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> The whole point of a democracy is disagreements are solved peacefully without resorting to violence. Your little country would still be a British colony of p

by _pmf_ 12y ago

> The whole point of a democracy is disagreements are solved peacefully without resorting to violence. Your little country would still be a British colony of peasants and slave holders.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- pjc50 12y ago
  Would they ever have done so?
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  I highly doubt it would have happened. The British government abolished slavery when it was easy to do so, but they looked the other way in regard to slavery routinely. And they actively maintained the nearly equally horrific caste and zamindar system in India. With money rolling in from plantations it's highly questionable whether the UK would have abolished slavery until perhaps the 20th century.
- kajecounterhack 12y ago
  Slave holders or not seems entirely moot: racism and oppression of colored folk exists RIGHT NOW. The civil rights movement was and continues to be violent, because it needs to be. Yes, all of this happened in a democracy. Yes troops had to help desegregate schools, and we're not even talking about slavery anymore.
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  You don't need to ask a historian. Any knowledge of how the slave trade ended will do. The British Empire ended the slave trade everywhere they could reach at the point of a gun. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline > 1807, 25 March: Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolishes slave trading in British Empire. Captains fined £120 per slave transported. 1807, 22 July: The constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw abolishes serfdom.[41] 1807: The British begin patrols of African coast to arrest slaving vessels. The West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) is established to suppress slave trading; by 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations. 1811: Slave trading made a felony in the British Empire, punishable by transportation for British subjects and foreigners. 1815: British pay Portugal £750,000 to cease their trade north of the Equator. 1817: Spain paid £400,000 by British to cease trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.[45] 1817: New York State sets a date of 4 July 1827 to free all its ex-slaves from indenture.[46] 1818: Treaty between Britain and Spain to abolish slave trade.[47] 1818: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to abolish slave trade.[47] 1818: France abolishes slave trading. 1818: Treaty between Britain and the Netherlands taking additional measures to enforce the 1814 ban on slave trading. 1827: Treaty between Britain and Sweden to abolish slave trade.[ 1834: The British Slavery Abolition Act comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. Legally frees 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, and 40,000 in South Africa. The exceptions, territories controlled by the East India Company and Ceylon, were liberated in 1843 when they became part of the British Empire. 1835: Treaty between Britain and France to abolish slave trade. 1835: Treaty between Britain and Denmark to abolish slave trade. 1838, 1 August: Enslaved men, women, and children in the British Empire finally became fully free after a period of forced apprenticeship following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. 1839: British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society founded as a successor to the Anti-Slavery Society. (The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society exists today as Anti-Slavery International.)
konstruktor 12y ago
In India, peaceful, nonviolent resistance got rid of the British.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  This is largely a myth. Gandhi would have been ineffective without an implicit threat of violence behind him, and pissed off a lot of more activist people for taking undue credit.
- carapat_virulat 12y ago
  Peaceful, but economically disrupting resistance.
barry-cotter 12y ago
There have been farmers in North America before and after Columbus/the American Revolution but there was never a peasantry. Also, Canada. http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution >The Revolution was a bloodbath with ~100,000 casualties or fatalities followed by 62,000 Loyalist/Tory refugees fleeing the country for fear of retaliation and their expropriation (the ones who stayed did not escape persecution); this is a butcher’s bill that did not seem justified in the least by anything in Britain or America’s subsequent history (what, were the British going to randomly massacre Americans for fun?), even now with a population of >300 million, and much less back when the population was 1/100th the size. Independence was granted to similar English colonies at the smaller price of “waiting a while”: Canada was essentially autonomous by 1867 (less than a century later) and Australia was first settled in 1788 with autonomous colonies not long behind and the current Commonwealth formed by 1901.

by _pmf_ 12y ago

> The whole point of a democracy is disagreements are solved peacefully without resorting to violence. Your little country would still be a British colony of peasants and slave holders.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 12y ago
Would they ever have done so?
InclinedPlane 12y ago
I highly doubt it would have happened. The British government abolished slavery when it was easy to do so, but they looked the other way in regard to slavery routinely. And they actively maintained the nearly equally horrific caste and zamindar system in India. With money rolling in from plantations it's highly questionable whether the UK would have abolished slavery until perhaps the 20th century.
kajecounterhack 12y ago
Slave holders or not seems entirely moot: racism and oppression of colored folk exists RIGHT NOW. The civil rights movement was and continues to be violent, because it needs to be. Yes, all of this happened in a democracy. Yes troops had to help desegregate schools, and we're not even talking about slavery anymore.
barry-cotter 12y ago
You don't need to ask a historian. Any knowledge of how the slave trade ended will do. The British Empire ended the slave trade everywhere they could reach at the point of a gun. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline > 1807, 25 March: Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolishes slave trading in British Empire. Captains fined £120 per slave transported. 1807, 22 July: The constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw abolishes serfdom.[41] 1807: The British begin patrols of African coast to arrest slaving vessels. The West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) is established to suppress slave trading; by 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations. 1811: Slave trading made a felony in the British Empire, punishable by transportation for British subjects and foreigners. 1815: British pay Portugal £750,000 to cease their trade north of the Equator. 1817: Spain paid £400,000 by British to cease trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.[45] 1817: New York State sets a date of 4 July 1827 to free all its ex-slaves from indenture.[46] 1818: Treaty between Britain and Spain to abolish slave trade.[47] 1818: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to abolish slave trade.[47] 1818: France abolishes slave trading. 1818: Treaty between Britain and the Netherlands taking additional measures to enforce the 1814 ban on slave trading. 1827: Treaty between Britain and Sweden to abolish slave trade.[ 1834: The British Slavery Abolition Act comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. Legally frees 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, and 40,000 in South Africa. The exceptions, territories controlled by the East India Company and Ceylon, were liberated in 1843 when they became part of the British Empire. 1835: Treaty between Britain and France to abolish slave trade. 1835: Treaty between Britain and Denmark to abolish slave trade. 1838, 1 August: Enslaved men, women, and children in the British Empire finally became fully free after a period of forced apprenticeship following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. 1839: British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society founded as a successor to the Anti-Slavery Society. (The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society exists today as Anti-Slavery International.)

konstruktor 12y ago

In India, peaceful, nonviolent resistance got rid of the British.

davidgerard 12y ago
This is largely a myth. Gandhi would have been ineffective without an implicit threat of violence behind him, and pissed off a lot of more activist people for taking undue credit.
carapat_virulat 12y ago
Peaceful, but economically disrupting resistance.

barry-cotter 12y ago

There have been farmers in North America before and after Columbus/the American Revolution but there was never a peasantry. Also, Canada. http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#the-american-revolution >The Revolution was a bloodbath with ~100,000 casualties or fatalities followed by 62,000 Loyalist/Tory refugees fleeing the country for fear of retaliation and their expropriation (the ones who stayed did not escape persecution); this is a butcher’s bill that did not seem justified in the least by anything in Britain or America’s subsequent history (what, were the British going to randomly massacre Americans for fun?), even now with a population of >300 million, and much less back when the population was 1/100th the size. Independence was granted to similar English colonies at the smaller price of “waiting a while”: Canada was essentially autonomous by 1867 (less than a century later) and Australia was first settled in 1788 with autonomous colonies not long behind and the current Commonwealth formed by 1901.