The largest of the Western associations is the Commonwealth. Previously called the British Commonwealth because it includes former British colonies. In some of them, as a vestige of the colonial era, the formal head of state is the British King Charles III. This is the picture, for example, in Australia.
It is believed that in British Commonwealth two and a half billion people live, most of whom live in countries such as India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Canada, Malaysia, AustraliaNigeria, Kenya. There are 56 states in total, including very small islands such as Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
We are talking about this today because exactly on the days Kazan BRICS summit The summit of the British Commonwealth was also held on the abandoned Pacific island of Samoa. The population there is just over two hundred thousand people. Far away – everywhere. Exotic.
The British summit meets every two years and is usually a pompous event with the participation of the monarch. Previously, Queen Elizabeth supported the tradition. This time for the first time the metropolis was represented Charles. The British delegation also included Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Despite the tambourines and drums, the sweaty bodies of the dancing natives and the offered beads, the event turned out to be so-so. Although it deserves a mention. Well, not every day – then the agenda of the BRICS summit completely suppressed the topic of Samoa. But still.
What was interesting was this. The leaders of such important Commonwealth countries as India and South Africa did not fly to Samoa, preferring Kazan. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also abandoned Samoa. Most of the leaders of the countries of the British Commonwealth did not go to the English king.
Although, this is a summit. But they sent ministers or even deputy ministers there. But the delegations from the smallest ones shone first. True, they also had a business for Britain – in addition to polite nostalgia for the former empire.
Back at the end of September, Prime Minister Caribbean state Barbados Mia Mottley raised the issue at the UN General Assembly reparations for slavery.
In other words, they loudly asked for money from Britain as compensation for the system of slavery, from which the British got rich. King Charles admitted that slavery is “a conversation whose time has come,” but Keir Starmer immediately snapped – we won’t give money. We won’t pay anything.
Dot. But what amounts can we even talk about? Prime Minister Mia Mottley says her country – Barbados, where Britain has ruled since 1625 – the British should £3.7 trillion.
But that’s only for Barbados. Generalized estimates of the British debt for slavery are given by the American consulting group Brattle from Boston. And according to their calculations, it comes out to 24 trillion pounds. This is the amount that the 14 countries of the Caribbean, formerly called the West Indies, must divide among themselves. Let’s name them: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Haiti, Grenada, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
In general, about 20 million Africans over the more than three hundred year history of the slave trade were forcibly removed from Africa and sent by sea to the Western Hemisphere. The British contribution was appreciated by the American historian George Francis Dow. In the twenty years from 1713 to 1733 alone, the British supplied 15 thousand slaves a year to America. Further – more. In 1786 – already 60 thousand. In the 18th century, 243 thousand slaves were landed in Barbados, and 610 thousand in Jamaica. The British became richer than anyone else in this business. Their national condition is based on slavery. Sugar, coffee, cocoa, spices, and then opium – these were the goods of slave labor with which the British flooded the whole world. However, let’s move on – it is one thing to deliver slaves to the West Indies, another thing is to exploit them there on sugar cane plantations and in vegetable gardens. Yes, anywhere.
This was done in the most brutal manner. The technology was described in detail in his later published fourteen-volume diary by Thomas Thistlewood. In the 18th century, at twenty-nine, he sailed from Britain to Jamaica and was immediately hired as a slave overseer on a sugar cane plantation. Later he himself became a slave owner. He meticulously wrote down every little detail – every day, year after year. Here is a page from his diary. Smooth handwriting – confident and calm.
The number of sexual acts described is astonishing – 3,582. In total – 138 women. As a rule, rape of slaves, including minor girls who became pregnant from him, followed by miscarriage, branding of the disobedient, flogging in the blood and rubbing vinegar into the wounds, chains on iron collars, cutting off ears and nostrils, executions by hanging and beheading.
Thomas Thistlewood, in his cruelty, was actually not much different from others. He behaved in accordance with the general order. He mixed in “decent” society, dined and played cricket with the magistrate. Here is his portrait in a white lace frill. Thomas Thistlewood is quite famous as a historical figure thanks to his diaries. There is a long article about him in the English version of Wikipedia. Here’s a snippet:
“In 1753, Thistlewood wrote about the trial of several slaves for stealing goods from his employer Dorrill’s Salt River estate: ‘Oliver’s quave is hanged. Quave Fortune has both ears cut off, both nostrils cut off and both cheeks marked, Cheddar has his right ear cut off, his right nostril cut and a mark on his left cheek.” When a Salt River slave named Robin ran away with two boys from the plantation” Egypt,” Dorrill brought Robina to trial and executed, after which Thistlewood took Robina’s head, “impaled it on a pole and stuck it right at an angle to the road in the home pasture.”
It is generally accepted that among the slave owners – the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch – it was the British who acted in the most cruel way. The numerical ratio of black slaves on plantations to white drovers was fifteen to one. The British were afraid of riots and maintained “order” with literally atrocities.
Britain officially abolished slavery in 1833. But the machine worked in the shadows almost until the end of the 19th century. It is curious that in parallel with the formal abolition of slavery, the British authorities decided to pay 20 million pounds sterling in compensation. Who do you think? Victims? Former slaves? African countries from which people were stolen? No. It wouldn’t be the British. Former slave owners and slave traders were to receive enormous compensation for lost profits. 20 million pounds sterling in those days was 40% of the UK’s annual budget – untold money. The payments stretched over generations, so much so that it was only recently possible to settle accounts with the “victims” of the oppressors – in 2015.
By the way, the family of former British Prime Minister David Cameron also received this “consolation” prize.
As for the fate of former slaves in the British colonies, it developed differently. What they had in common was that their taxes went to compensate former slave owners, since it was the former slave owners who were recognized as the “victims” of the abolition of slavery. What about the slaves themselves? And in the British mentality of that time, they were nobody, not even people.
And now in Samoa you can distract the public with ritual dances as much as you like, but the past cannot be healed in this way. The British Commonwealth is a form of long goodbye. There is no common future.
