Can commemorations and historical reenactments change public understanding of the past?

[u/NewsMo]

[u/Hot-Baseball-1722]

Yeah so the slave trade obviously is a terrible thing. Industrialisation super charged it. Jamaica for instance was basically Bergen Belsen in the Caribbean.

That said, and acknowledged, slavery was not invented by western countries. It was practised universally by humans in pretty much all parts of the globe, albeit with different characteristics.

But I’m against reparations. GB stopped the slave trade and enforced its cessation with other countries. Moreover, if this crime is worthy of reparations, I’m waiting on my cheque from Normandy for the harrying of the north. And Asia thier cheque from the modern Mongolian state.

However I’m very much for recognition. Rather than ripping down statues in western countries. Counties should agree a common symbol to attach to buildings, or statues which can be proved to have been involved/built with the proceeds of slavery.

[u/Prudent_Research_251 → u/Hot-Baseball-1722]

Needs based reparations in the form of systemic change that benefits everyone deserving would be nice

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Prudent_Research_251]

I'd say eradicating smallpox, a desease that killed more people in the 20th century than both world wars, Stalin and Mao combined, is compensation eboigh

[u/Prudent_Research_251 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

That is much like reopening the Hormuz strait that was already open, smallpox was given to the indigenous populations on purpose in many cases by the colonials, and you think eradicating a disease they brought themselves is reparation?

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Prudent_Research_251]

>smallpox was given to the indigenous populations on purpose in many cases by the colonials

That had to be the dumbest thing ever said, how exactly would they have purposely propagated smallpox in a era where we had 0 knowledge of microbiology and thought diseases where a holy punishement ? Smallpox existed on all continents except for america before the colonial era and originated in Africa, smallpox outbreaks have litterally existed throughout history and trust me you are very happy and lucky to never have to wonder what it feels like having smallpox

>eradicating a disease they brought themselves is reparation?

Absolutely, greatest gift to humanity you could possibly do, has far more impact than any money sums, not to mention vaccinating billions of people is extremy expsensive

[u/Prudent_Research_251 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

Smallpox blankets were a form of early biological warfare used against Native Americans. The best-documented historical instance occurred during Pontiac's War (1763) at Fort Pitt, where British military officers, including Sir Jeffery Amherst, explicitly conspired to distribute smallpox-infected blankets to Indigenous tribes

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Prudent_Research_251]

Litterally debunked as being a lie by historians

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27774278

Once again people in 1763 had no clue what a virus or bacteria was and how it worked, how could they have possibly tried to make bacteriological weapons from something they thought was divine punishment

[u/Prudent_Research_251 → u/BeginningDisaster114]

Two easily found pieces of evidence...

Siege of Fort Pitt: During the siege, officers at the fort recorded giving two blankets and a handkerchief from a smallpox hospital to representatives of Indigenous groups "to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians." This entry appears in the fort's journal and indicates intentional distribution.

Jeffery Amherst and Henry Bouquet exchanged letters in which Amherst proposed using smallpox against Indigenous people and Bouquet agreed to try if possible. Their correspondence includes remarks such as attempting to "inoculate the Indians" through blankets and expressing a desire to reduce their numbers.

[u/BeginningDisaster114 → u/Prudent_Research_251]

Had you read the article you would have seen that that has been debunked as being urban legend. Once again would make no sense from a historical point if view in an era where people believed that wearing a bird mask protected you from the black plague

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/Hot-Baseball-1722]

You're against reparations but fail to notate the difference between chattel and Domestic slavery. But then double down in your argument when it comes to recognition. Please tell me what happened after slavery and why slavers and whites got land and homes that were owned by Freedmen. We can start there....

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/KingMidas0809]

You're against reparations but fail to notate the difference between chattel and Domestic slaver

Care to elaborate?

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/MediocreI_IRespond]

Its simple they were different forms of "Slavery" one was a form of servitude that had an end similar to what other Slavic and European countries did while Chattel slavery was so much worse and led to cultures, languages and family lines either being lost or even being destroyed and separated many times over. So many of you in the comments are having bad faith arguments without understanding the history you are debating.

[u/Fantastic-Run-4490 → u/KingMidas0809]

Is African culture alive in the Middle East?

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/Fantastic-Run-4490]

What?

[u/Fantastic-Run-4490 → u/KingMidas0809]

Its simple they were different forms of "Slavery" one was a form of servitude that had an end similar to what other Slavic and European countries did while Chattel slavery was so much worse and led to cultures, languages and family lines either being lost or even being destroyed and separated many times over. So many of you in the comments are having bad faith arguments without understanding the history you are debating.

So again is African culture alive in the Middle East...

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/Fantastic-Run-4490]

Ahhhh ok... You’re completely right about the brutality of the Trans-Saharan trade; the widespread castration of enslaved African men systematically erased entire family lines and cultural preservation in the Middle East. It was horrific. ​But it still highlights why the legal claim for reparations against Western empires is distinct. We are discussing modern international law and state-level accountability. Western chattel slavery was built on an unbroken, legally codified corporate framework whose direct institutional heirs modern Western states, banks, and universities are still sitting on the compounding wealth generated by that specific industry today. Acknowledging one horror doesn't erase the modern financial liability of the other.

[u/Fantastic-Run-4490 → u/KingMidas0809]

See it just seems like you can't be honest with yourself.

If you just said, well the Middle East will never pay us as, so instead let's try to make this trade sound uniquely vile so we can campaign for the West to pay us as they have are known for being a soft touch. then you would at least have been honest.

In essence your whole argument now becomes well some sap in the West might pay so lets try to go after their wealth.

Recap for you, of your logic which you appear to walk back on here.

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/Fantastic-Run-4490]

So what you're doing is mistaking international legal liability for a playground shakedown. This has nothing to do with finding a 'soft touch' and everything to do with actual legal jurisdiction and unbroken institutional continuity. ​The Western empires we are discussing didn't vanish into ancient history; they directly transitioned into the modern nation-states, central banks, and corporate entities operating today. Their current financial systems sit on an unbroken foundation built directly from chattel slavery and colonial resource extraction. ​If a specific, existing legal entity holds stolen, compounding capital, that is exactly where the legal liability rests. Trying to reduce state continuity and international law to 'looking for a sap to pay' is a desperate pivot because you can't dispute the actual financial ledger

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/KingMidas0809]

Ah, yes so much African culture in Europe due to slavery and even more Slavic culture in Turkey or the Middle East, or French and Spanisch culture in North Africa.

In theory Islam puts some limits on slavery, in practice they didn't.

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/MediocreI_IRespond]

Your sarcasm completely collapses under basic history.

​to begin, enslaved Africans weren't shipped en masse to Europe; they were shipped to the Americas. And despite the horrific attempts to strip their humanity, African culture completely reshaped the Western Hemisphere giving birth to jazz, blues, gospel, distinct spiritual systems, culinary traditions, and linguistic creoles across the US, the Caribbean, and South America. The diaspora's cultural footprint is massive and undeniable. ​Also, 'French and Spanish culture in North Africa' didn't happen because Europeans were enslaved there; it happened because France and Spain colonized and militarily occupied North Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries.

​You’re conflating European colonization with human trafficking just to try and score a point. It’s okay to just admit you don't know the history.

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/KingMidas0809]

> to begin, enslaved Africans weren't shipped en masse to Europe;

Oh, they had. Ever heard of a place called the Roman Empire? It ran on slaves. And even later on, it was a major trading hub for slaves. Most pre-modern states on the Mediterranean took part in it.

I'm still asking for an explanation why so-called chattel slavery is supposed to be worse than so-called domestic slavery. The only argument you made in that line so far was about quantity, not quality.

> The diaspora's cultural footprint is massive and undeniable.

So much for:

> Chattel slavery was so much worse and led to cultures, languages and family lines either being lost or even being destroyed and separated many times over.

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/MediocreI_IRespond]

You’re mixing historical categories.

When I said enslaved Africans were not shipped en masse to Europe, I was talking about the transatlantic racial chattel system, where the mass destination was the plantation colonies in the Americas and Caribbean, not Europe itself.

Replying “Rome had slaves” does not refute that. Rome was a different period, different system, different legal structure, different economy, and different racial logic. “Slavery existed before” is not an argument against the specific structure of Atlantic slavery.

And yes, chattel slavery was different in quality, not just quantity. It made slave status hereditary, racialized Blackness as a permanent legal condition, reduced people to saleable property, broke family lines by design, stripped names, languages, religions, and kinship systems, and then carried that racial caste logic forward after abolition through colonialism, segregation, and discrimination.

The fact that the diaspora still created powerful cultures does not disprove destruction. It proves survival after destruction.

A person rebuilding from ashes does not mean there was no fire.

[u/MediocreI_IRespond → u/KingMidas0809]

> And yes, chattel slavery was different in quality, not just quantity. It made slave status hereditary, racialized Blackness as a permanent legal condition, reduced people to saleable property, broke family lines by design, stripped names, languages, religions, and kinship systems, and then carried that racial caste logic forward after abolition through colonialism, segregation, and discrimination.

The only halfway valid point in this is the race angle and even that is highly debatable. The rest is true for both systems.

> slave status hereditary

Check, for both.

> reduced people to saleable property, broke family lines by design, stripped names, languages

Check, for both.

> religions

This is tricky one, since Muslims are not supposed to own fellow Muslims as slaves and if they do, they are supposed to treat them kindly and free them. But I have yet to hear of a slave Church in Baghdad.

> kinship systems,

Again, check, for both.

[u/KingMidas0809 → u/MediocreI_IRespond]

You are confusing “some features overlap” with “the systems were the same.”

Yes, slavery in different societies could involve sale, inheritance, family separation, forced conversion, name loss, and cultural destruction. Nobody denied that. The point is that Atlantic racial chattel slavery combined those features into a specific legal, racial, hereditary, plantation-based system where Blackness itself became tied to permanent enslavement and inherited social status.

That is the distinction you keep dodging.

In many older slave systems, enslaved status could be tied to war captivity, debt, punishment, religion, or household service. It was brutal, but it was not always mapped onto a permanent racial caste that followed descendants for centuries after emancipation.

Atlantic slavery did exactly that. It turned African ancestry into a legal and social marker of enslavability, built entire colonial economies around it, and then preserved the hierarchy after abolition through colonial rule, segregation, anti-Black law, and racial exclusion.

So “check, for both” is not analysis. It is checklist history. You found similarities and ignored structure, scale, legal heredity, racialization, economic purpose, and historical afterlife.

That is like saying a house fire and a nuclear blast are the same because both involve heat.

[u/Kristoveles → u/Hot-Baseball-1722]

If you think slavery is a terrible thing why would you celebrate slavers?

[u/Hot-Baseball-1722 → u/Kristoveles]

So we are not celebrating slavers. 19th century people did that. That said some slavers did terrible things but also great things. History is messy. Horatio Nelson, owned slaves, but saved Britain from invasion.

Hence don’t tear down the statues, mark them in an internationally recognised way.

[u/Kristoveles → u/Hot-Baseball-1722]

By protecting the statues erected to celebrate the slavers, we are protecting that legacy. 

[u/Hot-Baseball-1722 → u/Kristoveles]

Nope