Slavery -- Then And Now

Timothy Glazier

[Reprinted from Progress, November-December, 2005]

Slavery alive and well.

I was challenged by a friend the other day when I said that we are all 'wage-slaves'. He was speaking as someone who had started quite humbly working in a design studio, and now he runs his own studio, employing others. He has a point of course, but for the vast majority of those in the Western world who require to make a living but have not succeeded in taking the same step as my friend by becoming an employer or self employed, the choice is simply one of selling your labour lo another -- or of course opting out of the system, or by becoming a criminal. Some are quite happy with the employed status and if you choose a career in the forces, in nursing or as a fire-fighter, an employee is what you must be. But if you have no alternative to selling your labour, then that to me is a form of slavery and although the conditions of employment have gradually changed for the better, it is only in terms of slackening or upholstering the shackles!

Even if we have a problem with this expression wage-slavery: everyone agrees on the terms rat race and treadmill to describe the average person's passage through their life of employment -- and in the UK most would agree that the rat-race has become tougher and the treadmill more demanding in recent years with -- hence the condition of work-related stress that is now becoming a national epidemic. But why. at a lime when humanity has never enjoyed so much wealth, never has production, through the innovations of technology, been so high, is this the case? And more to the point why don't we appear to see it as utterly wrong?

It would appear that once a practice, however wicked and dehumanizing, becomes established within a culture, it appears to be normal, and becomes accepted by the majority of that culture -- rather as the prisoners, in the Plato's famous analogy of the cave, were content with their life sitting manacled and looking at a wall of passing shadows, because they did not realise that there was another alternative -- so are most people content with the fact that there is little alternative in their society to selling their services to others as wage-slaves.

If this unnecessary and enforced means of earning enough to survive on this planet is to change, then society must first wake up to how wrong the state of affairs is and then perhaps the root cause, land-monopoly -- by which I mean the exclusive individual or collective holding of land or natural resources, without fulfilment of the appropriate obligation to others, i.e. the payment of rent -- might be able to be dealt with.

Funnily enough, whereas today the idea of what constitutes slavery is comprehended and abhorred by the majority, the implications of land-monopoly are not so understood although this is the cause of the new form of slavery that we labour under today. What I would like to do in this article is to compare the question of land-monopoly, the cause of today's wage-slavery, and how it might become a thing of history, with the abolition of the 'slave trade' -- the trading in the people of Africa as merchandise to the 'New World' of South America and the Caribbean over a period of 400 years between the 16th and 19th centuries, was eventually outlawed some 200 years ago, and see whether this comparison might give us a lead on how land-monopoly, might also be brought to an end. The link between slavery and land-monopoly was significantly illustrated after abolition of freed slaves found that because they had no access to land, that they had to return to their former slave masters to be employed - often in far worse situations than they enjoyed as actual slaves.

The African Slave Trade

A couple of weeks ago I was passing a large house close to where I live in Gloucestershire and my companion, who knew the area, commented that it had been built on the proceeds of the slave trade. In fact this area has seen both sides of that issue and in my local town of Stroud, there proudly stands the anti-slavery arch, erected in 1834 by one by Henry Wyatt. a local wealthy cloth merchant (this being the centre of the West of England cloth trade) which carries the inscription "Erected to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the British Colonies".

The abolition had been brought about by the passing of the Emancipation Act by the new Whig government, following huge national pressure upon the government, particularly in this somewhat radical and nonconformist part of England. And yet. at the nearest sea coast just 25 miles away, is the town of Bristol where the steep cliffs around the harbour are lined with magnificent houses, and where there is an air of wealth and success -- a wealth that was originally built from the trade in slaves.

The almost unbelievable figures show that during the four centuries that the slave trade persisted, an estimated twelve million Africans had been transported to the Caribbean Islands and South America, to work on the cotton and sugar plantations, as house servants, in the mines and. as in the case of Brazil where they constituted half the population, to do most of the manual work. Whilst most European sea going nations were involved in this trade. with the collusion of African leaders and certainly of the Arab traders on the African continent, Britain was one of the leading European nations in perpetuating this iniquity which involved the trading of manufactured goods with African tribes and slave hunters, in return for men. women and children, who were shipped to the New World and sold for sugar and other products, which were brought back to Europe.

But the point I want to make in this article is how this inhuman trade was supported and perpetuated, indeed considered quite normal by the majority of the community, stimulating one Bishop to observe "my scruples are not so great that I totally condemn this trade, seeing that it is tolerated by so many men of letters and great theologians". Indeed, rather in the manner in which land-monopoly is considered today.

The Process of Abolition

What is interesting is that the abolition did not come about through enlightened politicians but by a combination of religious conscience, the words of great writers, the courage of individuals, the build up of pressure from groups of people, and ultimately the persistence and brilliance of certain politicians. Among the first influences was a stirring of conscience amongst the non conformist religious groups both in America and in Britain in particular by the Society of Friends. The direct consequence of this Quaker activity was that in 1767 a proposal was, for the first time, introduced into the real legislature against the slave trade in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts. At the same time the Quakers in England were at the forefront of moves towards the ending of the slave trade and in 1775 prompted a commission of the House of Commons to be appointed to take evidence on the slave trade.

Of the writers, Jean-Jacque Rousseau in France was more extreme that anyone else and in England, at about the same time, writers such as Horace Walpole and Dr Samuel Johnson began to make their disapproval heard. Amongst the judiciary, the great Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, published between 1765 and 1769 stated the case against slavery, declaring that the law of England 'abhors and will not endure the state of slavery within this nation ... a slave or a negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws and. with regard to natural rights, becomes a freeman'.

Granville Sharp

But perhaps above all the abolition of slavery in Britain was prompted by a young clerk. Granville Sharp, whose involvement started from simple humanitarian motives, but his story also illustrates the grip that the practice of slavery had taken on society. One day in 1765 Sharp passed a man of African origin evidently in a poor state, as though he was ready to drop to the ground. He had been beaten over the body and head with a pistol so often that he could hardly walk and was about to lose his sight. Apparently his master was a British lawyer. David Lisle, practicing in Barbados. Granville Sharp and his brother supported and clothed him until he could earn his living by working for an apothecary, in London. However, two years later he was spotted by Lisle in the street who. having noted Strong's improved health, followed in his carriage back to the apothecary's shop. Having seen that his health was fully restored he sold him days later to a planter from Jamaica at the discounted price of £30 (the market price was £50. or about £4500 at current values) and had him incarcerated in prison, where the gaoler would keep him until a ship was leaving for the West Indies.

Realising the implications of his situation Strong sent a note to the Sharps. In due course, having prevented Strong from being taken aboard ship, and having been sued by Lisle the owner who also challenged him to a duel. Sharp researched the law himself and coming across the above passage by Sir William Black-stone managed to secure Strong's freedom. This was the first of many such actions that Sharp undertook, becoming a leading figure in (he anti-slave trade movement. It is commonly held that the judiciary and then Parliament were sufficiently moved to effect the abolition of slavery. It was Sharp, however, who took the first steps as a private individual. His motivation began as personal conscience at seeing the distressing condition of Jonathan Strong.

The end of the slave-trade.

In due course the case against the slave trade began to be stated in England with ever-greater effectiveness, by a whole new school of active polemicists and theologians. The enemies of slavery were in touch with one another and could boast of several successes. Thus in 1783 a bill was introduced to the House of Commons forbidding officials of the Royal African Company, a company set up specifically to trade in slaves, from selling slaves -- a motion which caused the ever active Society of Friends to submit an appeal for a general prohibition on the commerce.

Now fully within the political arena, a number of significant figures put the power of the conscience and oratory behind the cause of abolition, notably William Wilberforce. MP for Hull who brought innumerable motions before the House of Commons. Others included Prime Minister William Pitt, Richard Sheridan, Charles Fox, George Canning and the renowned Edmund Burke MP for Bristol. Significantly, of the many members of parliament and the House of Lords who opposed the abolitionists, usually because they were directly or indirectly involved with the trade, most active and vehement was the Duke of Clarence, the future King William IV of England. But to show the extreme polarisation that the issue raised, during the debate of one of Wilberforce's motions Edmund Burke said that 'to deal and traffic, not in the labour of men but in men themselves, was to devour the root, instead of enjoying the fruit of human diligence' yet when the this particular vote for abolition was lost 88 to 163 against Wilberforce's motion in the house of Commons, in Burke's Bristol constituency church bells rang, cannons were fired on Brandon Hill, there was a bonfire and firework display and a half holiday was granted to workmen and sailors. 'Commerce chinked its purse' wrote Horace Walpole 'and that sound is generally prevalent with the majority'.

Ultimately, in 1805. the efforts of Wilberforce, and all those who had contributed to act against this shameful trade, was at last rewarded by the passing of an act that would forbid the import of Slaves from Africa into British colonies to come into effect on 1st January 1807. But it was another 30 years before the passing of the Emancipation Act to bring freedom to the slaves of the colonies, which was celebrated by the building of the Anti-slavery Arch in Stroud. and many more years before the trading in slaves from African was finally stamped out by all nations.

The End to Land Monopoly?

So in spite of the abolition of the slave trade, slavery still persists in the Western World, if not round the entire globe, and that is the slavery brought about by the persistence of land monopoly -- effectively the holding of land by the few, to the devastating detriment of the many, this detriment manifesting in a landless population, and the consequential condemnation to wage slavery.

What can be done to bring about change in relation to land monopoly, as in the case recounted above?

First an awakening to the horror of the situation, and to the fact that humanity is not on earth to live in poverty and servitude and that the fundamental right of every human being is to have access to the planet upon which they have been born; then the dedicated few, people such as Granville Sharp, driven by his sense of liberty, who will stop at nothing to see justice prevail; then the words of the opinion formers and the rallying of the general public so that politicians have the necessary mandate to bring about change. Well, as we know, dedicated geoists have been at it for centuries now. perhaps the time is approaching when justice and liberty might prevail at last, in this last stronghold of privilege -- the monopoly of land.