Tea at Trianon: The Price Tag on Slavery

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

The Price Tag on Slavery

From Media Diversified:

Many of us as Black Britons are not looking for any formal financial compensation. What we want is honest and open debate about the horrors and consequences of enslavement and acknowledgement of how it has shaped modern Britain.

The trauma of enslavement is still ever present within the subconscious of both black and white people 400 years later. It is reinforced by everyday racism and the consequences of government policy and globalisation. It would be of great benefit to have a Royal Commission similar to that which was established by David Cameron in February 2014 to examine the impact of the Holocaust. Such a body would report to Parliament and look at the legacy of enslavement in society today across a number of policy areas.

Opening the family ‘Pandora’s Box’ might cause the skeletons of the past to come haunt us. Perhaps for the majority of us it is easier to mythologise our African and Caribbean identities and not to explore, in detail, our personal family histories. White families who benefitted from the slave trade may prefer not to know, or disguise or hide where their wealth has come from. (Read more.)