I just watched a documentary called “1833: The Year Britain Abolished Slavery,” about the end of slavery in the British empire circa 1807-1833 or, more specifically, between the ban on the transatlantic shipping of Africans to British plantations in the Caribbean in 1807 to the actual emancipation of said Africans in 1833. The interim, 26 years of legislative gymnastics in the British Parliament between abolitionists who sought the end of slavery and the pro-slavery lobby representing planters, merchants and bankers, was the purported topic of the film.

The very idea that sugar or coffee could be produced without slave labor was in 1807 as preposterous and unthinkable as today thinking we can supply our energy needs without fossil fuels or that a man can walk on the moon. And the portrayal of the pro-slavery lobby representing planters, merchants, bankers, bakers and candlestick makers was analogous to and not that dissimilar from the coal/oil lobby in the U.S. of today. The uphill battle of ending slavery in the Caribbean, the gradual erosion of the pillars that held up slavery by little matters like direct witness testimony, investigative journalism and this new thing in the 1820s called “data,” was never compared to NASA, however.

At one time in history, it appeared that the lobby representing commerce and short-term profits – that also just happened to control the enactment of laws in Britain by Parliament – seemed unbeatable, yet it was vanquished. Vanquished by small legislative steps, exposing corruption and untruths where they lay. It stumbled and fumbled the ball. It screwed the pooch. It lost. It went limp.

It’s cool that today humans can fly and all, but we still need to come down to Earth. We are one flesh. The slave walked free.

Denver Rey Whisman
Portland