Our slave shame

[Merkin]

Word on he street is that your ancestors were all Manx. Every single one of them.

 

 

 

and will we ever become enlightened enough to pay the slaves descendants a similar amount of compensation?

 

Speak for yourself. My ancestors never owned slaves.

 

 

[Recovering Smackhead]

Word on he street is that your ancestors were all Manx. Every single one of them.

 

 

 

I don't know where He Street is, but I'd try another street if you want factual information about people.

[hillshepherd]

such a load of left wing politically correct shit,and all fronted by a university educated halfchat who really makes me want to throw up, [all over him.].

[oldmanxfella]

The Isle of Man is hardly immune if you want to get judgemental.

 

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/isle-of-man-s-role-in-18th-century-slave-trade-1-6833224

[spook]

Well I can state categorically that my great grandfather and his father served on slave ships, I remember my grandmother telling me about it. It was when I was learning about William Wilberforce in school and it quite shocked me but she went on to explain how it was considered as just another cargo.

 

What's more my great grandfather tried to set up a cotton plantation where he had a number of slaves but the plantation failed so he sold the slaves and returned to the sea.

 

Their name was Moore and they lived in or near Santon.

 

But what I fail to see is any reason for me to feel any shame for what they did. It was a respectable business in the day and to apply today's values to yesterday's world is at best problematic.

 

To engage in the use of slaves today or the transporting of slaves would be appalling but 100 plus years ago? Granted there were people who worked to ban the practice and we're successful and credit to them and the people who supported them BUT in many many cases they were supported in order to wrong foot the new plantations in the so called New World which were harming investments elsewhere.

 

Another of my family who were involved in both the slave trade and we're slave owners were the Brews who lived in the North of the Island.

 

The number of Manx people who pursued a career at sea both in the Royal Navy but much more so in merchant shipping means that many if not most Manx families might not be best pleased to see just what their families got up to in the past based on today's values.

[Stu Peters]

I've never owned a slave, so it's not 'OUR slave shame'.

 

I agree that 'we' should stop looking for reasons to castigate ourselves and look to the repressive regimes and human traffickers who still operate globally and with apparent impunity.

[woolley]

I've never owned a slave, so it's not 'OUR slave shame'.

 

I agree that 'we' should stop looking for reasons to castigate ourselves

It is part of the psyche of falling empires and like death, history seems to attest, it is absolutely unavoidable and irreversible.

[paul's got wright]

voluntary slavery was never abolished. it's still rife today x

[mojomonkey]

voluntary slavery was never abolished. it's still rife today x

 

Unless you're talking about some sort of S&M practice, by definition slavery can never be voluntary.

[paul's got wright]

if that's what you want to call it. but it's more like uninformed, misguided fantasy. voluntary slavery is still rife all the same. i think it's the definition of slavery you should analyse x

[manxman1980]

if that's what you want to call it. but it's more like uninformed, misguided fantasy. voluntary slavery is still rife all the same. i think it's the definition of slavery you should analyse x

 

If you are on about the Employer/Employee relationship that is actually based on the Master/Servant relationship and involves the exchange of monies in return for labour. So that is probably another of your little theories blown out of the water

[paul's got wright]

 

if that's what you want to call it. but it's more like uninformed, misguided fantasy. voluntary slavery is still rife all the same. i think it's the definition of slavery you should analyse x

 

If you are on about the Employer/Employee relationship that is actually based on the Master/Servant relationship and involves the exchange of monies in return for labour. So that is probably another of your little theories blown out of the water

 

no not on about that x

[Shake me up Judy]

This tiresome argument keeps being wheeled out by the ideological Left, and is part of their narrative explanation of world history in which the white European colonialists and slavers represent Africa year zero. The thousands of years of African history prior to the white slave trade is unacknowledged and conveniently ignored; thousands of years which saw a significant slave trade between African kingdoms, tribal wars and conquest, and the rise and fall of empires such as the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Moors of North Africa. We were late to the game in historical terms but it's true that our role was a shameful one. It just needs keeping in perspective though, and it's ridiculous to argue that we can and should compensate countries that didn't even exist at the time, or indeed the countless millions of victims of this cruel and disgusting trade who died in its name.

[Lagman]

This tiresome argument keeps being wheeled out by the ideological Left, and is part of their narrative explanation of world history in which the white European colonialists and slavers represent Africa year zero. The thousands of years of African history prior to the white slave trade is unacknowledged and conveniently ignored; thousands of years which saw a significant slave trade between African kingdoms, tribal wars and conquest, and the rise and fall of empires such as the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Moors of North Africa. We were late to the game in historical terms but it's true that our role was a shameful one. It just needs keeping in perspective though, and it's ridiculous to argue that we can and should compensate countries that didn't even exist at the time, or indeed the countless millions of victims of this cruel and disgusting trade who died in its name.

I do seem to recall that a black African pirate enslaved a load of white Irish people but this never gets brought up in these kind of discussions.

[Butterflies]

It's not my "slave shame" either. Not when women have been enslaved for centuries and treated as chattel and still are in many regions.

 

This is currently stil happening and is of far more importance and relevance to everyone than the ancient old slave trade.