘enslaved people’, as well as many ‘runaways’. It’s estimated the total number may have been about 10,000.

On an earlier note about the U.S. abolition and compensation to former slaves owners:

*- @9:54am [In America] “Slavery was not abolished until 1865, 57 years later. The owners of the slaves were compensated but not the slaves themselves.”*

In contrast, in the U.K. not only did slaves receive nothing, under another clause of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, former slaves were still compelled to provide 45 houses of unpaid l;about each week for the former masters for another 4 years after their supposed liberation.  In effect, the enslaved paid part of the bill for their own release from slavery to the slavers who abducted them in the first place.  

- “Even after America abolished slavery segregation continued until 1964. Blacks did not have the vote until 1965.” -

In the U.K., prohibition on slavery & servitude is now codified under Art. 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and in force since 1953. It was incorporated directly into United Kingdom law by the Human Rights Act of 1998.

Of note, Art. 4 of the Convention also bans forced or compulsory labour, with some exceptions such as a criminal penalty or military service.

In 2006, then British PM Tony Blair expressed his deep sorrow over the slave trade, describing it as "profoundly shameful".

- “..we need reparations for Black Americans.” -

The £20million compensation (modern equivalent of £16-£17 billion) of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners was the largest bailout in British history until bailing out the banks in 2009.

Peter... the native Americans?

Do you mean the native Americans who owned slaves should pay reparations, or the native Americans who enslaved each other over the course of history should do so, or both?

A horrid practice overall, engaged in by virtually every society and country on Earth. Hopefully we can learn from our ancestors' collective mistakes.

Oddly. One might consider a version of the RICO ACT, when it comes to the crimes against humanity committed by family, whose wealth is a continuing result of those acts. That being the enslavement of other human beings and illegally so. As if Law, is permission to commit such a heinous act. Law, under such, is simply an act of power by its framers, who are privileged & entitled with a callous attitude towards fellow below their station.

That the rich always profit off their crimes and the victims continue to suffer frames much of U.S. history. One of the more onerous examples being slavery. That the art of film-making alerts many to the crimes of the few, in exalted places, is always welcome.

Advocacy of reparations, stripping away the fortunes of families, the foundation of which is the illegal slave trade is complex. Those who have been impacted over generations reaching over centuries need to be compensated without question. What is of interest, if one profits off the sins of so-to-speak one's fathers, is that guilt relevant.

Reparations? What about native Americans?

Some countries work hard to find truth and work through racial and ethnic problems while others put their head in the sand and hope the problems or the people just magically disappear. America is not perfect but God bless the USA even with all the problems. Many are willing to work hard to address or right past wrongs to hopefully make some kind of amends.

For aggrieved people to find solace, we must ALL acknowledge these histories, whether they reflect good or bad upon a country’s past.

What “insult”? - ‘Debating’ slavery for years in Europe and the New World did nothing to end it. It wasn’t until both countries, old and new, enacted laws in 1807 giving power to seize ships, assets etc, making it enforceable. Thereafter, only ‘illegal’ activities continued, like those written about in the story above. More stories in the Americas and abroad will emerge once more facts are made public.

To address the relevance of the supplemental yet relevant information, it was Britain (amongst others from Europe) delivering the slaves until it was made ‘illegal’ in 1807. As a followup, based on your lead to always be thorough, I also posted quotes from the Royal Museums Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-did-slave-trade-end-britain -

Any disagreement you may have with their accounts should be directed at them, not me.

More ships like this will eventually be found in the Americas and abroad. Between 1662 & 1807, British profiteers & British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans. Only 2,964,800 survived the 'middle passage' and were sold into slavery in the Americas. 

The transatlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in human history and completely changed Africa, the Americas and Europe. Only Portugal/Brazil transported more Africans across the Atlantic than Britain.

Until the 1730s, London dominated the British trade in enslaved people. Britain continued to send ships to West Africa until 1807.  London is often forgotten that the capital was a major slaving centre. 

Between 1699 & 1807, British profiteers and British colonial ports mounted 12,103 slaving voyages - with 3,351 setting out from London.

No disagreement with facts but ‘Talk is cheap’ @zichi 10:46am. Slavery of ANY persons, across the world, was wrong and, is still wrong. - The debate over abolishing slavery was going on since the colonists first left England. Most notably, after winning their independence from the tyranny of England, during the Constitutional Congress of 1787.

Congress may have passed the bill in 1800 but *it wasn’t enacted until ***1807 and the enforcement of law did not take effect until 1808.**

Actually not “1800” @zichi 9:54am. The U.S. Congress enacted “The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426,) on March 2, 1807. The federal law provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the U.S. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the U.S. Constitution. The U.K. also, finally adopted the ban in 1807. Perhaps someone here can clarify when the British Empire finally stopped dealing in slaves in other parts of the world ?

Slavery still exists as an institution, conditions for slaves is worse than under legal slavery. It is cheaper to pay minimum wage than to pay for all the expenses of maintaining a slave.

I have the feeling instead of reparations people could bring repatriations, so the blacks can finally be happy in their ancestral lands, free of white racists

I think the descendants of the Clotilde should sue the descendants of the rulers of Dahomey who captured and sold them in to slavery, without their actions their ancestors would never have been slaves in the first place.

More dark history of African slave traders supplying human souls to profiteers and private landowners who violated the 1808 U.S. policies making the importation of slaves illegal.

In 1860, the schooner Clotilde sailed to the then Kingdom of Dahomey, bought 108 Africans captured by warring tribes back to Alabama, divided between the captain and a private landowner or sold, the ship then taken upstream, burned & sunk to conceal the evidence of their illegal activity.”

After being freed by Union soldiers in 1865, the Clotilda’s survivors sought to return to Africa, but they didn’t have enough money. They pooled wages they earned from selling vegetables and working in fields and mills to purchase land from the former slave owners family. Their new settlement named “Africatown”, they formed a society complete with a chief, a system of laws, churches and a school.