A simple timeline makes clear how misleading the standard reparations narrative is about the origins and context of the Atlantic slave trade.
Slavery existed across Africa for at least two thousand years before European contact. The trans-Saharan slave trade, moving enslaved Africans north to Arab markets, was established by at least the seventh century AD and would continue for over a thousand years.
Portugal began exploring the West African coast in the early fifteenth century. The first Portuguese slave trading voyage from West Africa dates to around 1441. For the next 150 years, Portugal dominated the Atlantic slave trade almost entirely.
Spain became a significant player in the sixteenth century, primarily as a consumer of enslaved labour in its American colonies. The Dutch entered the trade in the early seventeenth century. Britain and France became major participants only in the mid to late seventeenth century.
Britain passed the Slave Trade Act in 1807, becoming the first major slave-trading nation to abolish the trade. The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron began active suppression of the trade from 1808. By 1833, the Abolition of Slavery Act freed enslaved people across the British Empire.
The Atlantic slave trade in total operated from roughly 1441 to the 1860s, a period of around 420 years. Britain was an active participant for approximately 150 of those years, roughly a third of the total period. Portugal was active for nearly the full duration. The Arab trans-Saharan trade had been running for over 800 years before the Atlantic trade began, and continued for decades after Britain abolished it.
This timeline does not excuse British participation. But it does place it in a context that the reparations campaign consistently refuses to acknowledge.
