OTL Question: Britain and the slave trade.

Britain spent the better part of the nineteenth century suppressing the slave trade, and I want to know why. I mean, even if they weren't raging racists at the time (they were), it's not really human nature for a nation to spend so much fortune and so many lives on a problem out of the goodness of their hearts. So what did they get out of it?
 
Cus' we could and it felt good to act high and mighty and prance about while no one else could do anything to stop our petty whims.

Actually I'm not sure myself, I had figured there must have been some sort of economic interest in it, but I cant figure how, any one have a real answer?
 
Cus' we could and it felt good to act high and mighty and prance about while no one else could do anything to stop our petty whims.

Actually I'm not sure myself, I had figured there must have been some sort of economic interest in it, but I cant figure how, any one have a real answer?

There was economic interest. If there are no slaves to work for other nations then nations turn to Britain for the goods.
 
Britain spent the better part of the nineteenth century suppressing the slave trade, and I want to know why. I mean, even if they weren't raging racists at the time (they were), it's not really human nature for a nation to spend so much fortune and so many lives on a problem out of the goodness of their hearts. So what did they get out of it?

Morality, Christian morality.

Most of the movers and shakers, the reformers who kept plugging away at Parliament, were radical Christians who had decided that it was morally unjusifiable for a Christian country to profit from human misery. They mostly almost certainly did not see the blacks as being their equals. Their perception of them was as being children who needed the guidance and protection of their European betters. This was later called the white mans burden.

Much of the social reform which characterised the nineteenth and early twentith century in Britain was driven by Christian idealism. The early labour movement in Britain owed as much to this as it is did to socialism.

Also the Royal Navy very likely embraced the anti slavery patrols as a way of maintaining fleet strength in the wake of the end of the Napoleonic wars.
 
Mainly a public opinion issue, really. Policies can't be dictated by cold logic if you have to worry about what your electorate thinks of you. The majority of Britons by the 1820s thought of slavery as something distasteful, something that might be tolerated if extant in place, but that really should be stopped and that Christian white people had no business engaging in, certainly not furthering. A governm,ent going against this senmtiment would face an electoral challenge. Even with all the iniquities of the old system, that mattered - in fact in an age where most votes were controlled by a small circle of educated, wealthy and connected people, it might have mattered more. It was the golden age of political rhetoric, after all. You can't make a good case for slavery on the basis of 19th century Liberalism.

Neither was slavery the only thing British governments invested heavily in suppressing without an immediate gain. Sati, human sacrifice, polygamous marriage, public nudity, and - after 1918 - recreational drug use (other than alcohol and nicotine) were all objectionable to them on moral grounds. The battle against slavery was more expensive, but not fundamentally different.

Of course, there actually was something to be gained in the end. British ships on antislavery patrol secured the coastal waters for British interests.THe treaties and informal arrangements made were instrumental in ensuring Britain got the best parts of African coastline, in the end. Interventions against slave traders drove the acquisition of land and power in the interior, and could cover up a multitude of other motivations. Just like countries today are happy to cry 'Islamist terrorist' in aggressive pursuit of their policy goals, 'slaver' could justify all kinds of violence to the public. But this was an outcome of the policy, not its foundation. The basis lay firmly with public opinion.
 
North America was sparsely populated. So, to bring in African slaves who would have no place to run was good business. After the US became independent, British interests turned to India and other heavily populated areas that did not need extra workers. Slavery was no longer a benefit.
 
North America was sparsely populated. So, to bring in African slaves who would have no place to run was good business. After the US became independent, British interests turned to India and other heavily populated areas that did not need extra workers. Slavery was no longer a benefit.

They still had the Caribbean colonies, and the profit to be made from transporting slaves to the Americas was nothing to sneeze at, either. Prussia never had any American colonies, and they wanted in on the slave trade, too. It can make money.
 
Britain spent the better part of the nineteenth century suppressing the slave trade, and I want to know why. I mean, even if they weren't raging racists at the time (they were), it's not really human nature for a nation to spend so much fortune and so many lives on a problem out of the goodness of their hearts. So what did they get out of it?

Rising prosperity because of the Industrial Revolution boosted the middle class, who had a pretty religious and moral outlook (bourgeious morality helped them prosper), while at the same time making moral acts like ending the slave trade possible. Plus it gave the British Navy something to do in time of peace that wasn't just make work and provided a moral basis for the expansion of the British Empire and of the Royal Navy.
 
Mainly a public opinion issue, really.
I think we also need to factor in the unresponsive nature of the British political system at this point. Most people probably viewed slavery as an unmitigated evil, but it wouldn't have been their highest priority and had the British government been forced to listen more frequently to a wider electorate it might have been dropped. Instead of which, Palmerston- for whom the slave trade probably is his highest priority- can impose his will on the Foreign Office and threaten war against recalcitrant nations without worrying about what the polls will say the next morning.

They mostly almost certainly did not see the blacks as being their equals. Their perception of them was as being children who needed the guidance and protection of their European betters. This was later called the white mans burden.
True to an extent, but the 'white man's burden' is a different phenomenon brought in as a result of ground gained by theories of permanent racial inferiority post-Darwin. Paternalism in this period is more a sense of duty owed to a fellow human being: it isn't qualitatively different to that owed to white factory workers. From what ex-slaves say of this period, they don't have much difficulty moving in British society (other than a certain amount of natural but perhaps misplaced curiosity) contrary to what would be expected if they were perceived as children.

"Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab--I am seated beside white people--I reach the hotel--I enter the same door--I am shown into the same parlor--I dine at the same table--and no one is offended. No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship, instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, 'We don't allow niggers in here!'" (Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855)

Slavery was no longer a benefit.
However, the campaign against the slave trade cost two percent of national income and 5,000 lives. Slavery not being a benefit explains why it was abolished in British dominions: it doesn't explain why the British sought to stamp out the slave trade across the world.
 
Indentured servitude aka contract slavery was a more efficient way to get labour to various colonies because people wanted to sign up. Especially as the Portuguese had shown in India but also in transporting poor Christians from the home regions too. And the Portuguese/Brazilian example showed you could abolish slavery officially on limited terms and still profit from it for decades. I think the idea that it was an excuse to try and maintain Britannica rex mare in an age of bold competition has a lot of merit. Yes there was a short term cost, and it wasn't initially that popular outside of the "Westminster bubble" but neither was the institution of slavery that dear to anyone in England outside of Bristol. Slavery was acceptable as part of a civilising mission, and as more British subjects came to see past slaver propaganda to see the reality of decidedly unChristian conditions through newsprint, it became easier to rally against.
 
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Delta Force

Banned
Presumably the Royal Navy already had the ships and sailors, so it probably didn't cost too much more to conduct anti-slavery patrols.
 
the British never had a problem using and abusing minorities (blacks in south africa, chinese -including labor and addicting them with opium, India, pretty much around the world) or even whites in the industrial gristmill at home, so long as it technically wasn't slavery. I'm on the side that says it has to do with limiting other nations. Their caribbean holdings were pretty modest, so they really didn't harm themselves by limiting the trade.
 
Because, for a capitalist, an employee is vastly superior to a a slave:

  • you hire an employee at (almost) zero cost, a slave must be bought;
  • you fire an employee at (almost) zero cost [1], a slave must be sold [2];
  • if an employee is ill, you don't pay him [1] a slave must be treated at you own expenses;
  • if an employee dies... you get another one; if a slave dies, you suffer an economic damage;
  • if a slave flees, you suffer an economic damage and you have to pay to recapture him; if an employee flees... you hire another one
  • if an employee makes mess, you fire him; a slave must be flogged, has to be treated and nothing garantees that he has learned the lesson;
  • an employee works more and better, because he is afraid of being fired; a slave works the less and the worse he can short of being flogged.
In short, employement is a condition of exploitation of man upon man with all the advantages of slavery and none of its defects. Fantastic, isn't it?

[1] 19th century methods, nowadays slightly more complex and costly
[2] provided that you find somebody to buy him

There's some truth to that, yes.
 
Because, for a capitalist, an employee is vastly superior to a a slave:

  • you hire an employee at (almost) zero cost, a slave must be bought;
  • you fire an employee at (almost) zero cost [1], a slave must be sold [2];
  • if an employee is ill, you don't pay him [1] a slave must be treated at you own expenses;
  • if an employee dies... you get another one; if a slave dies, you suffer an economic damage;
  • if a slave flees, you suffer an economic damage and you have to pay to recapture him; if an employee flees... you hire another one
  • if an employee makes mess, you fire him; a slave must be flogged, has to be treated and nothing garantees that he has learned the lesson;
  • an employee works more and better, because he is afraid of being fired; a slave works the less and the worse he can short of being flogged.
In short, employement is a condition of exploitation of man upon man with all the advantages of slavery and none of its defects. Fantastic, isn't it?

[1] 19th century methods, nowadays slightly more complex and costly
[2] provided that you find somebody to buy him

But that's only true in the contrext of a modern, monetised economy where the cash nexus is an accepted form of socially relating to others. And it only works if you have a sufficiently large available labour pool. I don't think the Southern planters, whose mode of doing business was very much cash-based, market-driven and capitalist, would have been able to run their plantations on wage labour. Neither do I think would it have been feasible to exploit the rubber of the Congo or the Amazon by paying wages or purchasing the harvest of independent tappers. Making capitalist societies function smoothly requires a lot of social discipline, infrastructure, and shared assumptions. It's not an easy model.
 

Sior

Banned
the British never had a problem using and abusing minorities (blacks in south africa, chinese -including labor and addicting them with opium, India, pretty much around the world) or even whites in the industrial gristmill at home, so long as it technically wasn't slavery. I'm on the side that says it has to do with limiting other nations. Their caribbean holdings were pretty modest, so they really didn't harm themselves by limiting the trade.

No the British were just morally superior to Americans!
 
Remember that the US banned the slave trade at almost exactly the same time. America even had a few ships on patrol off Africa to suppress the slave trade as well.

The difference is that the US had a large, powerful pro-slavery faction in government, whereas the British Caribbean planters (the chief pro-slavery faction left in the UK) had to rely on bribes and "lobbying" to get parliamentary support.

So, while anti-slavery crusaders in the US (of whom there were certainly many) had to face the entrenched power of slaveholders (who were ok with a de jure ban on the slave trade, as it protected their existing investments, but didn't want opposition to slavery to gain prominence), British reformers had much weaker opposition, and could impose their anti-slavery agenda on Parliament (although even then the planters were able to delay things for quite some time).

In general, I think we moderns have a strong tendency to discount moralism and ideology as explanations of history. Not everyone who says "I believe this is wrong, and want to stop it" is lying, or "really" doing it for selfish reasons. They may be mistaken (the same instincts and tendencies that led to abolitionism also led to Prohibition), but they are sometimes honest.
 
They still had the Caribbean colonies, and the profit to be made from transporting slaves to the Americas was nothing to sneeze at, either. Prussia never had any American colonies, and they wanted in on the slave trade, too. It can make money.
Yes, but the revolution in Haiti that led to its independence might have been a harbinger of events to come.
 
the British never had a problem using and abusing minorities (blacks in south africa, chinese -including labor and addicting them with opium, India, pretty much around the world) or even whites in the industrial gristmill at home, so long as it technically wasn't slavery. I'm on the side that says it has to do with limiting other nations. Their caribbean holdings were pretty modest, so they really didn't harm themselves by limiting the trade.

Certainly Britain has a less than perfect record, but it is certainly better in many respects than many others including the USA, so called land of the Free. Still intervening to impose its rules throughout Latin America until the current day. Guatamala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Chile attempted coup in Venezuala, anyone remember those. And any nation that invented JIm Crow and treated the Indian Nations the way the USA did should be wary of throwing around accusations of abuse.
If Britain had just wanted to limit other Nations ie the USA in the way the USA still does it would have intervened on the CSA's side in the CIvil War. In fact British opinion was very clearly against the south.
The moral impulse to abolish slavery was the same one that led to the Factory Acts and the abolition of Child Labour, the Public Health Act and reforms to prisons and mental asylums.
And dont forget the French also supported the anti slavery patrols.
 
So, while anti-slavery crusaders in the US (of whom there were certainly many) had to face the entrenched power of slaveholders (who were ok with a de jure ban on the slave trade, as it protected their existing investments, but didn't want opposition to slavery to gain prominence), British reformers had much weaker opposition, and could impose their anti-slavery agenda on Parliament (although even then the planters were able to delay things for quite some time).

In the U.S. slavery was on the decline during the early 1790s due to low tobacco prices. Many slave owners actually began to free slaves in the upper South, as they were unable to pay the upkeep. However, slave owners in the new south began to buy up slaves at low prices to clear land. This coincided with the beginning of cotton cultivation on a large scale by the late 1790s in Georgia and South Carolina. By 1803 cotton had become the United States' largest single export (a role it would retain until 1937).

The abolition of the slave trade in the U.S. actually benefited the slave owners in Virginia and Maryland which were the largest slave owning colonies at that time. Between 1810-1860 an estimated 900,000 slaves were sold from the old south to the new south. The abolition of the trade essentially benefited Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina tobacco planters who were in the early 1790s giving their slaves freedom because they could no longer afford them. With the cotton boom by the end of the decade, they were now able to sell slaves profitably. Keeping the flow from Africa as an option would have pushed down prices and between 1810 and 1860 the price of a slave doubled.

Virginia was a politically powerful state early and by 1807 slaves were the leading export of the state. So the abolition of the importation of African slaves in 1808 greatly benefited that state. Between 1807 and 1860 the number of slaves born in Virginia was the same number as those sold further south. South Carolina in contrast was against the ban as its cotton economy was booming and the port of Charleston was the principal entry point for slaves.
 
Was there any connection between this and the Indian indenture labor system they had? Whereby Indians were being transported around the colonies as "indentured laborers".
 
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