Britons never will be slaves?
Britons pride themselves on being a free nation, and while it is true that England in the final years of Elizabeth I's reign became a beacon of freedom for the whole world when the last form of enforced servitude (villeinage) disappeared around 1600, Mikki points out that it did not last long and got a whole lot worse before it got better in the 1900s. And now?“At the time of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 approximately 10% of England's population was enslaved,” says Mikki. “Although trading serfs and slaves like brute animals was supposedly abolished in 1102 by the Council of Westminster, it was not until the final years of Elizabeth I's reign that the villeinage finally disappeared.”
“The denouement of England from a haven of freedom under Elizabeth I to a cesspool of slavery and cheap life began with the union of Scotland and England and the new Stuart king, the Scottish James I, who founded the colony of Jamestown in Virginia,” says Mikki. “With vast swathes of land in the colonies needing to be farmed, and a growing middle class of avaricious merchants, shippers, plantation owners and profiteers who had no morals whatsoever (despite being avowed Christians) a new way of handling the surplus poor was found.”
“With the establishment of the new colonies of Jamestown in 1607 and Barbados in 1627 came a desperate need for plantation labor and because the African slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish, and jealously guarded by them, the British merchants found an easy alternative to labor shortage by kidnapping and enslaving the surplus poor at home, all done with the collusion of those in power.”
“So, long before Britain traded in black slaves it had sold its own poor white people into slavery in the New World as a way of solving unemployment, getting rid of surplus population, quelling rebellion and keeping the streets free from beggars, drunks and pickpockets so that its upper and middle classes could enjoy an easier life.”
“Most of these white slaves would have been worked to death on the plantations, leaving no children or grandchildren to tell their tale,” says Mikki, “and this is especially true of those sent to the sugar plantations of the West Indies where 80% of white slaves died in their first year of enslavement.”
“Never before in the long history of slavery has a nation treated its poor indigenous people so abominably,” says Mikki, “and worse was in store for Britain’s poor when the factories came into being and agricultural workers and their children were rounded up, chained to machines and worked for 16 hours daily.”
"Fast forward to the 21st century and the British government is giving British jobs to immigrants or offshoring them," says Mikki. "What does that tell you about the social contract that was set up to protect Brits from slavery?"
Read more by Mikki on this issue:
Labels: America, Barbados, barbary coast, convict transportation, england, freedom, indentured servitude, ireland, Jamestown, kidnapping, Scotland, slavery, slaves, west indies, white slavery
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