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White-washing: a thread. I found this 1991 book in our school library. I love London, and I’m into history, so I brought it home. /1
Quite apart from its unsuitability in terms of language, design and text density for a primary school readership, this book breathtakingly glosses over the reason London became so wealthy. /2
“During the course of the 18th century, city merchants, shipowners and bankers gained large fortunes from maritime trade and the acquisition of new colonies in North America, the West Indies, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Africa” /3
“Acquisition of colonies”?! Or violently occupying places where fortunes could be made by exploiting and murdering local people? /4
“Maritime trade”? Come on! It was the Atlantic triangle of the slave trade bringing London (and Bristol, and Liverpool) their sugar, tobacco - and unimaginable wealth. /5
“Many aristocrats enjoyed rich pickings from investments in joint-stock companies, banks, insurance companies and overseas commerce” /6
- which ALL involved trafficking African people into slavery. And establishing and developing huge apparatus to sustain the slave trade. Overseas commerce in the C18 WAS the slave trade. /7
(And of course many aristocrats are *still* enjoying these rich pickings. Not least by owning huge areas of London - the Portland, Grosvenor, Cavendish and Bedford estates to start with.) /8
The narrator breathlessly continues: “large fortunes made out of trading ventures and commercial activities established many new families among the residents of fine houses in Mayfair and rapidly expanding estates north of Oxford Street” /9
So pleased about the fine houses! Built from the money made from the “commercial activities” of enslavement. But look at that fine portico! /10
And also great to know that our current status within global capitalism(such as it is) is rooted squarely in those “trading ventures”: /11
“The expansion of the Bank of England, the opening of the new Stock Exchange, the founding of many private banks, the establishment of almost all the leading insurance companies and a consolidation of the wealth of the livery companies... /12
“... secured the pre-eminence of the City among financial capitals at the beginning of the 19th century”. /13
And of course the fortunes made from the enslaved plantation workers in the colonies in the West Indies fuelled the growth of the British Empire during the C19. /14
The rulers of which then invaded, colonised, exploited and enslaved even more people from pretty much every continent of the world. /15
So my point is - language is important. Words mask or reveal. There’s no room in our schools for books like this presented as ‘non fiction’ /16
They are, however, useful artefacts when trying to explain how we ever got to the point where removing statues of slave-traders, and removing their names from our streets is seen as controversial. /17
Britain didn’t ‘acquire’ land. Territories didn’t ‘fall into British hands’. We invaded. We took over. We enslaved. We enriched the rich. We exploited the world’s people. We exploited our own poor. /18
We need a different version of history in school. This book isn’t going back in our library. /19
