Padraic Scanlan talks about how Britain rose to global power on the backs of enslaved workers. Modern Britain has inherited the legacies and contradictions of a liberal empire built on slavery. Modern capitalism and liberalism emphasise ‘freedom’ – for individuals and for markets – but are built on human bondage.
This podcast adds to our article Slavery Compensation: Who Got Paid? and you can listen to it below.
Podcast Episodes about Slavery Compensation
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By the 1730s, Britain was the largest slave-trading Empire in the world. It is estimated that between 1640 and 1800, private British citizens across the Empire transported 3.1 million Africans as slaves.
Yet less than seven years later, the British parliament officially abolished slavery. And they didn’t stop there. The British government then proceeded to pressure allies and other European nations such as Portugal, Spain and France to also abolish slavery, and devoted significant Royal Navy resources to intercept and arrest slaving ships off the coast of Africa.
