Ralph Prothero on April 13, 2021 at
... there is so much Inconvenient history about the slave trade that is ignored. We usually only hear about the Atlantic slave trade which went on from the 16th century until the 19th. We rarely hear about the East African slave trade run by the Arabs which went on from at least the 9th century until the 19th century, when it was suppressed by the British navy.
We also rarely hear that only African slave dealers sold African slaves to European slave traders for the Atlantic crossing, at their slave forts on the west coast of Africa. Before quinine was found to treat malaria in the 1880’s the interior of west Africa was too dangerous for Europeans to enter.
British ships were part of the North Atlantic slave trade from roughly 1650 until 1807 when Wilberforce’s Bill abolishing the slave trade was passed into law by Parliament. (Captain Hawkins’ involvement in the South Atlantic slave trade in the 1560’s & 70’s didn’t set a trend for the British).
So British seafarers were involved in the slave trade for about 150 years, and for the next 200 years have been involved in suppressing it. After Wilberforce’s Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807 the British Navy established the West Africa Squadron in the Atlantic to intercept & capture slave ships and suppress the trade.
But I doubt if our schoolchildren ever hear much about the Arab slave trade, or the African slave dealers, or the West African Squadron. Independence Daily.
