Laval University

From the SelectedWorks of Fathi Habashi

June 11, 2020

In Memory of Slave Traders Fathi Habashi

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/fathi_habashi/641/ In Memory of Slave Traders

Introduction The protests all over the world when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in USA aroused the memory of slave traders1. London's mayor announced that more statues of imperialist figures could be removed from Britain's streets after protesters knocked down the monument to a slave trader in Bristol. By the 18th century, the slave trade became a major economic mainstay for such cities as Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, engaged in the so-called "Triangular trade". The ships set out from Britain, loaded with trade goods which were exchanged on the West African shores for slaves captured by local rulers from deeper inland; the slaves were transported across the Atlantic, and were sold at considerable profit for labour in plantations. The ships were loaded with export crops and commodities, the products of slave labour, such as sugar and rum, and returned to Britain to sell the items.

The triangle of slave trade African slaves

European trading centers in West African coast

1 See https://works.bepress.com/fathi_habashi/638/

Transporting the slaves

Great Britain the major role in slavery. Other countries involved, beside Great Britain, were the Dutch, Portugal, France, and Denmark who built forts in Africa. Tribe leaders cooperated in this venture. Moslem traders were concentrated in Zanzibar and they traded in the east.

Forts built in West Africa for handling of the slave trade British Slave Traders

Colston Edward Colston (1636 –1721) was an English merchant and a Member of Parliament. He was brought up in Bristol until the time of the English Civil War the family then moved to London. He was heavily involved in the slave trade, and later came to be regarded as a philanthropist as a result of donating money to charitable causes, especially in his native city of Bristol. His image tarnished by his membership of the governing body of the Royal African Company, which made its profits from trading in enslaved Africans. The company held a monopoly on the English trade in African slaves.

Colston made much of his fortune from the buying and selling of slaves. He used his wealth to support and endow schools, hospitals, almshouses, and churches in Bristol, London, and elsewhere. His name is commemorated in several Bristol landmarks, streets, and schools. Charitable foundations inspired by ones he founded survive to this date.

Royal African Company The Royal African Company was formed for the purpose of establishing trade in West African coast. Its original purpose was to exploit the gold fields up the Gambia River. It was established after Charles II gained the English throne in the Restoration of 1660. It soon developed and led a brutal and sustained slave trade. In 1752, Royal African Company's assets were transferred to the new African Company of Merchants, which lasted until 1821. The Company was essentially the colonial commercial arm of the British Empire. The Company had held the monopoly in England on trading in gold, silver, ivory and slaves from 1662. Colston was deputy governor of the company from 1689 to 1690. This company had been set up by King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York (later King James II), who was the governor of the company, together with City of London merchants, and it had many notable investors, including philosopher John Locke (who later changed his stance on the slave trade) and Samuel Pepys. During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692 it is estimated that the company transported around 84,000 African men, women and children, who had been traded as slaves in West Africa, to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom 19,000 died on their journey. The slaves were sold for labour on tobacco and sugar plantations. Colston withdrew from the African Company in 1692 but continued trading in slaves privately. He was MP for Bristol (1710-13). From 1694 to 1700, the company was a major participant in the Komenda Wars in the port city Komenda in the Eguafo Kingdom in modern-day Ghana. The wars were a series of battles from 1694 until 1700 largely between the Dutch West India Company and the British Royal African Company over trade rights. The Dutch were trying to keep the British out of the region to maintain a trade monopoly while the British were attempting to re-establish a fort in the city of Komenda. Colston monuments Monuments created by the city in commemoration of Colston include the Colston Tower and Colston Hall. Colston Avenue and Colston Street are named after him. A statue of him is on the exterior of Bristol Guildhall of 1843–46. He is also remembered, particularly by some schools, charities and the Society of Merchant Venturers, on Colston Day (13 November), which celebrates the granting of a royal charter in 1639. There had been protests and petitions calling for a name change and some concert goers and artists had boycotted the venue because of the Colston name. In November 2017, after decades of debates, Colston's Girls' School, announced that it would not drop the name of Colston. In summer 2018, Colston Primary School renamed itself Cotham Gardens Primary School, the first Bristol organization to take such action. From the 1990s onwards, campaigns called for the removal of the statue, describing it as a disgrace. The statue was toppled and thrown into a river in Bristol amid worldwide anti-racism demonstrations during the George Floyd crises. The toppling of his statue in Bristol was greeted with joyous scenes, recognition of the fact that he was a notorious slave trader.

Colston monument in the Centre of Bristol, erected in 1895

Details of Colston monument in Bristol

Throwing of Colston statue in the river in 2020

Guy Sir Thomas Guy (1644 –1724) made his fortune through ownership of a very large number of shares in the South Sea Company, whose main purpose was to sell slaves to the Spanish Colonies. The South Sea Company was a government-debt holding company, which held a monopoly on supplying African slaves to Spanish America between 1713 and 1737, and shipped around 34,000 slaves. He was a Member of Parliament.

Guy Hospital plaque

Sir Thomas Guy in front of his Hospital

Monument at Sir Thomas Guy Hospital Milligan Robert Milligan (1746-1809) was a noted West Indian merchant, slave holder and founder of London’s West India Docks. He was born into a slave-owning family on a plantation in Jamaica, owning slave shops and accruing vast sums of money off the slave trade before it was abolished in 1807. He owned two sugar plantations and 526 slaves in Jamaica. After their completion in 1802, the docks secured a 21-year monopoly on produce such as sugar, rum and coffee, which were mass produced by slaves in the West Indies. When the slave trade was abolished, he was paid out to compensate slave owners for the loss of their human property. His monument was removed to recognize the wishes of the community, and as it was lifted from its plinth with a crane, crowds cheered and clapped.

Milligan’s statue in front of Milligan’s statue removed Museum of London Docklands

Dutch Slave Trade The Dutch West India Company on the Slave Coast, lies in contemporary Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria. The primary purpose was to supply slaves for the plantation colonies in the Americas. Dutch involvement started with the establishment of a trading post in Offra in 1660. Later, trade shifted to Ouidah, where the English and French also had a trading post. Political unrest caused the Dutch to abandon their trading post at Ouidah in 1725, now moving to Jaquim, at which place they built Fort Zeelandia. By 1760, the Dutch had abandoned their last trading post in the region.

Portuguese Slave Trade

Portuguese slave trade involved the transportation of slaves from Africa and other parts of the world to the American continent. Slavery was abolished in Portugal in 1761 by the Marquês de Pombal. After the abolishment, the slave traders turned to clients in other countries where slavery was not yet abolished such as the United States of America. Slavery in Portuguese Empire were most likely from India or Africa to Brazil. They transported Slaves to Portugal through the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery did little to alter society in Portugal, due to the slight ease of enslaved people’s integration.

French Slave Trade As of 1778, the French were importing approximately 13,000 Africans for enslavement to the French West Indies each year. Slaving was based in Nantes, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, and Le Havre during the years 1763 to 1792. The négriers intermarried with each other's families. They strongly opposed to the application of the Declaration of Rights of Man to blacks.

Danish Slave Trade Trading African slaves was part of the transatlantic slave trade by Denmark-Norway around 1671. The Danish West India Company was chartered in January 1803. However, an illegal trade in enslaved Africans continued. Slavery in the Danish West Indies continued until July 3, 1848 when slaves gathered at Frederiksted and demanded their freedom. Fearing a revolt, Danish Governor issued a proclamation that all unfree in the Danish West Indies are from today emancipated. As of 1778, it was estimated annually Dano-Norwegians shipped approximately 3,000 African slaves to the Danish West Indies. The country's ships transported approximately 100,000 African slaves, in the early 19th century about 2% of the total number in the early 19th century. Slaves in Action

Slave auction in USA

Slaves in American South

Slaves in the sugar cane industry

Slaves in the sugar industry

Public flogging of slaves

Abolishing Slave Trade

The American Civil War in 1861 to 1865 was mainly because of slavery. Slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807 but the trade was illegal for a number of years. When Napoleon came to power in 1799 he soon reintroduced slavery in the French sugar colonies. He sent 30,000 troops in 1802 to retake Saint Domingue (Haiti) from ex-slaves under Toussaint who had revolted. Napoleon wanted to preserve France's financial benefits from the colony's sugar and coffee crops. He re-established slavery in Haiti and Guadeloupe. The 1926 Slavery Convention, an initiative of the League of Nations, was a turning point in banning global slavery.

Comment It is too bad that a statue was thrown in the river. Next generation will have no information about this slave trader. When the Soviet Union was collapsing, the problem of former leaders was solved by removing them from public view and putting them together in a park in Moscow to be seen by everybody.

Moscow park containing all undesired leaders during the Soviet Regime