Looking for people whose families were involved in slavery

[Guy Etchells]

One thread, and already the two biggest bits of nonsense ever spouted about slavery are being aired. You see these two tropes being repeated ad nauseum on extremist pages, so it's sad to see them here on Rootschat.

1. No, slavery was never a good outcome for Africans. Guy talks about the fact that many slaves were prisoners of war, captured by rival tribes and sold on (somehow "sparing their lives"). What he didn't mention was that these wars were a direct result of the slave trade itself, with Europeans bringing firearms to the continent, arming favoured tribes and ensuring a regular supply of prisoners.

Mike

I have studied slavery for over 30 years from Roman times to present day slavery, slavery in Africa started many hundreds of years before Europeans set foot in Africa.

The Europeans presented African tribal leaders an incentive not to sacrifice prisoners to their gods and not to blood their children using defenseless prisoners, but hey why spoil a good rant by presenting facts.
Guy

[susieroe]

GRL, you have asked specifically for British examples. i would take a punt that most British people of the times either didn't have a clue about it, or were very pleased to sign the many petitions which helped the campaign to abolish it - which we British were the first to do, and enforce. I.m thankful we did that, and saved many lives in the end.
However, that point wont get a pass on this project; nor will an examination of the primary sources of slaves, the many Irish slaves sent to the Caribbean, the Cornish slaves captured by the Barbary pirates and even the workhouse children who were literally sold into slavery to work in the mills up North. I know that you have to slant your findings one way only. So do it, in order to get those grades. But might I very respectfully ask, that when you've done that you will keep an open mind and look carefully at all angles of this huge subject?
Good luck with your studies, and I hope that you will return here, not be put off by what some of us have written on this rather sticky subject, as all of us should be allowed to put our point of view freely.

Sorry but you are simply wrong.
The Spanish protected native Americans long long before Britain even thought about abolishing the slave trade.
Cheers
Guy

Sorry, Guy, I don't quite understand the connection (being bit thick!), I was keeping to the British theme, as the OP requested. Do you mean Spanish in North, or South America? I've read horrendous things about how the Spanish and Portuguese treated the native peoples in SA, and the extent of their African slave input into those countries far outdid others in the beginning. I know that native Americans kept slaves, (as did black people) but how do you mean 'the Spanish protected them'? I'd like to know a bit more about that aspect.

[Enumerated]

I found a record for an ancestor that said she was the daughter of Daniel ______ of Jamaica. I got quite excited thinking I had Jamaican ancestry until the penny dropped and I realised he was probably an English planter and likely a slave owner. I felt rather uncomfortable about that. I can't remember the surname and haven't been able to locate the record - I lost so much data in a computer crash years ago. It was so many generations back I doubt I would have been able to find out any more anyway.

Another ancestor was active in the abolition movement so I feel somewhat exonerated.

[ms_canuck]

There is also this site which you may already be aware of:  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs//
Legacies of British Slave Owners.

Ms_C

[rocala]

Hi, a very interesting subject and as we can see, still an emotive one.

Lewis Chadwick is my 10 x great grandfather. After the English Civil War, he bought the island of St Lucia. Instantly slavery popped into my head like an alarm activating. I have not found any evidence of a specific connection but he died within a year of the purchase, so, who knows? If his activities are clean, his intentions will probably never be known.

It was an uncomfortable moment, I had no idea until that day, how deeply ingrained my hatred of inhumanity really is.