Workers' Liberty

This is the full version of an article an edited version of which will be included in the next issue of Tubeworker

Our top politicians are feeling very smug in 2007, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade - when the buying and selling of slaves was made illegal in British law. As well as Blair expressing his 'deep sorrow' for the past and the Anglican church repenting for their role, they are celebrating the great deeds that brought the barbaric practice to an end. They give all the credit to William Wilberforce, who put the abolition bill through Parliament. Unsurprisingly, they don't mention the working class activists and slave rebellions, without whom there would have been no abolition movement. This is because the working class at the time did not see slavery as an isolated 'evil' in an otherwise free world. They fought on the principles of solidarity with exploited people throughout the world and saw slavery as part of that system of exploitation. Our rulers have no right to be proud for ending this barbarity in the past, as if the world today is 'free'. The trade they condemn was one of the building blocks of the capitalist countries they rule over. And we know that exploitation and poverty form a large part of the reality for workers across the world today.

Robin Blackburn, author of ‘The overthrow of Colonial Slavery’ (VERSO, 1988) talked to Martin Thomas

Q. About the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, you wrote: “Britain's rulers were being asked to decide the abolition question at an extraordinary time... Britain’s oligarchy had a world to win if they could pull through — and a kingdom to lose if they could not”.

By Colin Waugh

The Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 is arguably comparable in importance to the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789.

Just one of its effects, for example, was that Napoleon abandoned his plan to seize north America, with the result that in 1803 he sold 'Louisiana' (i.e., about one third of the present USA) to the US for £3 million. It illustrates also why to understand the world we must take into account 'black history' - that is, history from which most people are not left out. Thirdly, it is a prime example of history from below, illustrating how it was 'slaves who abolished slavery'.

By James McKinney

On 25 March 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed, which began to put an end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Socialists should too should be celebrating this bicentenary because of the black slave resistance which accompanied the abolition and the opening it provided for the growth of mass working class campaigning in Britain.

Speaker: Paul Hampton. 7.30pm, Thursday 15 March. The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A. (Tottenham Court Road tube)

In an otherwise useful piece in the Guardian on 17 January on the cant around the forthcoming bicentenary of slave trade abolition, Chavez-loving journalist Richard Gott manages to miss a key point – popular agitation.

The export of cotton from the US South was a major factor in the growth of British industry during the 19th century. The blockade of Southern ports by the Union navy resulted in a major crisis.