One of the most frequently repeated claims in the reparations debate is that the British Empire was built on slavery, that the wealth generated by enslaved labour funded British industrial and imperial expansion, and that Britain’s position as a world power was therefore built on the exploitation of African people. This claim is central to the moral case for reparations: if Britain’s prosperity traces directly to slavery, then current British wealth is in some sense the proceeds of a crime that has never been paid for.
The claim has a kernel of truth. Slavery did generate wealth. Some of that wealth did flow into British investment. The plantation economy did contribute to British capital formation. These things are true and should be acknowledged.
What is not true is the strong version of the claim: that without slavery there would have been no British Industrial Revolution, no British Empire, and no British global dominance. That version does not survive serious historical scrutiny. The actual drivers of British power, examined in the pages of this section, were largely independent of the slave trade. And the clearest empirical evidence for this is the fact that British imperial power expanded rapidly after slavery was abolished, not before.
