Protesters didn't erase Britain's history. Britain did.

Amongst the myriad of protests across the world, attention is brought to Edward Colston’s statue being pulled down by protesters in Bristol and thrown into the harbour.

Colston, a member of the Royal African Company, had a hand in transporting upwards of 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas.

Bristol itself has benefited from the wealth of this man, whom upon his death handed his wealth to charities, allowing his legacy to live on in euphemised memorials that are dedicated to his philanthropy rather than acknowledgement of the vast wealth he acquired through the slave trade.

Those in opposition to the statue being torn down speak of erasing history.

I ask these people, which history do you speak of and acknowledge?

The history in which Britain was one of the two most successful slave-trading countries alongside Portugal, accounting for almost 70% of all Africans transported to the Americas?

The wealth gained from British ports in London, Bristol and Liverpool, who profited massively from the 1799 Slave Trade Act which restricted slave trade to these specific ports?

Perhaps you’re speaking of the 3.1 million Africans transported by Britain, of which only 2.7 million arrived, to British colonies in the Caribbean and North and South America.

Maybe you’re speaking on the fact that Britain was so enamoured with its slave trade, it didn’t even acknowledge that it had no legislation that was ever passed to legalise slavery, even though slaves were openly bought and sold on markets in London and Liverpool, and accepted in most of Britain’s colonies.

There isn’t a history to erase, because Britain has erased it for us.

Plaques, statues and biographies of known slave traders are instead enamoured with euphemistic titles such as ‘West Indies merchant’, with mere footnotes being dedicated to mentioning their involvement and subsequent profit from slave trade.

Even the Church of England was implicated in slavery, with the Anglican church’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts having had sugar plantations in the West Indies.

The Bishop of Exeter was paid compensation after the abolition act.

He wasn’t the only one to have been rewarded and compensated for his hand in the uprooting and decimation of entire cultures and societies.

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, pioneered by William Wilberforce, gradually abolished slavery.

The so called ‘land owners’ (slave owners) in the British West Indies were compensated for the loss of their ‘property’.

The sum total of their compensation? Over ￡20 million, 40% of the total government expenditure for 1834 and the modern equivalent of ￡16bn.

The compensation of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners for the loss of up to 800,000 formally freed slaves was the largest bailout in British history up until the bailout of the banks in 2009.

The worst part?

The former slaves did not receive a penny, and were in fact forced to (under a clause of the act) provide 45 hours of unpaid labour each week for their former masters for a further 4 years after their ‘liberation’.

They also paid part of the bill for their own freedom.

The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so vast that it wasn’t paid off until 2015- meaning that living British citizens contributed money to the compensation of slave owners and their descendants.

Meaning the descendants of slaves have contributed to the compensation through paying taxes.

It’s estimated that around 12.5 million people were transported as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean between the 16th century and 1807.

It’s no wonder that our history with slavery has been brushed under the rug and battered down into oblivion until the depth of our contributions to the misery and oppression of thousands is a mere whisper.

Unlike the visceral images we can conjure of cotton fields in Alabama, or plantation houses across America, Britain’s slave trade was kept at arm’s length in the plantations of the Caribbean.

Celebrated figures of British history are barely denoted for their contribution to slave trade, nor the profit they gained from it.

We could discuss the Windrush Scandal.

We could discuss the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.

We could even discuss that Britain has always thrived upon the demonization of minorities throughout its history to push policies and legislation that protects the 1%.

But we won’t.

Echoes of Britain’s past as an ‘empire’ can be seen across cities, cities that have benefited from their role in the slave trade, yet seek to hide it with denial and superiority.

The colonial mindset runs deep, and until we accept that our history is no better than America’s when it comes to systemic racism, or our willingness to erase it (not including the pulling down of commemorative pieces for slave traders, as most of these plaques and statues erase history themselves), we cannot ever truly change.

History is to be acknowledged in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes, for which Britain is wholly guilty of.

Listen, watch, read the voices speaking up in this moment that need to be given the platform they deserve.

Until we accept that racism is an issue, we cannot ever have equality whilst we remain silent or ignorant, even if it makes people uncomfortable. 

"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it." - Malcolm X