Thread by @AndreasKoureas_

Great Britain wielded her geopolitical & naval might into bullying much of the world to abolish slavery - at a time when this evil was the global norm.

A thread on how under the White Ensign, slavery was globally challenged for the first time. 🧵🇬🇧

(Sources are cited.)

(This thread is from December 2023; I'm reposting it for greater exposure.)

Sources are cited at the end of the thread. Let's begin.

By the 1700s, slavery and the slave trade was practised across all races, continents and many cultures.

Many Euro-Americans bought slaves from West Africa with Arab traders dominating East Africa.

Many native Africans would capture & sell their fellow man at the coast. In the process, they would reap in gross profits.

Some people attempt to the excuse this by saying that they were forced by European colonists.

This is false, they did it to reap gross profits. Europeans generally lacked the resources to go deep into the African continent.

Slavery was also widespread in caste based cultures & competing tribes.

Britain was certainly a very large player in the abominable trade. It is imperative that this is not forgotten & is taught.

However, it would later go against the global consensus, wage war, lose thousands of lives & spend lots of money to try to rid slavery from Earth:

As we enter the 1700s, Britain is the epicentre of classical liberal thought which coincided with a rise of abolitionist sentiment.

Religious sentiments were another key driver.

Hence why religious organisations like that of the Quakers played a key role in demanding abolition.

There were also many other societies formed promoting abolition at home at in the Empire.

This included, the 'Society for...

Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade' (1787), the Anti-Slavery Society (1823) and the Anti-Slavery International (formed in 1839, still exists) & others.

The first major victory of theirs was in Somerset v Stewart (1772).

Funded by the key abolitionist Granville Sharp, a run-away slave was declared free from his owner.

The result saw the de-facto end of slavery on English soil.

From here, many laws would be passed, slowly cutting away at the slave trade and slavery itself.

This included the Slave Trade Act 1807, banishing the trade of slaves across the British Empire and the 1833 Abolition Act.

The end result of such an Abolition Act was the eventual completion of abolitionism throughout the British Empire.

Britain quickly realised that much of the world would not follow in its enlightened footsteps.

Therefore, Britain decided that it would instead force the world to follow the abolitionist cause.

There were 3 fundamental methods Britain used to incentivise & enforce abolition:

1) Diplomatic Pressure (soft power) to force countries & Empires into anti-slavery treaties.

2) Using the unrivalled power of the Royal Navy - military intervention.

3)'Gun boat diplomacy' - essentially a mix of the two above.

The defeat of Napoleon ushered in the period of,

Pax Britannica where the UK took the mantle as the undisputed world superpower. Thus, it was neither fun nor easy to say 'no' to Britain.

Many nations needed to be on good terms with Britain to maintain their own sovereignty against foreign threats. For example, Portugal.

In 1815, Portugal had an Anglo treaty drafted banning the trade of slaves north of the equator.

In 1817, when this treaty was signed, a clause was added allowing Britain to detain their ships (north of the equator) if they were deemed to hold slaves. Britain would go on to...

sign many treaties with other nations to try to bring the trade and institution to an end.

In 1826, Brazil entered into a treaty with the UK. This international treaty made the entire Brazilian slave trade illegal in 1830.

However, the trade continued illegally in Brazil with over 750,000 slaves imported between 1831-1850.

Despite Great Britain using her Royal Navy to capture ships, free slaves & try the slave traders in courts, Brazil refused to renew its treaty with the UK, in 1844.

The subsequent year, the UK parliament passed a law that allowed them to declare any Brazilian ships partaking in the trade as piracy.

This was despite Brazil's protests. The Royal Navy essentially ignored Brazil and continued capturing their ships and freeing slaves.

Under authority from this Act, it gave Great Britain its 'excuse' to send some of its Royal Navy ships that had been growing in numbers in the South Atlantic to invade Brazil’s territorial waters in 1850.

Before long, British warships exchanged fire with Brazilian coastal fortresses - e.g., in Paranaguà.

This naval blockade was a complete violation of internationally recognised territory. But the British did not care.

Brazil’s foreign minister admitted that the ‘ideas of the age in which we live’ could no longer be ignored.'

Brazil, like all nations, could not afford war with the UK.

So, in September 1850 they passed a new anti-slavery bill, with the numbers of slaves traded there dropping,

drastically, ending in 1855. Moreover, Great Britain refused to repeal the Act until 1869, in case it had to teach Brazil another lesson in abolition.

What we see here is a key example of Britain's navy taking the role of global police.

Between 1808-1860 the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron captured 1600 slave ships and freed 150,000 slaves.

But the role of world police was expensive.

Not just in resources (as suppression of the Atlantic Slave trade cost the UK around 1.8% of yearly GNI between 1807-1867.

Britain was a maritime power. Losing sailors was especially dangerous then for its global power status.

Between 1808-1860, over 2000 Royal Navy soldiers in the West Africa would die, either in conflict with slave traders or because of disease.

Resources were stretched, which is why gun boat diplomacy was so important as simply capturing slave ships wasn't enough to enforce abolition.

But there was another problem, Britain lacked the resources to go into Africa and enforce abolition in the continent.

Slavery itself was an important part of many African economies, ranging from the Aro-Niger Delta Confederacy to Zanzibar.

African traders often captured innocents through brute force, be it village raids or wars. Many times force was used through cooperation with other,

slavers with village slave raids being a common occurrence.

It didn't help that within Africa, slaves were often used as commodity of exchange or that ivory and slaves were exchanged for ammunition in many places.

Unyamwezi being a clear example.

For the Bemba chiefs, these same trades vastly contributed to their power.

The increase in firearms for the Bemba establishment allowed their control over the populous to grow. In turn, they enslaved more of the population for more firearms,

Especially as the supply of ivory decreased.

Britain did its best to alleviate the internal African trade by creating the 'free colonies', where Africans could live in their continent without fear of slavery.

A key example being the colony of Sierra Leone.

However, a rightful criticism of the British is that in many abolitionist areas, indentured servitude existed for a period after which took longer to get rid of.

But Britain remained the driving force in emancipation.

Such a task was and still is impossible.

Via diplomatic pressure, be it with slave trading nations, influence in African politics or threats of war, and direct conflict.

If this quest were not largely humanitarian, why bother?

Economically, it was costly to Britain.

It cost thousands of valuable Royal Navy lives. It caused lots of geopolitical friction between Britain and much of the world.

We must never forget the many faults and evils in Britain's history.

At the same time we should never forget this Kingdom decided at the height of its power, to try to rid the world of this universal evil.

Here are the relevant sources: