“There is no institution in modernity that has changed the world as profoundly as the Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery in general. And we see the evidence of those legacies everywhere,” said professor Hilary Beckles.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery was the world’s greatest forced migration, lasting over a period of five centuries. It was the greatest crime against humanity without which the African diaspora, displaced Africans globally, would not have been created.
It was this enforced slave labour of those human beings – yes, human beings, with beating hearts, feelings and emotions just like anyone else – who were enslaved solely because of the colour of their skin: racism. They created great wealth for Britain and Europe. The wealth that came back to Britain helped to finance and lay the foundations of the Industrial Revolution and provided the economic foundation of modern Britain. It was this wealth that helped to put the ‘Great’ into Great Britain.
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Yet, despite this, there is no public acknowledgement or recognition of their enormous contribution to Britain, a country that has memorials galore, of one kind or another, up and down the land. According to Art UK, there are more than 1,800 memorials and sculptures in London alone, but there is not anything to remember these people who were ripped from their families multiple times.
Firstly, from their families in Africa, with many dying en route on the arduous march to the coast, then during the horrors of the Middle Passage and the long tortuous journey across the Atlantic Ocean. They were crammed together, body to body and shoulder to shoulder, with no room to move in the depths of the dark, putrid confines, of the slave ships’ holds, where they suffered pain and agony. Bodies were thrown overboard, both dead and alive. Secondly when they were sold off as pieces of ‘property’ from their plantation families, some many times over, causing distress, heartbreak, loss and permanent separation.
They were brutalised, traumatised, terrorised, dehumanised, mutilated, physically abused and sexually assaulted. They also lost their names, identities, language, heritage, stripped of everything and murdered. African lives were stolen to create this country’s wealth. As historian David Olusoga said, “The slaves have not been cast in bronze but into obscurity.” This is why the Enslaved Africans Memorial is important, to give a forgotten people long overdue remembrance.
