“Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning” by Nigel Biggar—A Book Analysis (Part 3: Should we speak of ‘colonialism and slavery’ in the same breath, as if they were the same thing?)

Chapter 2: From Slavery to Anti-Slavery—Summary and Reaction
Biggar begins Chapter 2 by pushing back against the current narrative put forth by the likes of the “Rhodes Must Fall” and “Black Lives Matter” movements regarding colonialism and slavery—namely that colonialism and slavery are inseparable and that white supremacy was at the root of it all. Biggar crystalizes that view in the following way: “White Britons in the third decade of the twenty-first century, so it is claimed, view blacks now essentially as white slavers and planters did in the early eighteenth century.  Racist colonialism is what connects them, and it needs to be exposed, confessed and repudiated through cultural decolonization” (45). This is the “thesis” that Biggar looks at in Chapter 2.

He begins with a discussion about slavery. The long and short of it is: (A) there are different forms of slavery, forced labor, etc., (B) slavery is an ancient institution that has always been a part of human history, and (C) slavery has been rampant throughout the continent of Africa and the Islamic world. Also, (D) despite the varying degrees of slavery, whether or not there were brutal owners or more compassionate owners, when it gets right down to it, slavery in any form ultimately involved one human being owning another, and the slave was “radically dependent” on the will of the master—and that opened the door to potentially horrible abuse.

Biggar then details the horrific conditions on the ships during the Atlantic slave trade. He notes again that despite the fact that some slaves in the British colonies were treated well, not only were slaves still dependent upon the will of masters, there was horrific abuse and dehumanization that happened during slavery in the British colonies in the “new world” (and obviously that treatment continued in the United States up to the time of the Civil War). Biggar also addresses the economic realities surrounding the slave trade. He highlights two things: (1) yes, the “slave-sugar complex” did strengthen the British economy, but it was not the decisive part of the economy (basically, British trade involved many commodities that didn’t involve slave labor); and (2) although “British investors and merchants bear responsibility [for the slave trade], so do their African suppliers” (53). The fact is that the British didn’t go down to Africa and round up Africans to become slaves. The British went down to Africa and purchased Africans whom other Africans had captured and sold in the slave trade that was already in Africa.

As Biggar says, that doesn’t mean the British were guiltless—they obviously were guilty for their part in the slave trade. But they didn’t start the slave trade—they were involved in it for about 150-200 years, up until the time they abolished the slave trade in 1807 and ended slavery outright in 1834. Furthermore, what led to the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire was the work of abolitionists like William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Olaudah Equiano, who started the Society of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. Not only that—but after slavery was abolished in the British Empire, the British went about for the rest of the 19^th century and into the 20^th century trying to abolish slavery elsewhere around the world.

Basically, the British Empire was certainly guilty of taking part in the slave trade for 150-200 years, but it also was unique in that it worked to abolish it, not just within its own realm, but around the world.

Biggar also touches upon the way the British Empire abolished the slavery. After the actual slave trade was abolished in 1807, it took almost another three decades to completely eradicate slavery throughout the empire itself. The reason why is that, like it or not, it was intimately tied into the larger British economy. Therefore, they worked toward gradually phasing it out. Britain even chose to compensate slave owners for their loss of property. This was seen as controversial, but even abolitionists like Clarkson saw it was necessary—first, it prevented a complete collapse of the economy, and second, to not compensate slave owners would have brought resistance to the point where the Slavery Abolition Act might not have garnered enough support and might have failed.

Another controversial move was to include the requirement of all slaves over six to first become apprenticed laborers for up to six years before they were granted their full freedom. This meant up to six years of unpaid labor. Again, it was certainly controversial, and no doubt many exploited that provision, but the thinking was that these gradual moves would, in the long run, successfully abolish slavery for good, without destroying the economy or creating racial resentment and hostility later on. It was a political compromise that, in my opinion, turned out to be a wise move. Contrast that with what the United States did with the Civil War and its aftermath.

To the point, because Britain phased out the slave trade over the span of 25 years, there was no racial resentment afterward as there clearly was in the United States. Britain had a clear “end point” and phased things out to reach that deadline. The United States, on the other hand, leading up to the Civil War, kept kicking the can down the road; then the Civil War immediately emancipated all the slaves at once, with no clear plan to manage that huge change. That lack of foresight and planning resulted in over a century of Jim Crow, the rise of the KKK, and the racial divisions that still exist in the United States.

That leads me to conclude a couple of things: (1) the slave trade was obviously evil and abolishing it was clearly morally right and good; but (2) the way in which abolition was implemented required clear thinking, foresight, and planning in order to minimize further racial problems and evils. Therefore, whereas (1) is a clear-cut case of something being morally right or wrong, (2) is more complicated. Do we condemn the British Empire for phasing out slavery, on the grounds that those “apprenticed laborers” were basically exploited for six years, or do we condemn the United States for just cutting all the slaves loose at once, leading to another 100+ years of Jim Crow and the KKK? Is it right to “condemn” either response? Both were aiming at the same, morally good goal—but in my opinion, the United States’ incompetence led to a lot more injustice in the long run. Still, I wouldn’t “condemn” the United States (or Britain) for the ways in which they tried to right the wrong of slavery.

In any case, Biggar concludes Chapter 2 by noting how, after Britain abolished slavery within the Empire in 1834, one of the things that got them more involved in places like India, Africa, and the Middle East, wasn’t just trade, but a missionary zeal to try to eradicate slavery around the world. As Biggar writes, “The British could not undo the past, but they did do the next best thing: they repented of it and liberated the still living” (63).

Again, as it had done within the Empire, Britain attempted to slowly influence the gradual abolition of slavery. In India, for example, the Indian Slavery Act of 1843 (nine years after slavery was abolished in the British Empire), Britain forbade British officers from being involved in India’s slave trade. And the “domestic slavery” in the Islamic world wasn’t just deeply embedded in the culture, it also was not the same kind of slavery that had happened in the West Indies. It was, in a word, more humane. So it would have been morally questionable for Britain to come in and forcibly abolish a cultural institution in a foreign land that was considerably different than the kind of slavery that Britain had abolished within its realm.

That obviously is not saying any form of slavery is good, but there are cultural, historical, national, and political realities that simply come into play. For example, back in 2003, the United States chose to invade Iraq on the suspicion that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. I think the underlying motivation had to do with the neo-con vision of bringing democracy to the Middle East. The United States had just taken over Afghanistan rather easily and there was (a rather naïve) hope that we could just change that country into a Western democratic state. Then there was Iraq that was ruled by an obviously evil and brutal dictator who was constantly threatening the surround nations. I believe the thinking was if the United States could get rid of Hussein and establish a democracy in Iraq, there would be two democracies sandwiching Iran, the #1 state sponsor of terrorism.

Now, the desire to get rid of Hussein was a good thing—Hussein was a mass-murderer. The hope to establish peaceful democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan was also commendable. It would mean peace for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, and by extension lead to a more peaceful world. That certainly is a good goal. But (aside from the fact that the US fudged the “evidence” against Hussein!) there are larger, practical questions and problems to all that. Did the US have a right to get involved in the affairs of Iraq? Should the US have tried to impose “Western values” essentially by force onto a foreign culture? Was it wise to do it that way? Does anyone thing Afghanistan or Iraq were ready for a thriving democracy? The United States had a bumpy ride early on…and the colonies had inherited the legacy of the democratic tendencies of the British Empire—the Magna Carta, Parliament, etc.

These are larger questions that I think can be related to the topic of how the British Empire dealt with abolishing slavery within the Empire, but also how it tried to work toward its abolition in other parts of the world. It’s a tricky and complicated business. That is the point Biggar is making here in Chapter 2. After making this point, he returns to the “basic problem with the anti-colonialist” charge against Britain on this issue. To accept the anti-colonialist charge that British colonialism and slavery were one and the same, Biggar states requires you to have “amnesia about everything that has happened since 1787. It requires us to overlook how widely popular in Britain was the cause of abolition from the closing decades of the eighteenth century onward” (65). Simply put, yes, Britain did engage in the sin of the slave trade for a time; but for over the past 200 years it has worked to abolish it around the world, and it successfully did it within Britain in a way where former American slaves like Frederick Douglass could come to England in 1845 (a mere ten years after slavery was completely abolished) and remark “I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued in [the United States]” (66).

Biggar concludes Chapter 2 by stating, “Between the slave trade and slavery of the eighteenth century and the present lie a hundred and fifty years of imperial penance in the form of costly abolitionist endeavour to liberate slaves around the globe. For the second half of its life, anti-slavery, not slavery, was at the heart of imperial policy” (66). Therefore, to get back to the “anti-colonialist” accusation at the start of the chapter, namely that the British Empire must acknowledge and repent of its racist/slavery past, it seems that’s precisely what it has been doing for 200 years. The historical facts show Biggar is right on this point.