THE allegations by Meghan Markle that a member of the royal family made racist comments about her child shine a light on a chapter of “royal” history that The Firm would rather forget: their association and profiting from the slave trade.
The slave trade was pioneered under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. She allowed John Hawkins to kidnap slaves from Africa and sell them in the Caribbean. The profits were tremendous.
It was under Charles II that the Crown financed the African slave trade. The royal family were owners of The Royal Gambia Company, the Royal Adventurers Company and the Royal African Company.
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The restored Stuart dynasty saw slavery as a way to overtake the Dutch as the undisputed masters of the Atlantic Triangle.
The Company of Royal Adventures was given a monopoly over most of the west coast of Africa. This was to last 1000 years. Charles allowed the loan of several ships for the venture. For this, Charles was given two-thirds of all gold mines expropriated. This gave the Crown financial independence from parliament.
The Treaty of Utrecht (which ceded Gibraltar to the UK) also gave Britain the monopoly over the Atlantic slave trade. The fortunes made from this human misery directly benefit the Windsor family today.
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However, the culpability of the ruling class who made their fortunes from chattel slavery is being obscured. A campaign is taking place to try to tarnish the whole population of Scotland and the rest of the UK with collective guilt for slavery.
Collective guilt was rejected as a concept at Nuremberg.
“Identity politics” repudiates that racism is a device to split workers in order to maintain rule by the capitalist class. Identity politics seeks to say it is the fault of “white people” and “white privilege”, It opposes a united struggle of workers against capitalism and class exploitation. Instead, it favours BAME in corporate management, in charge of the exploitation.
Identity politics is designed to subordinate black workers to the self-seeking strivings for social advancement of its middle-class proponents. It ultimately seeks to keep the status quo in place.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
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