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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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The British were able to end slavery because (a) many slavers (or those more broadly involved in the triangle passage) were ‘new money’ with less political influence on Parliament than their wealth might suggest and (b) the domestic slave-owning constituency was pretty limited (I think there were fewer than 10,000 slaves in Britain, and the aforementioned Caribbean plantation owning class was not hugely powerful) and the terms of manumission very generous.

I remember being struck by the grandeur of Bristol, a mere provincial English city, the first time I visited. It was all funded by the slave trade, but the Gloucestershire and wider West Country merchants who made the riches (and who lent the famous arr me hearty “pirate accent” its affect) weren’t the highest status people in the realm, and it would take another century for their descendants to climb the class ladder to the top.

The idea that Bristol's wealth (or Britain's more broadly) was "all funded by the slave trade" is a nonsense.

The slave trade never contributed more than roughly 12% of Bristol's total trade clearances, and that only for a brief period between 1728 and 1732. This may underestimate the trade's economic impact, especially indirectly, but otherwise the trade was consistently <10% of total clearances (pg.4).

To be clear, the slave trade certainly contributed to Bristol's overall trade and economic importance during the 18th century, but it did not fund all, or even most, of it. There's a really good literature review of the historiography of slavery's importance to Britain's economic growth here. (Highly recommended if this topic interests you.)