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Also a brutal slaver, torturer, and quite frankly a terrorist. This isn’t news. But yeah, ‘our precious history’. This country has a lot of growing up to do. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6467417.stm https://twitter.com/militaryhistori/status/1327911190337564673
Nobody will forget Picton’s military performance. There are hundreds of books written on the campaigns he participated in. But the statue, or the museum curator’s view that his behaviour in Trinidad is a ‘small stain’ on his reputation, that’s a real problem for UK history.
There’s some sorely needed introspection that has to happen. Putting up statues to murderers, executioners, slavers and torturers on the basis that they aced it as generals is something that dictatorships do. Democracies should look elsewhere for their heroes.
Also, before anyone does it, spare me the ‘Man of his times’ crap. He was prosecuted for torture and had to fine slave owners (!) who did not want to implement his inhuman statutes. There’s a place for the statue though - in a curriculum on flawed remembering. @KimAtiWagner
Fascinating read here https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/112/3/712/27538
Picton did this not just because he obviously was an inhuman sadist, but also because he had heavily invested (UKP80-100,000 according to himself) in the slave economy of Trinidad and presumably considered these actions would further his own pecuniary interest.
