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What the Chinese were alleging in their campaign was historically accurate, but what they didn’t know was that the opium trade had also had powerful consequences inside Britain itself. It had started to undermine the self-confidence of the British empire, and introduce a dark and corrosive fear into the heart of British society. By the middle of the nineteenth century those who ran Britain were already aware of the horrors created by the slave trade. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head V: The Lordly Ones ***** BBCiplayer 2021
Many were captives of Tippu Tib, a notorious Arab slave trader and ivory merchant. Tib led huge expeditions, some 4,000 strong, into the African interior, where chiefs sold him their villagers for next to nothing. These Tib used to caravan ivory back to Zanzibar, then sold them in the slave market for large profits. In time Tib became one of the wealthiest men in Zanzibar, the owner of multiple plantations and 10,000 slaves. Christy Ullrich, interview National Geographic
The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff
The importation of labour into Israel is a corrupt business in which orgnised crime also engages ... The trafficking of indentured or slave labour as the fastest growing sector ... The brothels themselves are the bottom of this murky heap. I can barely describe the pathetic ageing women, listlessly chainsmoking in rooms seven feet by three, ready to survive any passer-by for ten bucks. (yes, ten bucks). Misha Glenny, McMafia
When Ludmilla first succeeded in escaping, she was handed back to the duty sergeant. In response, she was beaten senseless by her ‘owner’. ibid.
You were born a slave. Exodus: Gods and Kings 2014 starring Christian Bale & Joel Edgerton & Ben Kingsley & Sigourney Weaver & John Turturro & Aaron Paul & Maria Valverde & Indira Varma & Hiam Abbass & Kevork Malikyan & Anton Alexander, Kingsley to Bale
These slave ships would carry up to five hundred men, women and children shackled and manacled in the hole … This was a gruesome trade. Sam Willis, Shipwrecks: Britain’s Sunken History II: A World Turning Upside Down, BBC 2013
Dozens of slave ships were wrecked in this period. ibid.
This is Antigua ... ‘I detest this country’ [Nelson] ... Who is buried here on the Antiguan coastline and why? Sam Willis, Nelson’s Caribbean Hell-Hole, Yesterday 2015
This magnificent habour was a cesspit ... Life on those ships must have been unbearable. ibid.
The island was wholly given over to the brutal business of industrial scale sugar cultivation ... The hundreds of thousands of slaves who were sent here from west Africa. ibid.
The story of slavery in Biblical times, from the rules of bondage to inspiring tales of freedom, some Bible stories can shed light on the darkest of human practices. The Bible Rules s1e1: Ancient Slavery, H2 2016
There are thousands of cryptic rules that ancient man lived and died for. ibid.
Slavery is not explicitly prohibited in the Bible. ibid.
Female slaves were often forced to sleep with their masters. ibid.
One of the most vocal and influential of the abolitionists was a former slave named Frederick Douglass. Blood and Glory: The Civil War, H2 2016
By 1860 that number [of slaves] had grown to almost four million. ibid.
I did more for the Russian serf in giving him land as well as personal liberty, than America did for the Negro slave set free by the proclamation of President Lincoln. I am at a loss to understand how you Americans could have been so blind as to leave the Negro slave without tools to work out his salvation. In giving him personal liberty, you have him an obligation to perform to the state which he must be unable to fulfil. Without property of any kind he cannot educate himself and his children. I believe the time must come when many will question the manner of American emancipation of the Negro slaves in 1863. The vote, in the hands of an ignorant man, without either property or self-respect, will be used to the damage of the people at large; for the rich man, without honor or any kind of patriotism, will purchase it, and with it swamp the rights of a free people. Alexander II, emperor of Russia, interview Wharton Barker, Pavlovski Palace 17th August 1879, cited Barker’s ‘The Secret of Russia’s Friendship’
They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap (κυνῆ / kunễ) and wrap himself in skins (διφθέρα / diphthéra) and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave’s condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat. Myron of Priene 3rd century B.C.
A slave’s life is all you understand; you know nothing of freedom. For if you did, you would have encouraged us to fight on, not only with our spear, but with everything we have. Two Spartans before Persian king, cited Herodotus ‘Histories’
The larger Rome grows the more enemies it brings on the inside. A vast Barbarian army waiting for a leader to rise. Barbarians Rising III: Rebellion, History 2016
Spartacus and a group of sixty Barbarian slaves seize the opportunity to escape. ibid.
The greatest threat to Roman supremacy in a century. ibid.
Hawkins and Drake ... they were slave traders. Dan Snow, Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World I, BBC 2010
The slave trade was a lucrative sideline. Dan Snow, Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World II: The Golden Ocean
At the centre of the Republic a deadly revolt is brewing: the bloody death of a gladiator slave is the ultimate spectator sport; by the first century B.C. it’s no longer a game and the slaves explode in rebellion against their masters. Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire II: Spartacus, BBC 2008
He persuaded about 70 of the enslaved men to risk a break for freedom. ibid.
Every master feared his slaves. Rome: Power and Glory s1e4: The Grasp of Empire, Discovery 1999
The slave army soon grew into a 70,000 strong force. ibid.
One of the most dramatic and shocking chapters in the history of black Britain. David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History II: Freedom ***** BBC 2016
Sierra Leone, west Africa: Here beneath the trees are the ruins of a slave fortress. The first fortress was built here in the seventeenth century. It’s lain abandoned, forgotten, for almost two centuries. It was in places like this that the British slave trade began. Slaves were bought, sold and imprisoned here before being shipped to British colonies in North America and the Caribbean. ibid.
The British were masters of the slave trade. In total Britain transported more than three million people in slavery. ibid.
Some of them, and this included the children, had DY, or Duke of York, burned into their chest. ibid.
Tobacco is an extremely labour-intensive crop. It requires constant care and attention. And each leaf is picked by hand. At first these fields were worked by endured servants … But there was never enough labour to satisfy demand. ibid.
This law makes it legal to kill a black person. ibid.