Gold, Silver & Slaves

 The documentary Gold, Silver & Slaves is about the slave trade and the exportation of the slaves. Great Britain leads the world in the human exportation of human cargo. It was the African kings who would sell their own people to the Europeans. They sold over 12 million people to the Europeans. Bristol England was the main port that the ships of the slave trade would travel from. Many people in Bristol do not want the city to be remembered by their past. They sweep it all under the carpet like it did not even happen. The city officials wanted to burry that history and not let the past haunt the city. It is crazy to think that people would try and forget what happened. Especially in the city that was the main hub for all the ships and slave traders in Europe. “The city authorities have long resisted efforts, especially by the black communities to mark its slave-trading past” (Timeline-World History Documentaries, Gold, Silver & Slaves). The city is said to have enslaved over 16,050 Africans in only one year. Some individuals want everyone to look back and confront the shared past of the city rather than not remember it at all. It seems that Britain is starting to wake up and confront its slave-trading history instead of leaving it in the past. I believe that it is good that the country and city are finally starting to realize that they must face the past. If they do not confront the past then a whole part of the history of the city and country will be disappeared and possibly forgotten.  

Comments

  1. Lauren RobinsonOctober 4, 2020 at 6:59 PM

    My immediate reaction to this documentary was horror how the fact slavery was the main source of income for Africa and the kings who would sell there own people only cared about the profit and not their people. But taking a step back this was an entirely different time in humankind. There was not an establishment of rules but only greed for power and a thirst for wealth that innocents fell victim to and died or were treated as creatures.

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