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.
Let’s see, the earnings of people who do the labor are confiscated and given to classes of people who do not work. Is that not slavery?
America deserves more credit for ending slavery worldwide than it gets.
There was clear movement towards ending it during the revolutionary era.
The 1808 end of importation was already foreshadowed in the constitution.
Many states abolished it in the same period, prior to 1800.
Just because there was not unanimity among all Americans does not mean we weren’t sending a clear message to the rest of the world about how slavery was destined to end.
America did that, the UK just picked up on our message and went along.
Not mentioned, but should be, was the Christian influence that helped end most slavery. In the Islamic world Allah still gives slavery two thumbs up. In fact the Arabic word for Slave and Black is the same word.
Bookmark
Sadly.
Someone ...tell ‘Smegan’!
Slavery was rampant everywhere in Africa and still is and was amongst the Native Americans.
Not all colonies absorbed African slaves into their culture in the same way, which led to profound differences in slave populations, long after the slave trade was ended.
In the North American colonies that were later to become our southern “slave states”, it was much more common to purchase women as well as men, and keep families somewhat intact.
In many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, it was the practice to purchase only male slaves, who would work until they died.
Because of this, the slave population in the southern United States continued to flourish by reproduction, long after the slave trade ended.
When this dynamic is overlooked or misunderstood, it can lead to the false impression that the USA was clinging to slavery more than it was.
Ending slave trade and abolishing slavery are two different things entirely, and should be judged separately.
The Industrial Revolution ended most of the need for slaves, as Western countries became prosperous enough to pay their workers.
The Electrical Revolution brought women into the workforce. (I won’t comment on the implications of that disaster)
Obviously, there were many exceptions prior, but the bulk of those two huge societal changes corresponded with the above.
Exactly, only white countries did away with it. Slavery is rampant in Africa, Asia, and Far East.
As long as we have oppressive taxes that fuel social prgrams and handouts to other cultures and countries and the government can take your property we are slaves.
I’ll just toss this in for anyone interested. Written in 1912, on The Trent Affair....
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.trentaffairhisto00adam/?st=gallery
Worth the read.
Hear, hear!
Without the civil war slavery en masse in the US would have been gone within 20 years for the most part. The innovations in farming equipment and manufacturing made it too costly to run slaves. The civil war wasn’t about slavery until 1863 when the union was getting their arses kicked. The northern governors pushed the war to protect their industrial base and when they started losing, they had to find a rally cry. Reconstruction was a continuance of the war to ensure the south would not become the industrial hub of the country. Funny how they ended up losing that anyway over time.
They also maintained “Abbo” slaves in Australia well past 1860.
England invented racism.
-Andrew Young.
bkmk
Agree China the middle east North Korea Africa ..........
So why are you doing the weapons grade gaslighting?
Shame on you !
Very true. The US was on the path to slowly exterminating slavery …
Until the democrats started their war !
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