Dr Richard Carter says London was at the heart of the system, Austen Lynch points out the shame cast on our history and Gary Cornwell argues that the trade only ended because capitalism found it inefficient
Ella Sinclair is of course right to point out the damage done by our participation in the slave trade even after abolition (It’s not unpatriotic to tell the whole truth about Britain and the end of slavery, 27 March), although mention should have been made of the scandal of compensation paid to slave owners for the loss of their “property” and the vicious enforcement of enslaved people to undergo “apprenticeships” for four to six years after being freed.
But it is before abolition that is the real lacuna here: far from Penny Mordaunt’s ludicrous claim that “our biggest contribution to the evil trade was to end it”, there is the fact that we actually dominated it for the two and a half centuries before abolition. As our own parliament’s heritage collections points out: “British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in 1562, and by the 1730s Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation. The triangular route … was highly lucrative. London was the financial heart of the system.” Not much to be proud of there.
Dr Richard Carter
Putney, London
