It’s not unpatriotic to tell the whole truth about Britain and the end of slavery

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The mooted memorial to the navy’s West Africa Squadron seems to be an attempt to rewrite history in a more favourable light, says writer Ella Sinclair

Composite showing a slave revolt in Jamaica in 1832; and HMS Black Joke, a former slave ship captured by the Royal Navy, serving with the West Africa Squadron in 1827.Composite showing a slave revolt in Jamaica in 1832; and HMS Black Joke, a former slave ship captured by the Royal Navy, serving with the West Africa Squadron in 1827.

The statue’s backers see their campaign as a correction to what Mordaunt calls “anti-British, grievance-based” attempts to “rewrite our history in the bleakest way”. But their own account of the squadron’s history is a rose-tinted one, which neglects historical facts and erases space for a more nuanced memory of Britain’s past.claims, incorrectly, that “Britain was the first country to ban slavery, we used our own ships, men and money to enforce this ban”.

More significantly, “the new life for the freed Africans” rescued by the squadron was hardly free. The estimated 150,000 men, women and children whose ships were captured suffered continued exploitation and degradation at the hands of the British.Composite showing the deck of the captured slave ship Wildfire, brought into Key West, Florida, 1860; and a celebration of emancipation at the end of the American civil war.

 

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