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It’s going to be fun finding out about this

The Crown’s Silence, a book by the historian Brooke Newman, follows the Guardian’s 2023 Cost of the crown report, which explored the British monarchy’s hidden ties to transatlantic slavery.

The book reveals that by 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade in its empire, the British crown had become the world’s largest buyer of enslaved people, buying 13,000 men for the army for £900,000.

Of course, we’ve the obvious difference between “The Crown” and “The Monarchy” to deal with here which an American doesn’t seem to get.

But there’s also this:

Prior to the abolition of the slave trade within the British Empire in 1807, there was much debate about the legal status of the West India Regiments’ soldiers, and whether they were subject to slave laws or not. But on discharge from the regiments the men were free and in some cases awarded pensions and other support.

In 1807, all serving black soldiers who had been recruited as slaves were freed under the Mutiny Act of that year. The act established that the black soldiers were freemen and should be treated like any other soldiers.

It’s probably more accurate to say they were “bought out of slavery” than that they were bought as slaves. Wonder if our American lassie has made that distinction…..

Still, we know what’s going to happen here. “Crown” “Monarch” slavery, soldiers, so pay reparations REEEEEE!

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Theophrastus
Theophrastus
1 month ago

.

20251224_012645
asiaseen
asiaseen
1 month ago
Reply to  Theophrastus

But the brown people still practice it.

Norman
Norman
1 month ago
Reply to  asiaseen

Sadly, so do the whites:

https://archive.ph/mM4ZM

WTF is it about Gloucestershire?

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
1 month ago
Reply to  Norman

Have you been there? There’s some civilised bits like Cheltenham, Gloucester. Then there’s nice small market towns not far from Oxford and Swindon that got gentrified like Cirencester, Fairford, Stow and Burford. Most of the rest of it is dualling banjos/fuck your cousins.

Bloke in North Dorset
Bloke in North Dorset
1 month ago

It’s covered in the book The Black Redcoats and you can listen to the author talk about it on The History Rage podcast. A fascinating story.

Tells the story of the thousands of enslaved African Americans who fled to British forces during the war in what became the largest emancipation of enslaved Americans until the abolition of slavery in the United States.

During the Anglo-American War of 1812, British forces launched hundreds of amphibious raids on the United States. The richest parts of the United States were slave-states, and thousands of enslaved African Americans fled to British forces in what was to be the largest emancipation of enslaved Americans until the abolition of slavery in the USA. From these refugees from slavery, the British built a force – the Corps of Colonial Marines. Black redcoats, they were a fusion of two great American fears, the return of the British King and an uprising by their own oppressed slaves. The Corps of Colonial Marines turned Britain’s campaign on America’s coasts from one of harassment to one of existential threat to the new nation. Although small in number, the Colonial Marines – fighting to liberate their own families as much as for Great Britain – exerted a massive psychological impact on the United States which paralysed American resistance with fear of a widespread slave uprising, and allowed British forces in the Chesapeake to burn down Washington DC.

As well as examining this little-remembered part of British military and African-American history, this book will also look to the post-war history of the Colonial Marines, their continued survival as a unique ethnic group in the Caribbean today, and their involvement in the largest act of armed African-American resistance to slavery. The “Battle of Negro Fort” in 1816 was the only time American forces left American territory to destroy a fugitive slave community – a community led by former Colonial Marines who, when faced with American attack, raised the British flag.

This book brings black history to the fore of the War of 1812, and gives voice those enslaved people who – amidst great power competition between a slave-holding Republic and a slave-holding Empire – demonstrated exceptional bravery and initiative to gain precious freedom for themselves and their descendants.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
1 month ago

Is it worth paper or Kindle? I generally prefer Kindle, but if there’s maps, illustrations, I go for paper.

Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
1 month ago

The fruitbattery is everywhere.
Ive fairly recently seen Murkans advocating for Albertan secession from Canada because King Sausage fingers still kwns 90% of Canada.

Addolff
Addolff
1 month ago
Reply to  Nessimmersion

There have been plenty of Albertans discussing secession from Canada…..

Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
1 month ago
Reply to  Addolff

Indeed, lots of Canadians are somewhat fed up with the Trudeau / Carney trajectory, however if they are doing so because King Sausage Fingers still owns Canada- hmmm.

Steve
Steve
1 month ago
Reply to  Nessimmersion

It was the Boomers wot fucked Canada. Those loveable coffin-dodgers decided to turbofuck younger Canadians by handing over their country to infini-Jeets. Canada is now India 2.0, including the designated shitting beaches, and young white people have been cheated out of opportunities to earn a decent living, afford a house or start a family because Jeets keep wages low and ruthlessly nepotise in favour of other Jeets.

Canadia is done. Only question for the future is whether they’ll be owned by India, China or the USA

bloke in spain
bloke in spain
1 month ago
Reply to  Nessimmersion

Indeed, there have been Albertans stood for election on a leave Canada for association with the US platform. Canada is heavily dependent on tax revenues from Alberta & Albertans feel they get little in return.
I know someone’s been living there. They’re about 50 miles from the US border where taxes are far lower & they wouldn’t suffer from.niggling Canadian restrictions on how they live their lives.

Bongo
Bongo
1 month ago

It will soon become impolite, then rude and then offensive to even use the word ‘slave’. The term ‘enslaved person’ is available and you better use it.
Historic example: you can’t use shortened versions of pakistani or person with spasticitis, although in the case of slave the longer term came later

Steve
Steve
1 month ago
Reply to  Bongo

Slavs to be renamed “people of tracksuits”

jgh
jgh
1 month ago
Reply to  Bongo

If they keep banging on about “enslaved” people, they need to be reminded that the people who did the enslaving of Africans were Africans.

dearieme
dearieme
1 month ago

Not long ago I saw a review of a book by an American historian on our civil war. She had persuaded herself that it was a Protestants vs Roman Catholics religious war. How could anyone be so dim?

Ever since, and not entirely irrationally, I have avoided American historians writing about our history – or indeed, that of other countries. They seem, sometimes, to be unable to grasp that other places in other times were different from the modern USA. Bit of a handicap for a historian, you might think.

Steve
Steve
1 month ago
Reply to  dearieme

We don’t hate stupidity enough.

bloke in spain
bloke in spain
1 month ago
Reply to  dearieme

They seem to have enough trouble with their own history.
I had a protracted argument with some dim Yank on who wrote their Declaration of Independence. He couldn’t accept that they weren’t Americans. And that was the point of the ef-ing war. And they couln’t have “renounced” their “oaths of loyalty” to the King, (in the unlikely event they’d made them) because by definition oaths can’t be unilaterally renounced. Again, that’s the ef-ing point of them. The colonists don’t actually become legally Americans until the Paris Treaty. Until then they’re under British legal jurisdiction, whether the Brits had the capability to enforce it or not

dearieme
dearieme
1 month ago
Reply to  bloke in spain

in the unlikely event they’d made them” Those who’d served in the army had e.g. Geo. Washington.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
1 month ago

We’re now 200 years away from it. Can we just fucking drop it?

The monarchy are just irrelevant cosplay now. Not actual power. Even if they made money from slaves back then, it ain’t there now. The Duchy of Cornwall is worth about a billion quid. James Dyson is worth more than that. In 1926, Prince Harry would have had babes queueing up to be married to a prince, even if he was a fucking loon. But he got an ageing C list actress.

Norman
Norman
1 month ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

I’ve met one of his ex’s, and she was hot hot hot. I think she also realised what marriage would entail, and that she could do better.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
1 month ago
Reply to  Norman

I’ll bet a lot of girls thought “prince… money” then spent a load of time with him and thought he was a bit thick and a bit mental.

Like a mate of mine who dumped his hot girlfriend. Turned out she also came with far too much crazy to go with it.

Norman
Norman
1 month ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

Often the way.

Bloke in South Dorset
Bloke in South Dorset
1 month ago
Reply to  Norman

I’ve met one of his ex’s, and she was hot hot hot.”

The Rhodesian bint always looked like a sensible lass who probably goes like a Duracell bunny.

But didn’t he also go out with several other mad actresses/entertainers? Seem to remember one of his exes whacking her boyfriend with a frying pan, and another one topping herself (long after).

Seemed to be a long-running problem with the type he usually goes for, not just the one who actually snagged him.

Chris Miller
Chris Miller
1 month ago

As his granddad (allegedly) explained to him: “Actresses are for stepping out with, not marrying.”

john77
john77
1 month ago
Reply to  Chris Miller

shouldn’t the “allegedly” come before the “granddad”?

johnnybonk
johnnybonk
1 month ago
Reply to  john77

No! You should be thrashed.

Tractor Gent
Tractor Gent
1 month ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

He couldn’t get rid of the massive chip on his shoulder, so all the eligible hot babes could see it & go ‘no thanks!’. La Markle saw a good grift and it’s worked well for her so far even if the is devastated by what the DM says about her.

Theophrastus
Theophrastus
1 month ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

Be careful what you wish for! Abolish the Monarchy and you’ll open a can of worms. Demands for a written constitution would be overwhelming, and the negotiations would be protracted. Any referendum could be rigged. And the left-liberal establishment would include all sorts of undesirable items in the new Constitution – such as restrictions on free speech, a right to abortion on demand, protections for muslims, trannies etc….

Meanwhile, the cosplay element will transfer to the President and her family…

Steve
Steve
1 month ago

I don’t care how many darkies the monarchy owned.

Gamecock
Gamecock
1 month ago

Ms Newman, if you find history disgusting, perhaps you should find a new trade.

Gamecock
Gamecock
1 month ago

Presentism. That’s the problem. It’s fatal to a historian. Shouts incompetence.

the interpretation of past events in the light of present-day attitudes, rather than in the light of their own historical context

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
1 month ago
Reply to  Gamecock

Here’s my guess about slavery: people generally didn’t hate it so much to leave the plantation. The alternative was… going and picking cotton someplace else.

And my second guess is that the slaves that left the plantations were people being treated badly. There were slave owners that forced themselves on women and were unnecessarily violent with slaves, but a lot of them looked after their slaves, treated them as a working asset.

Steve
Steve
1 month ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

My theory is: if your ancestors were slaves, they were pathetic losers who should have fought harder.

I like winners and freedom.

john77
john77
1 month ago
Reply to  Steve

More often it was because their leader surrendered while *they* were still fighting – the pathetic losers were dead by then.

Van_Patten
Van_Patten
1 month ago
Reply to  Steve

Good of you to join us here, Mr. President!

Gamecock
Gamecock
1 month ago
Reply to  Van_Patten

It did sound familiar.

jgh
jgh
1 month ago

Buying slaves out of slavery had been the standard method of freeing slaves for millennia. It’s mentioned in the Bible, it’s mentioned in Roman writings. The later 1833 Act just did that through mass compulsary purchase.

Gamecock
Gamecock
1 month ago
Reply to  jgh

AND, that’s exactly where the US ran into trouble. An error in our founding.

Compensated emancipation was discussed in US. Problem – insurmountable problem – was that the US was paid for by tariffs. Tariffs paid mostly on British goods. Paid by Southerners. Read: slave owners. So compensated emancipation of slaves would have to be paid for by . . . slave owners.

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