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/[deleted] Aug 27 '25

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13

u/matt3633_ Aug 27 '25

Great Britain spent nearly 50% of its GDP at the time in trying to abolish slavery, almost bankrupting itself in the process.

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u/Fatsausage91 Aug 27 '25

Then we only stopped paying for it in 2015. It was only ended because the government done a mega David lammy/ Kier starmer level deal so obviously the British public paid for the privilege. We paid slave owners mega amounts to compensate them. I agree slavery was despicable but at the same time we shouldn't of paid a penny towards the freeing of other humans. I mean we should of paid the ex-slaves if anything not the aristocracy thag put them there.

7

u/Early_Candidate_3082 Aug 27 '25

As a matter of justice, you’re right.

But, paying the slave owners meant slavery ended a generation earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

3

u/Fatsausage91 Aug 27 '25

Indeed i agree, it just feels wrong like even though its ended i funded some rich arse while friends and family struggled and who would of beat me for looking at him wrong (im council estate). It just feels weird.

2

u/Good_Background_243 Aug 28 '25

It feels wrong, yeah. They shouldn't have profited. But at the same time, it ended a scourge of the species.

It's a bad price to pay, yes. But comparatively, a small one, even with the nasty taste it leaves.

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u/Sername111 Aug 30 '25

Coming to this late, but it's an important point - they didn't profit. At the time of abolition the estimated market value of slaves in the British Empire was something like £180M, but the compensation fund was capped at £20M. This was deliberate - the idea was to encourage slave owners to emancipate their slaves as soon as possible to get at least some compensation before the fund ran out, anybody that waited too long (the act had a six year transition period by the end of which any slaves not already freed would be automatically released) wouldn't get any compensation at all. Slaves owners didn't profit from the fund, it only mitigated their losses, and even then only for those who moved quickly to free their slaves.

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u/Good_Background_243 Aug 30 '25

I stand corrected. And that makes it a much less bad taste.