# Which is the most evil episode in British history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2010, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444 "2010-09-29T05:02:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/41 "2010-09-29T16:22:53Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t know that I’d exactly call the Boers a “colonial power”. Of course they were a colonial power. They were a minority of foreigners ruling over, and taking land from, an indigenous majority. How were they _not_ a colonial power? > [@](#): > > In fact, they were fleeing British rule of the Cape. No-one said they were British colonials. They were originally Dutch colonists, then they were their own colonists. But colonists they were. And to be specific, they weren’t fleeing British rule so much as they were fleeing the Emancipation Act of 1833 and the Equal Rights for Free Persons of Colour order of 1828. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/42 "2010-09-29T16:25:44Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > ^ > Which the Royal Navy managed to do a lot to stop. Yup. One might point to the abolition of the slave trade as one of the brighter moments in British history - as far as I know, it went directly against their self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/43 "2010-09-29T16:37:14Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Yup. One might point to the abolition of the slave trade as one of the brighter moments in British history - as far as I know, it went directly against their self-interest. Not really as to the self-interest thing. I think by then British industry (with the exception of the slave trading industry, of course) no longer viewed slavery as beneficial. Britain’s heavy involvement in slave trading was a very bad thing, and its abolition of the slave trade a good thing. I think it is important to draw a distinction between acts that are born of evil intent - such as some of the colonial massacres, and the slave trade, which were born of racial supremact - and those which had noble or neutral intent, but which are argued to have had evil consequences - such as certain aspects of the bombing campaign against Germany. On a lot of levels, Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in August 1914 caused incredibly bad consequences, but I don’t think it comes under the heading of evil acts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/44 "2010-09-29T16:48:12Z")
> [@villa](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > Yup. One might point to the abolition of the slave trade as one of the brighter moments in British history - as far as I know, it went directly against their self-interest. > > Not really as to the self-interest thing. I think by then British industry (with the exception of the slave trading industry, of course) no longer viewed slavery as beneficial. In [_The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2,_](http://www.larrygonick.com/html/pub/books/his6.html) Larry Gonick describes the British East India Company’s establishment of a lucrative opium-import trade in China, and then concludes, “And now you know how Britain could afford to abolish slavery!” ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/45 "2010-09-29T16:49:45Z")
Yeah, the Opium Wars don’t exactly instill national pride. We don’t teach a lot about them in school. Not that I think national pride has any value, however. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/46 "2010-09-29T16:59:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’m not expert on British history, but the extermination of the Tasmanians was pretty evil. They were systematically hunted down until none were left; isolated for 10,000 years from the rest of humanity only to be obliterated once found by people who made tobacco pouches out of their skin. Very Nazi-like, except more successful. Not quite. For the first few decades after the English arrived in Tasmania, there were occasional skirmishes between natives and colonists, but no organized violence. By the 1820’s, as the English were pushing into the interior, conflict waqs becoming more and more frequent, and the colonists appealed to George Arthur, the notorious governor of Tasmania to do something about it. Arthur’s plan was to set up a reservation on the Flinder Island (on the south coast of Tasmania) and move the aborigines there by force. To do this, amazingly enough, he had soldiers and armed colonists form a line all the way across the island and march, roughly from southwest to northeast, supposedly covering every inch of Tasmania and capturing all the aborigines along the way. This plan didn’t work, as with the exception of an elderly cripple, the aborigines simply slipped past the line. Violence continued until the English abandoned the policy of forced relocation. George Robinson, a Methodist missionary, eventually moved in with the aborigines, learned there language, and convinced them to move to Flinders Island. However, due to their high susceptibility to disease, they eventually died out in the late 19th century. All this taken from [The Fatal Shore](http://books.google.com/books?id=siN3wsyZaFEC&q=The+Fatal+Shore&dq=The+Fatal+Shore&hl=en&ei=am6jTOftM8L58Aarxc3kCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA), for those who need a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/47 "2010-09-29T17:06:05Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > > I don’t know that I’d exactly call the Boers a “colonial power”. > > Of course they were a colonial power. They were a minority of foreigners ruling over, and taking land from, an indigenous majority. How were they _not_ a colonial power?[ They weren’t a colonial power because they weren’t. The Trekboers weren’t acting on behalf of anybody else. They were migrating, and the migration led to them taking over the lands of the people they were migrating into, but that doesn’t make them a colonial power. When the Visigoths moved into Spain and took the lands of the Romano-Celts there, or the Xhosa moved into the Eastern Cape and took the lands of the Khoi-san there, were they colonial powers? They were migrating peoples. Just because one group takes land from another or rules over another doesn’t make the ruling group a colonial power. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/48 "2010-09-29T18:35:31Z")
There’ve been a few references to the Boer War, but I haven’t yet seen any to large-scale use of concentration camps - a British innovation. This was part of the “scorched earth” policy of the British during the guerrilla phase of the war, in which large areas were “swept clean” of Boers, whose homesteads, farms and crops were burned and who were herded into the camps where they lived in squalor. _“The conditions in the camps were very unhealthy and the food rations were meager. The wives and children of men who were still fighting were given smaller rations than others. The poor diet and inadequate hygiene led to endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths — a report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 22,074 were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about 25% of the Boer inmates and 12% of the black African ones died (although recent research suggests that the black African deaths were underestimated and may have actually been around 20,000).”_ There were protests over this policy in Britain, but not enough to prevent the tragedy. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > But one category in which I am not up to speed is the single most evil episode in British history. I might proffer an example, but considering I am ceaselessly amazed at the depth of knowledge displayed here on the 'dope I dare not, lest I appear (more) foolish. No! What say ye? The setup here is hard to resist, but I remind myself that this is not the correct forum for obvious rejoinders. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/49 "2010-09-29T18:42:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > > [@villa](#): > > > > Not really as to the self-interest thing. I think by then British industry (with the exception of the slave trading industry, of course) no longer viewed slavery as beneficial. > > In [_The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2,_](http://www.larrygonick.com/html/pub/books/his6.html) Larry Gonick describes the British East India Company’s establishment of a lucrative opium-import trade in China, and then concludes, “And now you know how Britain could afford to abolish slavery!” For a more practicla argument, the slave-trade was vastly more helpful to their rivals in the Americas. Weakening or stopping it weakened commercial rivals of Britain, as well as their continental militaries. It hurt Britain almost not at all, and they caluclated that British posessions in the Caribbean would fare better than the Spanish and Portuguese without slave trading. Not that idealistic motives were absent, mind you - but it wasn’t just their niceness coming to the fore. Truth be told, the English (and we’re mostly talking about English people here, with some Welsh or Scots thrown in on the side) are capabel of being extremely nice much fo the time. But they have a bad habit of being very shortsighted, and historically have had an odd practice of almost forgetting their neighbors are human beings. They are Affably Evil, but still calable of very evil actions. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/50 "2010-09-29T19:40:39Z")
> [@villa](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > Yup. One might point to the abolition of the slave trade as one of the brighter moments in British history - as far as I know, it went directly against their self-interest. > > Not really as to the self-interest thing. I think by then British industry (with the exception of the slave trading industry, of course) no longer viewed slavery as beneficial. I don’t agree - slavery was mostly used by the Brits to make sugar production in places like Jamaca profitable. That’s what it was used for in the past. Why would that cease to be so? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/51 "2010-09-29T19:43:25Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Truth be told, the English (and we’re mostly talking about English people here, with some Welsh or Scots thrown in on the side) are capabel of being extremely nice much fo the time. But they have a bad habit of being very shortsighted, and historically have had an odd practice of almost forgetting their neighbors are human beings. They are Affably Evil, but still calable of very evil actions. From [_The Lion and the Unicorn,_](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part14) by George Orwell (1941): > [@](#): > > The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as ‘decadence’ or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class. Successive wars have shaken it but not destroyed it. Well within living memory it was common for ‘the redcoats’ to be booed at in the streets and for the landlords of respectable public houses to refuse to allow soldiers on the premises. In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military ‘glory’, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them. In the last war the songs which the soldiers made up and sang of their own accord were not vengeful but humorous and mock-defeatist [Note, below]. The only enemy they ever named was the sergeant-major. > > \ > > The reason why the English anti-militarism disgusts foreign observers is that it ignores the existence of the British Empire. It looks like sheer hypocrisy. After all, the English have absorbed a quarter of the earth and held on to it by means of a huge navy. How dare they then turn round and say that war is wicked? > > It is quite true that the English are hypocritical about their Empire. In the working class this hypocrisy takes the form of not knowing that the Empire exists. But their dislike of standing armies is a perfectly sound instinct. A navy employs comparatively few people, and it is an external weapon which cannot affect home politics directly. Military dictatorships exist everywhere, but there is no such thing as a naval dictatorship. What English people of nearly all classes loathe from the bottom of their hearts is the swaggering officer type, the jingle of spurs and the crash of boots. Decades before Hitler was ever heard of, the word ‘Prussian’ had much the same significance in England as ‘Nazi’ has today. So deep does this feeling go that for a hundred years past the officers of the British army, in peace time, have always worn civilian clothes when off duty. > > \ > > And yet the gentleness of English civilization is mixed up with barbarities and anachronisms. Our criminal law is as out-of-date as the muskets in the Tower. Over against the Nazi Storm Trooper you have got to set that typically English figure, the hanging judge, some gouty old bully with his mind rooted in the nineteenth century, handing out savage sentences. In England people are still hanged by the neck and flogged with the cat o’ nine tails. Both of these punishments are obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them (and Dartmoor, and Borstal) almost as they accept the weather. They are part of ‘the law’, which is assumed to be unalterable. > > Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate INCORRUPTIBLE. > > It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like ‘They can’t run me in; I haven’t done anything wrong’, or ‘They can’t do that; it’s against the law’, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney’s WALLS HAVE MOUTHS or Jim Phelan’s JAIL JOURNEY, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a ‘miscarriage of British justice’. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory. > > An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is ‘just the same as’ or ‘just as bad as’ totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct, national life is different because of them. In proof of which, look about you. Where are the rubber truncheons, where is the castor oil? The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays there corruption cannot go beyond a certain point. The English electoral system, for instance, is an all but open fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class. But until some deep change has occurred in the public mind, it cannot become COMPLETELY corrupt. You do not arrive at the polling booth to find men with revolvers telling you which way to vote, nor are the votes miscounted, nor is there any direct bribery. Even hypocrisy is a powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig, whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe, is one of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape. > > \ > > England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control–that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/52 "2010-09-29T20:40:00Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@villa](#): > > > > Not really as to the self-interest thing. I think by then British industry (with the exception of the slave trading industry, of course) no longer viewed slavery as beneficial. > > I don’t agree - slavery was mostly used by the Brits to make sugar production in places like Jamaca profitable. That’s what it was used for in the past. Why would that cease to be so? Sorry - I didn’t intend to mean that no other industries other than the slave trading industry saw slavery as beneficial (though that is the way it reads because of my ineptness). I meant that industry as a whole had evolved to the point that dominant forces within it were not beholden to slavery as they had been. Hence there wasn’t the opposition to abolishing the trade that existed earlier. And **smiling bandit** , before his went on his ludicrous racist (or nationalistic, or xenophobic or whatever) tirade, makes a good point about slavery being comparatively beneficial to England’s enemies. Hey, even a blind squirrel, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/53 "2010-09-30T07:06:38Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > The Spanish Inquisition? I almost expect it. I’m curious, other than the Monthy Python reference, do you really think that’s the worst thing ever to happen in Spanish history? Or was the joke too evident to let it pass you by? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/54 "2010-09-30T08:06:42Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Truth be told, the English (and we’re mostly talking about English people here, with some Welsh or Scots thrown in on the side) are capabel of being extremely nice much fo the time. But they have a bad habit of being very shortsighted, and historically have had an odd practice of almost forgetting their neighbors are human beings. They are Affably Evil, but still calable of very evil actions. A criticism you could pretty much apply to any nation on earth. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/55 "2010-09-30T13:12:25Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > [@MrDibble](#): > > > > Of course they were a colonial power. They were a minority of foreigners ruling over, and taking land from, an indigenous majority. How were they _not_ a colonial power?[ > > They weren’t a colonial power because they weren’t. The Trekboers weren’t acting on behalf of anybody else. They were migrating, and the migration led to them taking over the lands of the people they were migrating into, but that doesn’t make them a colonial power. Baah. By this measure, the American Western pioneers weren’t colonialist either. They weren’t anyone’s _colonies_, no, but they were colonialist, in spirit and in deed. > [@](#): > > Just because one group takes land from another or rules over another doesn’t make the ruling group a colonial power. It does when it is a clear continuation of a trend that has its roots in a colony. The Boer republics were established by breakaway Europeans who formed their own governments. This makes them just as much a colonial power as, say, Americans were when they travelled into their hinterland. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/56 "2010-09-30T13:45:45Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > > > The Spanish Inquisition? I almost expect it. > > I’m curious, other than the Monthy Python reference, do you really think that’s the worst thing ever to happen in Spanish history? Or was the joke too evident to let it pass you by? Hmm . . . Well, the expulsion of Jews and Muslims in 1492 definitely was **one of** the worst things ever to happen in Spanish history – bad for the exiles, bad for Spain. Whether it compares with the Spanish Civil War is debatable. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/57 "2010-09-30T14:25:09Z")
> [@villa](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > I don’t agree - slavery was mostly used by the Brits to make sugar production in places like Jamaca profitable. That’s what it was used for in the past. Why would that cease to be so? > > Sorry - I didn’t intend to mean that no other industries other than the slave trading industry saw slavery as beneficial (though that is the way it reads because of my ineptness). I meant that industry as a whole had evolved to the point that dominant forces within it were not beholden to slavery as they had been. Hence there wasn’t the opposition to abolishing the trade that existed earlier. > > And **smiling bandit** , before his went on his ludicrous racist (or nationalistic, or xenophobic or whatever) tirade, makes a good point about slavery being comparatively beneficial to England’s enemies. Hey, even a blind squirrel, you know. Yeah, I can agree that other industries were comming into prominence, rendering slavery (and the industries dependant on it) _comparatively_ less important. But it was still the case that the Brits took an economic hit ending slavery, and mostly for reasons of sentiment/morality. It may certainly be the case that enforcing a slave-trade ban hit others as well, but I disagree that it hit them harder than the Brits. The reason, as pointed out in _Bury the Chains_ by Adam Hochschild, was a brutal one: sugar slavery in places like Jamaca _needed_ steady imports of slaves, because it was so deadly - the slaves there died, worked to death in only a few years, without any attempt being made to allow them to reproduce. In contrast, slavery in (say) the US was run differently - while brutal, at least the owners did not generally literally work them to death without allowing them to reproduce - the population of slaves in the US was self-sustaining. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/58 "2010-09-30T15:45:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Baah. By this measure, the American Western pioneers weren’t colonialist either. > > They weren’t anyone’s _colonies_, no, but they were colonialist, in spirit and in deed. I don’t know if the American Western pioneers were colonialists, although they’re closer to the definition that the Voortrekkers, because the western pioneers at least had a metropole they were in relation to. And you can’t be “colonialist” without being someone’s colonies, or the country establishing the colony. I’m not condoning the Boer States or their government. I’m just saying they weren’t colonialist. I’d also disagree with you that the Emancipation Act was one of the main motivators behind the Great Trek. I mean, the Vortrekkers weren’t happy about it, and found the concept of greater equality between races as perverse and unholy, but most of the Vortrekkers didn’t own slaves, and the ones that did, didn’t own many of them. I think the primary motivation was the high price of land, and fear of the Xhosa and the belief that the English weren’t willing or able to protect them from the Xhosa. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/59 "2010-09-30T17:25:45Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > > They weren’t a colonial power because they weren’t. The Trekboers weren’t acting on behalf of anybody else. They were migrating, and the migration led to them taking over the lands of the people they were migrating into, but that doesn’t make them a colonial power. > > Baah. By this measure, the American Western pioneers weren’t colonialist either. > > They weren’t anyone’s _colonies_, no, but they were colonialist, in spirit and in deed. > > > [@](#): > > > > Just because one group takes land from another or rules over another doesn’t make the ruling group a colonial power. > > It does when it is a clear continuation of a trend that has its roots in a colony. The Boer republics were established by breakaway Europeans who formed their own governments. This makes them just as much a colonial power as, say, Americans were when they travelled into their hinterland. The issue here is\* British Colonialism\*. It was a distinctive system of stealing the land belonging to others for the benefit of the Empire. Other forms of colonialism existed, with their own distinctive characteristics. The Boer migration was similar to the American appropriation of land. The intent of the practise is irrelevant. The results are the measure of the morality (unquantifiable until someone builds a new evil meter). It is a little unfair to pick only on the Brits here. They certainly didn’t maintain the exclusive franchise on evil. Maybe we need the debate on the most evil nation. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444/60 "2010-09-30T17:31:05Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t know if the American Western pioneers were colonialists, although they’re closer to the definition that the Voortrekkers, because the western pioneers at least had a metropole they were in relation to. As did the Voortrekkers - not every Afrikaner trekked, and many families ended up in both the Cape and the Republics. > [@](#): > > And you can’t be “colonialist” without being someone’s colonies, or the country establishing the colony. I disagree. But that’s irrelevant, since the Boers \*were \*someone’s colony. That they chose to move around afterwards doesn’t stop them from being European transplants speaking a European language and practicing a European culture. > [@](#): > > I’m not condoning the Boer States or their government. I’m just saying they weren’t colonialist. I differ, strongly. > [@](#): > > I’d also disagree with you that the Emancipation Act was one of the main motivators behind the Great Trek. I mean, the Vortrekkers weren’t happy about it, and found the concept of greater equality between races as perverse and unholy, but most of the Vortrekkers didn’t own slaves, and the ones that did, didn’t own many of them. Yeah, and most of the CSA army were poor farmboys, too. > [@](#): > > I think the primary motivation was the high price of land, and fear of the Xhosa and the belief that the English weren’t willing or able to protect them from the Xhosa. You weren’t taught South African history in the 70s, were you? Afrikaners used to be quite proud of their reasons for trekking. It’s only post-'94 that there’s been the least semblance of backtracking. And seriously, if they were scared of the Xhosa, d’you think trekking to the lands of the \*Zulu \*was a smart move? Naah, they were running away from increased liberalisation of the Cape, in all its forms. the Act was only one of many they objected to. I actually think the 1828 Act was harder to take. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-is-the-most-evil-episode-in-british-history/555444.md?page=4)