Posted on 06/02/2025 9:25:59 PM PDT by RandFan
@realAtlasPress
Though Britain had been a global power since the early 17th century, it wasn’t until Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 that it emerged as the dominant power.
By eliminating France from the world’s stage, Britain was left without a serious competitor.
The Vienna Treaty that followed favored the Brits, granting them territorial possessions like modern-day South Africa, Trinidad, and Sri Lanka.
These territories served as strategic naval bases Britain used to control its immense empire from all corners of the globe.
The century following Napoleon's defeat is sometimes called the “Pax Britannica,” because of the relative prosperity enjoyed by Europe during this time. The presence of a single world power created stability and kept conflicts to a minimum.
Britain’s unmatched navy is what maintained its dominance.
The British Royal Navy was more than twice the size of the next largest navy. Though their ships weren’t vastly superior to others’, their sailors were at sea continuously making them the best in the world.
British ships controlled most of the key trade routes in Asia, North America, and Africa, allowing its merchants and traders an overwhelming advantage compared to other nations—Britain got incredibly rich off sea power.
But Britain didn’t just use its Naval supremacy to fill its coffers. Its navy actually became a source of peace and stability.
British ships were on the frontline during one of the darkest episodes in Western history: the slave trade.
Decades before the American Civil War and 13th amendment ended slavery in the US, Britain passed two anti-slavery laws: the “Slave Trade Act 1807” banning the slave trade around the empire, and the “Slavery Abolition Act 1833” which officially made it illegal to own slaves.
Britain enforced its legislation via their strong navy.
Ship captains who were caught transporting slaves were subject to fine initially, but soon the Royal Navy declared all perpetrators of slave trading to be treated the same as pirates—the punishment for piracy was death.
Britain's ships were the “global policemen” in the 19th century, and along the West coast of Africa became highly successful in capturing slave ships and freeing slaves.
They basically declared war on the African slave trade in a move called the “blockade of Africa.”
In 1808, a fleet called the West Africa Squadron was formed to patrol the African coast and catch slave ships. In the following decades they seized an estimated 1,600 slave ships and freed a whopping 150,000 Africans slaves.
African kingdoms were also encouraged to sign anti-slavery treaties. Over 50 African rulers signed them, and for ones that didn't, “corrective action” was taken—sometimes fighting slavery meant using the full force of the British Navy.
While some illegal trade continued in far-off regions, by the middle of the 19th-century the Atlantic slave trade was almost completely eradicated.
Slavery outside the empire’s jurisdiction, however, would continue for hundreds of years in some places.
No nation on earth did more to eliminate slavery than Britain.
Though empires are often viewed as inherently tyrannical, Britain’s war on slavery shows that immense power can, in some cases, be channeled for good.
I didn't realize how early we effectively ended slavery decades before the American civil war for instance.
There is more slavery today than ever before in history. Estimates range from 40 to 50 million people held in slavery now.
Yes but not talked about because the regimes are favored
Libya for instance even have slave markets
Thanks Hillary. (She laughs about it )
330,000,000 slaves in the US today. Slaves to be he FED/BIS/IMF ARE thru the fiat system. Slavery still here, more than ever, just camouflaged.
Am I supposed to take that seriously?
“Decades before the American Civil War and 13th amendment ended slavery in the US, Britain passed two anti-slavery laws: the “Slave Trade Act 1807” banning the slave trade around the empire, and the “Slavery Abolition Act 1833” which officially made it illegal to own slaves.
Britain enforced its legislation via their strong navy.”
Yeah.... bunch of British simping bullshit. They did not free their slaves in Jamaica... they converted them into forced apprentices. Also around the empire they started using massive amounts of coolie labor, which was basically still slavery in most ways. Then they soon started the Raj in India and the entire country was one big plantation.
Their big anti-slavery push was an economic weapon to deny slaves from reaching north and south America. The Brits wanted cotton and sugar grown in their colonies, and nowhere else.
No need to make those limey bastards into some kind of abolitionist heroes. And then lets talk about Ireland.
This is some weapons grade gaslighting.
“Britain’s ships were the “global policemen” in the 19th century, and along the West coast of Africa became highly successful in capturing slave ships and freeing slaves.”
Conveniently, the west coast of Africa was not the location of any British colonies. And the Royal Navy was not escorting British ships to return their Jamaican and Trinidad slaves back to Africa.
The Brits, as always, were protecting THEIR textile mills, their Dickensian sweat shops, and their trade routes.
It wasn’t a humanitarian thing.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has written extensively about this as well. Historical reality hidden by the Left/Academia because it doesn’t fit the narrative. You can look up videos on YouTube of this and people “reacting” to Dr. Sowell’s commentary on it.
The “Slavery Abolition Act 1833” provided for compensated emancipation, i.e. British slave owners were compensated for slaves they emancipated.
Much of what they did to end slavery would not and could not have protected things like textile mills, including sailors diving into the ocean to save slaves, heroically risking their own lives. If it was all about “textile mills” and nothing humanitarian, why would they have done that?
Your “history” appears to be quite biased and very incomplete, assuming even a word of it is true. https://youtu.be/Yd0_AclfzA4?si=Ygtg-btnwx-pf5u9&t=571
I wonder what percentage of slaves effectively under British control was lost due to the American Revolution
The uk serves as a direct warning to the usa.
We are fighting back not to slip and degrade as much as they have. They turned their back on God as a country. We are still fighting to prevent that. They are too far gone, and God laid them low from their prior position.
Now the British are slaves to their own stupidity.
America withdrew from the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. With The Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, both the United States and Great Britain agreed to work towards ending the slave trade. The U.S. Navy’s role in the struggle against slavery began in 1820 when warships deployed off West Africa to catch American slave ships. Enforcement of the slave trade ban was sporadic until the Navy deployed a permanent African Squadron in 1842. This deployment was due to the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, between the United States and Great Britain signed that August to suppress the slave trade. Despite the vigilance of American, as well as British and French, warships in African waters, the overseas slave trade increased in the 1850s, owing to the high demand for slaves in Latin America. The U.S. Navy’s participation lasted until the start of the U.S. Civil War, April 1861.
Well it’s true. Sugar was the biggest slave crop by far at that moment. Brazilian and South American slave use was utterly killing the price of sugar. The floor fell out of the market. It went from 3 pounds to a few shillings per pound. The Brits forbade the import of sugar from any but Brit colonies, but they could not evade the falling sugar market with the flood of South American sugar.
So they fought to stop slaves coming from west Africa into Brazil.. where the vast majority of slaves were sent during the slave trade.
It was strictly a protective economic measure despite a few British Christians pushing it.
Add in a brutal slave revolt in Jamaica in 1832 that did 100 million in damage (today’s dollars) The Brits sent in Redcoats and summarily executed around 500 slaves. The violence and cost of the fight lead them to understand it would require a long and expensive operation.
When the Brits “freed” their slaves it was merely a name change. They were forced to stay as “apprentices” for another 12 years when they were replaced by coolies. The remaining slaves and coolies were paid... kinda. They earned a fixed amount a day, and the plantation owner deducted the costs of lodging, food, etc. At the end of a contract, they could leave IF they bought a ticket and left the island back to where they came from in 30 days.
None of them had a penny because of the arrangement and had to sign new contracts or be arrested.
Ask any Irishman, Jamaican, or coolie how much freedom the British Empire was spreading around in the 1830s-40s.
Hell, ask Tiny Tim from a “Christmas Carol”.
This is Anglophile gaslighting. They beat us to the punch by a few years in a sense... but it was economic warfare on their part.
That’s a story from 1866! Our civil war was over by then and our slaves were free.
You need to read some history....The British Empire was not pushing freedom and emancipation. Most British soldiers did not get the right to vote until AFTER WWI. Most of the German soldiers had that right.... in the war to make the world safe for democracy. lol
Slave OWNERs were compensated for the loss of their “property”. The kidnapped slaves were not. They were renamed “apprentices” and sent right back to the same plantation...not free to leave for another 12 years.
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