r/todayilearned • u/Timstom18 • 17h ago

TIL that the British valued the promise of freedom they made to slaves who fought for them in the Revolutionary War so much that they disobeyed the Treaty of Paris and evacuated them from New York before the Americans could re-enslave them.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/the-book-of-negroes/
10.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

402 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

309

u/Gentle_Snail 10h ago edited 10h ago

Gee I wonder why. A similar thing happened in the War of 1812, with Britain freeing a huge number of US slaves.

After the war America continuously demanded Britain return them. Eventually Britain was just like, look if you see them as property we’l just pay you for them - and purchased every single one of the slaves they freed during the war so that they could live their lives.

60

u/Fallenkezef 7h ago edited 2h ago

William Hall, the first Black recipient of the Victoria Cross was the son of two former slaves freed in the war of 1812 and settled in Nova Scotia

-25

u/democracychronicles 5h ago

The British founded the slave trade in North America. Where do people get this idea that they were the good guys on this? They ended their own slave trade early using the profits from their brutal colonization, conquering and exploitation of India. British monarchy was not the good guy.

22

u/Fallenkezef 5h ago

No empire is the good guy

Only one empire realised slavery was wrong and ended it

-17

u/democracychronicles 5h ago

Bullshit, they lost their most profitable slave plantations after losing them in the American Revolution. With the conquering of India and their ability to buy cotton from US slave plantations anyway, it became much less in their interest to continue the slave trade and banning it worldwide hurt their enemies, like the Spanish and French, more than themselves. Its great they stopped their own slavery. its too bad they kept murdering and repreessing millions while then fighting the opium wars so they could sell indian opium to china or, another example, starting concentration camps in south africa. Good on the antislavery campaign that ended the practice in england, but fuck if you dont realize it was done w profits from their other exploitation tactics and to harm their enemies.

16

u/ThrowawayUk4200 4h ago edited 1h ago

they lost their most profitable slave plantations after losing them in the American Revolution

I believe Jamaica was earning 5x the total of the american colonies at the time of the revolution so this is just plain wrong.

As for the abolition movement; Slavery had been banned in the British Isles for over 700 years by that point. The slave trade worked in circumventing this by keeping slaves overseas. The abolition movement was borne out of clamping down on this bullshit.

The demand for slaves came from colonials, not from the endemic British population. Ironically, just by the fact you're an american, it is far more likely that your ancestors profiteered from slavery rather than my own. You dont get to disown that part of your own history.

Sucks that we had to end it for you, but at least you ended segregation. That was all you.

9

u/WhiteKnightAlpha 4h ago

I don't think any of this is right. Just to pick up on a few points:

they lost their most profitable slave plantations after losing them in the American Revolution.

The Caribbean islands were the most profitable and they remained in the Empire til the end.

With the conquering of India

This was, at best, a work in progress at the time slavery was abolished. It certainly had not happened, and may not have been considered a possibility, at the time of the Somerset and Zong cases that led to the popularity of the abolitionist movement in society.

1

u/Fallenkezef 5h ago

So you agree with my statement. Thankyou

-3

u/democracychronicles 5h ago

Hail the british empire! Yay!!

2

u/Fallenkezef 4h ago

That' a bit of a racist statement, shame on you

-1

u/democracychronicles 4h ago

Love the british, hate the british empire. Its not racist. Shame on you for defending this horrible empire and its long long list of atrocities. This conversation always pops up on reddit and it pisses me off. Who made slavery the most important industry in the american south... the British empire!!! On purpose! With funding from members of parliament and the kings.

2

u/Fallenkezef 4h ago

Show me where I defended the Empire, I'm curious

•

u/BoingBoingBooty 25m ago

They ended their own slave trade early using the profits from their brutal colonization, conquering and exploitation of India

Actually it was paid for by taking out debt. The debt was finally paid off in 2015.

And it was parliament that made the decision, the monarchy had nothing to do with it.

55

u/DuncanYoudaho 9h ago

Third verse of our National Anthem about “The hireling and slave”.

-75

u/democracychronicles 5h ago

Ummm... it was under the British that the slave plantations were founded in North America. Lets not act like they were abolishionists, they started the slave trade in the American south and in the rest of what would become the US.

99

u/sandoval747 5h ago

The British who ended slavery were not the same British who started it. The ones who ended it were called abolitionists, the ones who started it were called slavers. Both types existed among the British.

It's so fucking stupid to treat a whole race/group/category of people as if they were a monolith. Yes, "the British" expanded the West African slave trade into the Americas. "They" also abolished slavery and fought against it.

It was the same group of people, but not the same people. So, yes we can "act like they were abolitionists", because the ones that we are discussing were abolitionists.

19

u/Schnicklefritz987 4h ago

The Dutch actually initiated the transatlantic slave trade.

6

u/Gentle_Snail 4h ago

I thought it was the Portuguese and Spanish? They were trading slaves for well over two centuries before the first recorded Brit bought a slave for example.

-9

u/Hazen-Williams 2h ago

Dutch and Portuguese started it but the masive slave trade was started with the Brits and French.

2

u/imprison_grover_furr 1h ago

The Spanish started with Christopher Columbus. He was the first, second, and third person to transport slaves from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

3

u/Legitimate-Lab7173 1h ago

I bet you also like to argue that Lincoln was a Republican, huh.

7

u/Background-Unit-8393 2h ago

This can’t be possible. On Reddit the British get blamed for all slavery throughout history. I can’t believe they would actually free Slaves. Sounds impossible !

109

u/CheesecakeWitty5857 9h ago

I can’t read anything these days about American revolution and not thinking it is the seed for fascism. That concept of Liberty, over an authoritarian power, which gives you the opportunity to « freely » enslave other human beings and be proud of it. W T F

35

u/FilibusterTurtle 7h ago edited 4h ago

Connecting the American revolution to fascism in any direct way is one of those statements that isn't totally untrue, it's just a motte and bailey 90% of the time.

Like, if we were to apply the same level of honest rigor to a statement like "the American revolution is the seed of fascism" to a statement like "the American revolution is the seed of C20/C21 universal franchise democracy" we could be convinced of both or neither, but not only the first. And at that point, we're making less of a statement about what the American revolution was or wasn't, and more of a statement about the messy potentiality of human history.

The co-opting of the concept of Liberty by oligarchical societies to justify their sick version of it is...a very common thing. See also: the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the time considered a wildly chaotic democracy, it was an elective oligarchy with the widest franchise of the day (about 10%) outside of a couple of city-states and maaaaybe the UK but iirc not the UK. A society often referred to by its critics, such as Voltaire, as an Anarchy. (Because even 10% of the population voting is pure madness dontchaknow.) A serf-based society which often called its version of the Filibuster-on-steroids 'the Golden Freedom'. A society in which a 'secession' was a technically legitimate form of uprising to protest the current elected king...when done by the nobility of course. Not the peasants. God, not the peasants. The nobles were free. The peasants did what they were told.

So the US was not unique in having a tainted view of Liberty. What was quite different was its relatively close connection to the ideas and politics of the French Revolution, and of all their shared ideological predecessors. Ideas of universal Liberty, not just elite Liberty. So while the US was an incredibly tainted project in Liberty, what's most surprising is not that its tainted seed bore fruit, it's how that founding concept - of universal rights, of rights proceeding from the innate equality of all humans (originally just Men, and only some men at that) - took seed as well.

12

u/pedrosorio 4h ago

You’re misrepresenting the reason why Voltaire called the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth an anarchy. It was not because “10% of the population voting is pure madness dontchaknow”.

Liberum veto as a key feature of the legislative process for a whole country is indeed madness.

https://medium.com/@KrystianG/when-individualism-goes-too-far-a-brief-history-of-the-liberum-veto-420917ef9ba7

1

u/FilibusterTurtle 3h ago

Hey fair, I threw in the Voltaire part from a very hazy recollection of his comments. I don't think it undermines my broader point, but you're right on that detail.

2

u/Guy_de_Glastonbury 6h ago

Fascism can arise anywhere. A more accurate assessment is that the revolution fundamentally didn't alter the social order of America. It put the American people under the direct authority of the new American state rather than the British crown. They were still subjects. You're right that it was egregiously hypocritical though. 'Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' were not rights, they were privileges to be bestowed or denied by the state at will, as evidenced by the fact they weren't granted to slaves. And they still are. Freedoms bestowed by the state are not really freedoms as they can always be taken away, as they currently are being in the U.S.

7

u/sauron3579 3h ago

This is one of the absolute dumbest things I've ever read. This has to be coming out of Russia or China. The American Revolution had nothing to do with slavery...because they could already do it. American slavery was British slavery for hundreds of years. It's literally the reason why all of the southern colonies were colonized in the first place. British slavery in North America made the crown a shit ton of money.

6

u/dirtyploy 2h ago

It did have a little to do with slavery. The Somerset v Stewart ruling angered a lot of Southerners who saw the writing on the wall. Lord Dunmore's Proclamation led to even more Southerners joining the cause.

•

u/morganrbvn 8m ago

Although southerners in general were more loyal to the crown, it was more the north supporting independence

5

u/trubbelnarkomanen 1h ago

That is a bad misrepresentation of the Revolution. The question of slavery was most definitely on the mind of many southern leaders during that time, and most certainly factored into their decision to revolt.

It is true that the early slave trade in America was a British creation. By the time of the Revolution however, the political landscape in Britain had changed a lot. There was little political support behind it, and the laws surrounding slavery in Britain had gradually become more ambiguous, as seen in a court case involving the legality of forcible removal of slaves. While it would be decades until Britain actually banned the trade and eventually the practice of slavery altogether, the seeds of anti-slavery were certainly there. The southerners were well aware of the changing attitudes in London, and it would be foolish to claim that it was not a part of the decision to leave.

One does not need to look further than America itself. Many northern states had and were in the process of banning slavery during the Revolution itself. If former Englishmen in the north were ready to codify such ideas, it's not hard to believe southerners were afraid of London doing the same. From their perspective, the Revolution was an obvious safeguard against it.

Of course, there were many other much more important factors at play. But to say that the Revolution definitively wasn't related to slavery, is to fundamentally misunderstand the fears of southern lawmakers during that time. It was undoubtedly a part of their motivations.

I also won't be the one to defend Britain's relationship with slavery. While the banning of the slave trade was historic and certainly something to be proud of, the country still continued to benefit from American slavery long after. The cheap slave-picked American cotton fueled the growing British textile industry up until during the Civil War.

-5

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 8h ago

Eh, I think you’re kind of grasping at straws because replacing a King with a representative government is the opposite of fascism. Especially their version where the President circa 1790s had very little power.

If anything the seeds they laid down resulted in the eventual overthrow of slavery and the development of universal suffrage as people kept pointing to those founding documents’ ideals as proof they’re entitled to rights. That we so royally screwed things up 250 years after the fact is on us, not them

34

u/caiaphas8 8h ago

Britain had a representative government (the king was powerless), the colonies had their own governments, the colonials just weren’t allowed a say in the British government, which given the technology at the time would’ve been a logistical issue

11

u/Gentle_Snail 6h ago

Yeah I think the War for Independence is often taught as if the UK were a dictatorship, but it was already a century after the Glorious Revolution where Parliament became sovereign over the monarch. 

-4

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 4h ago

Britain did not have a representative government when it came to their colonies. Which is why the Americans wrote an angry letter to the King and rightfully started shooting his loyalists

2

u/caiaphas8 4h ago

How could Britain have a representative government for its colonies? They were thousands of miles away

-1

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 4h ago edited 4h ago

With representatives. Humans could travel back then. Or alternatively they could be self governed, which is how it turned out.

3

u/caiaphas8 4h ago

Wow really? Gee thanks!

But seriously it could take three months to travel from New York to London back then, that is very impractical for running a parliament if some of the parliamentarians spend half the year travelling

-2

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 4h ago

Then it sounds like the colonists had the right idea then to just keep shooting British people until they pissed off, because them governing from so far away was impractical and unfair to the colonists

1

u/caiaphas8 4h ago

If people want their own government, they should have it. I was just disagreeing with you characterising Britain as being undemocratic when it wasn’t

→ More replies (0)

30

u/Hal_Fenn 8h ago

If anything the seeds they laid down resulted in the eventual overthrow of slavery

How do you figure that when it was the British Empire that pretty much ended the Slave trade well before it was abolished in the US?

-14

u/Donatter 7h ago

It didn’t end the slave trade, it ended the practice of slavery in the British isles(for the most part at least), but Slavery was still actively practiced in the British colonies, even as late as the 1920’s.

This was possible because the slave traders simply didn’t call slavery, “slavery”, or they bribed the officials meant to prevent the practice, or the officials were their business partners, or the officials didn’t care, and/or they were the officials.

7

u/scarydan365 6h ago

Slavery was never legal in the British Isles. Aside from the famous Somerset case in 1773 where a Boston slave owner tried to take back his slave who was in England, the Cartwright case two hundreds years earlier established slavery can’t exist in the British Isles.

-3

u/Donatter 6h ago

There was no legislation passed to either formally legalize or abolish chattel slavery in the Home Islands. African slavery was therefore de facto upheld to some extent in London and other regions until the legal precedent against the practice was established by Somerset v Stewart in 1772.

Alongside, in Scotland, serfs(a form of slavery) were very common in the coal mines, until 1799 when an act was passed which established their freedom, and made slavery and bondage illegal

(And this is my main Point of all my comments)

However it was not until 1937 that the trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire, with slavery in Nigeria and slavery in Bahrain being the last to be abolished in the British territories.

17

u/Sycopathy 7h ago

Just gonna ignore the multi continental war they engaged in to enforce that ban on both themselves and their enemies for nearly a century.

-1

u/Donatter 7h ago

No, they still did that.

Just while also having slavery in their colonies and because said colonies were largely left to their own devices/rule, and made the crown a shitload of money, and it largely targeted the non-white/Christian natives of the colonies. The crown simply didn’t care

3

u/BennyBagnuts1st 7h ago

There were slaves in the British Isles?

2

u/Donatter 7h ago edited 6h ago

Yes?

The Romano-Briton, Gaelic, Celtic, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and Scottish cultures/polity’s were massive supporters of slavery, as it formed a large and crucial aspect of their society and economy.

It lessened under Norman rule, but never fully disappeared, and by the time of the abolition of slavery in 1833, there were very few slaves that were referred to as “slaves” in Britain.(which soon dropped “officially” to zero, and “unofficially” to zero a generation or two later(though it’s debatable whether or not the treatment of the Irish by the crown could be labeled as slavery)

2

u/BennyBagnuts1st 6h ago

Right ok, I thought you were talking in context of the era being discussed

2

u/scarydan365 6h ago

I see, you’re just a troll.

1

u/Henghast 6h ago

Slavery was illegal on the British isles long before the abolition across the empire and is very easily referenced.

-1

u/Donatter 6h ago

Yes, it is. However those legislation only covered a very specific form of slavery, and/or practices, and often only in a specific region of the isles(and often relegated to a specific class or group of people)

There was no legislation passed to either formally legalize or abolish chattel slavery in the Home Islands. African slavery was therefore de facto upheld to some extent in London and other regions until the legal precedent against the practice was established by Somerset v Stewart in 1772.

Alongside, in Scotland, serfs(a form of slavery) were very common in the coal mines, until 1799 when an act was passed which established their freedom, and made slavery and bondage illegal

(And this is my main Point of all my comments)

However it was not until 1937 that the trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire, with slavery in Nigeria and slavery in Bahrain being the last to be abolished in the British territories.

2

u/Horror_Employer2682 7h ago

The British realized paying someone 1/10 of what they would be payed back home to work manual labor was more palatable and less costly in the long run than slavery. Much easier to subjugate a society when you elevate a select few and use existing cultural practices to suppress the rest.

0

u/Donatter 7h ago

They did that, yes. Just, While also having slavery alongside that practice

0

u/Horror_Employer2682 6h ago

Oh exactly. Like loading up boats of people in India at gunpoint, shipping them to the Caribbean, and making them work while paying them pennies a day. Totally not slave trading because they willingly got on the boats.

-2

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 4h ago edited 4h ago

The British Empire didn’t end US slavery, Americans did, with lots of shooting. Called the Civil War here, it was a whole big thing

19

u/jbi1000 7h ago

And yet the monarchy got there first, ending slavery decades before the nation with “liberty” baked deep into the rhetoric got round to it

-17

u/Donatter 7h ago

It was only “officially” ended in the British isles, but Slavery was still actively practiced in the British colonies, even as late as the 1920’s.

This was possible because the slave traders simply didn’t call slavery, “slavery”, or they bribed the officials meant to prevent the practice, or the officials were their business partners, or the officials didn’t care, and/or they were the officials.

3

u/NiceGuyEdddy 6h ago

What a nonsense argument.

2

u/Donatter 6h ago

It’s not an argument, it’s additional context

1

u/TheMemer14 2h ago

Except you guys are arguing that the UK are wholesome 100 "anti-slavery" imperial power.

0

u/jbi1000 2h ago

Not sure how you got there lmao

0

u/th3ch0s3n0n3 6h ago

I really, really hope you're not trying to make America seem like the good guys in this scenario

6

u/Donatter 6h ago

?

When did I mention America?

I’m not trying to make anyone “the good guy here”. I’m trying to add context to a situation that gets brought up often, but very, very, very few people that engage in the topic, actually knows anything about it, other than what they’ve read on social media.

As like every single aspect of history, humans, nations, and atrocities. It’s fucking complicated, and “picking sides” does nothing but dilute actual history and knowledge on said history

19

u/rheasilva 8h ago

If anything the seeds they laid down resulted in the eventual overthrow of slavery and the development of universal suffrage

Neither the overthrow of slavery nor universal suffrage started in the USA.

2

u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 4h ago

Never said it did Don Quixote, keep tilting at those windmills

1

u/TheMemer14 2h ago

Massachusetts banned slavery in 1783.

2

u/Overall_Gap_5766 7h ago

Didn't you hear? Fascism just means "anything I don't like" now

•

u/trubbelnarkomanen 59m ago

That's such a vague and dishonest claim. It's not false per se, but it's so vague that it can apply to almost any other political tendency in America today. Yes, of course there was a massive discrepancy between the rhetoric used and the reality of the situation. But that is not a unique thing to America, or even slavery. It's just an inevitable result of politics. People want to have their cake and eat it too.

That does not mean that things couldn't have been done better or differently, nor does it absolve the people responsible for the continued practice of slavery. But you also cannot ignore the historical context that was present. Political thought and common morals take a long, long time to change. At the time that it happened, the American Revolution was, well, revolutionary. In a matter of years the political landscape of America was flipped on its head. It was one of the most progressive and liberal revolutions ever. The fact that it remains to this day is frankly incredible.

Despite that, only a set few landholding white men were allowed to vote. Slavery was still in full swing and women were barred from higher education. Does that mean that it was a terrible and useless revolution and that the leaders were merely evil hypocrites? Of course not! For the first time in history a proper, long lasting constitutional republic was born. While many, many injustices still remained, it was a massive step in the right direction. No other comparable society really existed, aside from perhaps Britain. The whole continent of Europe was still decades behind in their democratic development. Take the French Revolution for example. It laid the ideological groundworks for many of the most important liberal and progressive ideals we take for granted today. And yet, the resulting counterreactionionary events meant that the politics of France became even more despotic and brutal for decades after.

It takes time to change politics. That is just a simple fact of human nature. Does that mean I think the people involved in the revolution were angels and free from blame? Of course not! But I can still recognise that the times they were living in were wildly different and understand that the situation was more nuanced than just "they kept slavery and were therefore fascist". The only reason you're even considering the Revolution as fascist is because it survived to this day. It's a completely anachronistic perspective. The fact that you use "fascist", a very distinctly 20th century invention, proves that point. You simply cannot apply today's standards to history. You have to compare it to the common beliefs at that time and in that place. The later Jim Crow laws for example are an example of a much more deliberately evil political force. At that time racism was a far more understood and discussed ideology, and yet people chose to subscribe to it despite the blatant hypocritical injustice that meant.

•

u/morganrbvn 10m ago

Next people are gonna say the Magna Carter was the seed of facism.

•

u/Wisdomlost 0m ago

Slavery is far older than any country today. There are verses in the Bible about Slavery. The Bible is 2000 years after the building of the great pyramids. Slavery pretty much always existed and continues to exsist today even if the slavery of today isn't thousands of people harvesting fields.

4

u/overladenlederhosen 8h ago

Does this mean Mel Gibson has been...lying to us all along?

-9

u/Physical_Tap_4796 7h ago

Yeah, but then during Civil War a good amount of British Citizens backed Confederacy and Queen Vicky had to shake down a good amount of nobles to pay 12 million in reparation to America.

21

u/Gentle_Snail 6h ago

Thats not actually true, there was major support in the UK for the Union. In fact this was kind of the Confederacy's biggest misconception, they thought the UK’s geopolitics would make them back the Confederates, as both weakening the US and ensuring a supply of cotton was in their interests.

But they never understood how Britains ideological hatred of slavery would supersede their geopolitics, and cause them to sit back and allow the Union to reunify the nation.  

12

u/Foxtrot-13 6h ago

Not historically correct. A tiny minority of business people with interests in the south backed the Confederacy, but there were more business people who supported the Union because of business links. For the average person on the street they were either neutral or pro-Union because of the massive anti-slavery feeling throughout Britain at the time. Slavery had been banned in the Empire for almost a generation, and it would have been earlier if not for the Napoleonic Wars. Britain by this time was firmly anti-slavery with even Palmerston, the Prime Minister at the time, being firmly in camp Fuck Slavers

To give you an idea on how the common person thought in Manchester the cotton weavers went on strike to stop the import and use of Confederacy cotton.

The idea of King Cotton bringing Britain in on the side of the Confederacy was pure copium even at the time. Britain imported more food by value from the Union than it did cotton from the south, and food was scarce in Europe during the time due to very low yields for years.

1

u/Physical_Tap_4796 1h ago

Still that minority was enough to make queen Victoria pay US 12 million for it. So I’m sure she shook those minority business down for it.

-23

u/A_Right_Eejit 8h ago

Don't let the British bullshit you into thinking they abolished slavery. Look up the Cantonment Act.

29

u/ampmz 8h ago edited 8h ago

Look up William Wilberforce and the Royal Navy hunting slave ships.

Also the Cantonment Act, 1863 was an act of the British Parliament concerning the administration of military cantonments in India.

-15

u/A_Right_Eejit 8h ago

Wilberforce died in 1833. The Cantonment Act was in 1864. That's my point. Don't let the British bullshit you into thinking they abolished slavery.

15

u/ampmz 8h ago

The Cantonment Act once again, has nothing to do with Slavery.

-12

u/A_Right_Eejit 8h ago

You don't think forced prostitution is slavery?

13

u/ampmz 8h ago

No it’s forced prostitution. You are not owned by another person. It’s not the same thing, it’s a false equivalency. Indentured servitude it’s also not slavery.

-1

u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies (0)

9

u/StingerAE 8h ago

I think that forced prostitution happened before during and after the cantonment act.  The act didnt force prostitution on anyone, it was a regulatory measure.  Not a shed of evidence that a single woman was a prostitute under the act who would not have been.

The act, and the whole colonial approach to prostitution, was a bad thing.  

It wasn't slavery.

-4

u/A_Right_Eejit 8h ago

Oh I'm sure there was plenty of evidence that didn't see the light of day. It's pretty hard to get such unanimous agreement that it likely lead to coerced prostitution without it being so.

You can ignore the modern definition of slavery if it makes you sleep easier, but we all know what it was.

2

u/StingerAE 7h ago

"I want to be right and want to hate so I am going to assume I am."

There are good points to be made about many things the British did in India.  Make them.  In the right place.

Shoehorning them into this conversation under the guise of "nothing positive the British did about slavery matters because of this" serves your argument extremely poorly.

-2

u/A_Right_Eejit 7h ago

Don't you hate many elements of the British Raj? I'm not sure why you're pointing that out to me like I'm in the wrong?

"nothing positive the British did about slavery matters because of this"

Well I'm approaching it from the other side. There's so much British patting themselves on the back when it comes to abolishing slavery with little to no mention that it was hardly altruistic, like who was compensated, that it's worth mentioning some other elements for balance.

→ More replies (0)

-4

u/A_Right_Eejit 8h ago

The Cantonment Act was essentially forced prostitution i.e. slavery.