Britain's ban on the slave trade: moral lessons for today

Britain's bicentenary of the slave trade's abolition should remind us how easy it is to become comfortable with distant atrocities.

from the March 22, 2007 edition

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For example, while celebrating the work of white abolitionists, it would be a mistake to convey the idea that enslaved Africans never rebelled on their own behalf or that their freedom was "a gift" given to them by white liberals. Yet traditional abolitionist imagery depicts enchained Africans as submissive or suppliant.

Activity planners could contextualize these images by showing how the efforts of white abolitionists were matched by slaves who fought for their own freedom. Though slavery was an utterly degenerate and debilitating social condition, those subjected to it struggled to preserve their human dignity and agency, and this fact – not slaves' dehumanized status – should be emphasized.

One of the most important lessons that the bicentenary commemoration can impart is that none of us should smugly claim that we are more morally advanced than our predecessors. Though it is possible to come away feeling superior to those who carried on the slave trade for so long (surely we would all have been abolitionists), the regrettable fact is that many Britons lived quite comfortably with the slave trade.

And many more were touched by the trade in Britain, whether they sold copper pipe to be traded on the Guinea Coast, invested in the ships that took the pipe to Africa, or outfitted the sailors who manned the ships. With the true horrors of slavery far away off the coast of Africa or in the Caribbean, it was relatively easy for many Britons to convince themselves that the slave trade was benign.

The unfortunate truth is that a profound and widespread evil such as slavery doesn't necessarily unfold in the moment as a story of human suffering. The worst kind of evil is often invisible to most as they carry out their mundane daily business.

From this bicentenary, all of us the world over can learn to ask – and answer – these types of questions: Where are we similarly complicit with invisible or hidden social or commercial injustices? Where might our descendants look back and find us to have been culpable? If through these queries we discover unjust situations, we can begin taking steps to right the wrongs.

In the end, there are many salutary lessons in the history of British transatlantic slavery. From the commemoration of its abolition, we all stand to learn the moral courage to question what consequences our own actions have on the communities around us, and around the world.

• Beth Kowaleski Wallace is an associate professor of English at Boston College.

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