> Didn't the British empire ban slaves and slavery on English soil at the start of the 19th century?

Depends on your meaning and what dates. The British did NOT ban slavery "at the start of the 19th century" (meaning 1800s). They banned only the buying of slaves using English vessels and even then it was nominally enforced. In 1833, the English compensated approximately 3000 slavers for "loss of business assets" (yes, that's right, they compensated the slavers, not the slaves) including the ancestors of David Cameron, the Bazalgettes and other wealthy families.

Almost instantly after the passing of the 1833 act, the British used indentured labour to replace slavery. Indentured labour was found to be equivalently cruel. The historical record shows death rates as high or higher than the slavery period for indentured labourers brought from South Asia to the West Indies and South East Asia. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/dec/12/thefor...

1835 "To finance the compensation (for slave owners), the British government had to take on a £15 million loan (40% of its budget) with banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild and his brother-in-law Moses Montefiore. The money was not paid back until 2015."

This is a very interesting timeline about the abololition of slavery in different places and peoples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave... i think it is also good to see things in the larger context

> yes, that's right, they compensated the slavers, not the slaves

That seems fair: the slave-owners had undertaken obligations that by the standards, mores & laws of the time were normal, ethical & legal; changing mores & laws nullified those obligations, and hence they were compensated.

You'll find that it's a lot easier to change someone's mind if you say, 'I want you to do something which is right, and I'll pay you to do it!' than if you say, 'I want you to do something which is right, and I'll punish you for doing it!' What's more important in your mind: freeing slaves or punishing slaveholders?

Are you sure that fair is the word you're after?

Of course you compensate the slavers. You want them to buy in to the process. That way you don't have to fight a war with them over it. That's just pragmatism in politics.

It's stuff like this that reveals why some organizations like the NAACP are successful and others are not.

Looks like I got two completely different answers. Any thoughts on the sibling reply? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17462423

The British banned slavery on the British Empire at the start of the 19th century. But the slave trade was banned on English soil way before that, in 1102. However, there were imported slaves in England, which got their freedom in the mid 18th century (via some court cases because slave trade etc was banned on english soil in the common law), effectively ending slavery as a whole in England. Then 50 or so years later, as the anti slave trade movement grew, this extended to the colonies and the whole empire.

It did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

It even pressed other countries to abolish it (not only for pure reasons, also for commercial ones, but they'd still make Machiavelli proud).

When the Union blockaded the Confederacy, cotton workers in Lancashire, England (who were out of work without raw material) rallied against the Royal Navy breaking the blockade though it would have been in their economic interest at the time. Solidarity forever.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-21057494

The Royal Navy, which had historical links to slavery, even ended up positioning ships in the Atlantic specifically to stop slave ships:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron