[defrost]

In other tangentially related long term British loan debt news:

    It was only in 2015 that, according to the Treasury, British taxpayers finished ‘paying off’ the debt which the British government incurred in order to compensate British slave owners in 1835 because of the abolition of slavery. Abolition meant their profiteering from human misery would (gradually) come to an end. Not a penny was paid to those who were enslaved and brutalised.

    The British government borrowed £20 million to compensate slave owners, which amounted to a massive 40 percent of the Treasury’s annual income or about 5 percent of British GDP. The loan was one of the largest in history.

[0] https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-qu...

[1] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/working-paper/2022/the-colle...

Eight year old 'news' now, but still relatively recent given it was a near 200 year note.

[eru]

> The British government borrowed £20 million to compensate slave owners, which amounted to a massive 40 percent of the Treasury’s annual income or about 5 percent of British GDP. The loan was one of the largest in history.

I wonder how that compares (perhaps as percentage of GDP or per capita or so) to the expenses of the American civil war.

[concordDance]

Still worth it to get it passed through parliament.

(Also, would be a bit odd for the British government to pay people who were not enslaved by it, but instead by private individuals)

[dragonwriter]

Property rights are a creation of law; every person made property within the territory ruled by Britain was enslaved by the British government.

[defrost]

Err, weird take.

With the forenote that I'm opposed to slavery, British companies and wealthy individuals purchased (or owned) copper from Welsh mines (or some other commodity) which they traded in Africa with African nations in exchange for humans (who were purchased already 'enslaved') and then either further traded in the Americas to plantations or used directly in plantations owned.

eg:

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/uncomfortable-...

This was a large and complex business enterprise and didn't involve formal enslavement by the British Government.

The Abolition referenced above was the British Government outlawing slavery within its territories and by its citizens - as an act of Government it was only supported on the promise of slave owners (which included nice little old widowed grannies of modest means with a 2/6 th share in a slave left by an uncle) being recompensed for their forfeited property.

The funds that flowed to former British slave owners went on to establish canals, factories, rail lines, develop colonies in Australia, etc.

[Veen]

From that it follows that everyone whose property rights were created by the British government owed tax to Britain on that property. Ergo, the American Revolutionaries were in the wrong and the U.S. owes Britain substantial reparations for property theft and non-payment of taxes.

[atq2119]

Well, yes, in that narrow sense. The British at the time certainly did not think they were in the wrong.

The main reason why it is not commonly seen that way anymore is that history is written by the winners.

[concordDance]

Did that ever happen? I thought people were normally enslaved outside British territory.

Hmm... I'm now wondering if North Africa should be paying reparations as the ones who did the actual enslaving.