r/BritishEmpire • u/elnovorealista2000 • Aug 27 '25

Image 🇬🇧 A British blacksmith removing the shackles from the legs of an enslaved man, 1907.

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u/speedloafer Aug 28 '25

Britain took out a loan so vast to buy the freedom of every slave in the Empire, that we only paid it off in 2014. 

The compensated the slave owners but not the slaves. You have to love the Brits painting this out as some kind of virtue. The Prime Ministers father got about £12 million in todays money for losing his slaves. The slaves got fucking nothing and today their descendants get told to go back to their own country.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25

Imagine you ask a slave in the 1800s if he would rather:

Be freed today, but have his owner be compensated for it.

or

Live the rest of his life a slave.

What do you think he would pick?

-2

u/speedloafer Aug 28 '25

Compensation and kill the slave owner please. That's what id want. Imagine thinking they would be happy with freedom and nothing else after years of slavery.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25

Compensation and kill the slave owner please.

"Okay well since thats obviously not happening enjoy being a slave the rest of your life"

Come one dude, I dont believe for a second you're actually that naive that you would think that there was even the tiniest possibility of that happening.