Just a couple of things: Although at one time we were involved in the slave trade, Britain is the main reason slavery was abolished around the world we were instrumental in that, and Britain is still considered a major world power only America has more over seas bases than Great Britain, Also the fact that we used to have the most powerful navy in the world is where the poem then song "Rule Britannia" comes from.
Britain is the reason the slave trade stopped, no one else wanted it to stop and we then forced everyone to stop except the middle east, still slaves now
The onlt reason America has so many over seas bases is because we had to give them up to them . We needed supplies and America said yer but you going to have to give us something extra. The 2nd world war and the USA broke us, we bacame the UK then and lost our "empire, Great Britain" stasis.
@@badworm1921 Yep the destroyers for bases deal in 1940, they gave us 50 destroyers and we gave them 99 year rent free leases on 11 bases. Will be interesting to see what happens in 17 years when the leases are up. I think we will probably sell the bases to America.
At the time Britain first got into the African slave trade, the Barbary pirates from North Africa were raiding towns in Cornwall and along the South coast of England for slaves. It is easy to forget how ubiquitous slavery was.
It's typical of these types of videos produced by 'Americans' that always miss out that slavery was already a big thing in many parts of the world and in fact Europeans were being taken for slavery to the middle east and Africa as slaves, with raids as far up as Britain and Ireland, where the people of whole Irish villages were taken in single raids (see Barbary Coast slavers and pirates for more info).
Yeah the issue isn’t intension it’s lack of information. It’s understandable to miss out a few details because of how vast a subject this is, however, it usually ends up being extremely important information that Is missed
Exactly the slave trade was worldwide, and unfortunately, but more hidden, it still is. The British only got in to the slave trade by getting in on the trade that was already there in Africa, selling their own people.
@@petebennett3733 aye There's nothing better then sitting g down for a nice cuppa in the pouring rain at cricket game while reading Harry Potter to a portrait of the queen. Until the Russians interrupted us with their war in Ukraine.
@@wackojacko0295 now you think anyone would of tried that if we still had the empire and definitely wouldn't be getting invaded by dingy divers from France
yes the british did run slave trade, but after 37 years, the outcry against it in the UK lead to the abolishment of the british slave trade and indeed set up the africa squadron that hunted down slaver ships, in fact one of the reasons for the american war of "independence" was the "founding fathers" wanted the slave trade to continue, it was never about taxes...
...but the thing is, we didn't! We bought our slaves from African,Arab,traders, who had been running slave markets for hundreds, if not thousands of years!(and are still involved) The Europeans tapped into this "opportunity" , for many years, but eventually, it was abolished, and enforced on other country's, by the British I'm proud to say! Also, the word slave, is derived from the "Slavic" peoples who were enslaved and utilised to such a degree, the name became synonymous!
1807 was the year the British legally abolished the slave trade. The fuck talking about pal? That would only be just in time for the SECOND War of Independence in 1812 when we burnt the Whitehouse to the ground to let them know "we still got it".........
You people always say "The British" did this or did that as if it was something we all voted for rather than something carried out by only a few entrepreneurs, like the wholesale trade in surplus Africans, which wasn't illegal, and did benefit that race immensely ; for who today could have seen a real one without it ? There are 1000 times more of them now than there would have been without that involuntary diaspora.
@@leewheeler8308 That's gibberish! The slave trade was up and running, hundreds, if not thousands of years, before old Whitey appeared! Also, "we people" abolished the slave trade, and then enforced the ban, on other country's, in our arrogance!
@@leewheeler8308 The slave trade always gets used as a race thing but the thing is, Britain was trading with African states to get slaves because African states were getting filthy rich from the slave trade with one African king begging the British that they'd do anything but stop the selling of slaves as they saw it as a massive part of their culture. Also, the west Africans weren't the only ones selling slaves, where the west Africans sold cheap slaves to European powers the East Africans had been selling cheap slaves to the Arab nations for longer and the reason you dont see many black people in Africa is because the Arabs would castrate their slaves. If Britain hadn't ended the slave trade not just for themselves but the whole world and enforce this rule then the slave trade could of carried on til today.
One of the reasons the English succeeded so well where other colonists had failed was because they decided to teach other nations their language. This allows you to instruct local people to manage other local people so you need less English feet on the ground. Always makes me laugh when ignorant Americans say "if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German". If it wasn't for us, you either wouldn't exist or you'd be speaking arapaho.
@@nickthefox72 hmmm well no... not really... Britain didn’t exist until the act of union in 1707... Jamestown was founded in 1607... England wasn’t in control of Scotland... only Wales and all of Ireland at the time. The Scots also had colonies in the Americas - namely Novascotia (clue is in the name - New Scotland), also of course the infamous failed colony in Panama which resulted in the bankruptcy of Scotland and the 1707 act of union itself! So the first Empire was English and the second British. American independence was 1776 so you spent longer under English control than you did under British control. It’s in the first paragraph of the Wiki page British colonisation of the Americas, seriously dude? Up your game!
@@davidhealy4534 in the Second World War, it was the USSR at Stalingrad which in the words of Churc=hill "Tore the guts out of the Nazi War Machine. King George VI presented Stalin with the Sword of Stalingrad in thanks. And the Battle of Britain waa fought in 1940 BEFORE either the USSR or the boastful USA.
Welllll "technically" as one of the leading members in NATO we are "sort of" in charge of Luxembourg already, and Sweden when they join "as the Borg would say they were assimilated "😜🤣😂🤣
Worth noting, America is an ex colony that went independent. Most Americans are British descendants, essentially Americans are British. They evolved into a different variant of Brit, with their own culture and style. Now America as a relatively new country is making its own mark on the World, a chip off the old block!
@@johncampbell2979 - depends what you read and how you interpret the results. The 13 colonies were mostly made up of British people, although other European colonies existed. So pre America existing as a nation, the majority were British/descendants. But yes with later immigration there were huge numbers of German arrivals, it’s a mixed pot of European ancestry also of course with African ancestry. In context of the video England invading the World - essentially most of the original forefathers of the USA were British. So in a manner of speaking although later immigration warped the numbers the USA is at its core British. There really isn’t all that much difference! Most unfriendly nations in the World would paint both countries with the same stroke of a brush.
It wasnt a case of us venturing out to invade other countries, we were exploring which is how we stumbled across America and other countries. We were introduced to citrus fruits, nutmeg (there is a good book called Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton that tells that story). For a small country we have given the world a lot.
Yep, as Edward Gatter said, King George 3rd signed into law the abolition of slavery in 1807. We spent ships, men and lots of money policing the oceans and stoping slave ships at the same as time as fighting the Napoleonic wars against France. Any slave that was brought back to England would be a free man.
Not many people know about it. As good as "Roots" was as a piece of TV work, it was somewhat lacking in accuracy. Europeans rarely went further inland than the shores of Africa. They didn't need to because it was the Africans themselves who were catching and selling the slaves, not just the to Europeans but to the Arab countries. The weird thing with Britain is that although we cherish preserve our long and colourful history, we are forward thinking and not frightened of change, especially if we realise we've been doing things wrong. ✌🇬🇧
@@Chillmax I'm not pathetic, or woke. I just accept the reality of British colonisation. It's beyond arrogant to assume that Britain always knew best and that by destroying centuries old cultures Britain was some how 'civilising' a populace for their own good.
. As a brit 🇬🇧 that was really informative, but back in the day when I was in school we learnt all that, can't be said for the schools these days, also Britain was the first country to abolish slavery and again used our navy to enforce this law. Thanks again my American friend 🇬🇧🇺🇸
There were a number of colonial powers, it's just the british were very well organised, we just did it better than anyone else. Its no coincidence that most of the preferred places to live in the world have a strong british influence. As far as slavery was concerned, it was practised long before the british were involved, arab slavers in africa, and various african kingdoms themselves.
Britain also wasn’t the first to start up the Atlantic Slave Trade (the video kinda made it sound like that), the Portuguese were the first to start trading for African slaves, because they were one of the first European powers.
@@Sparx632 not only that they WERE the first to abolish slavery and 10's of thousands of men died fighting to try and stop it elsewhere also. Britain passed a law that granted any slave rights and freedom the moment they passed over British borders. Britain's involvement in the slave trade is actually one of our proudest moments in history. Yet people around the world seem to think we created the slave trade lol
@@MDM1992 hence the line in rule britannia "never shall be slaves" but ignorant people seem to think that's racist as if its only referring to white English people when in fact it means anyone who comes from anywhere.
@@MDM1992 I think you forget the bit where we actually stopped it worldwide Even the USA even though they would never admit it But their move only came around because of the pressure from the Brits The worrying thought is of the Germans had conquered the British empire game over world domination
i live near a sleepy village called bucklers hard, which was the center for ship building in the middle ages when it comes to slavery, it has always been illegal in the uk, they got round this by keeping them within the docks, where they were technicly cargo. however the british were the last to get in on the existing slavery trade, and the first to actually ban it, also starting a campain to stamp it out, providing ships with the sole purpose of catching slavers and releasing the slaves. for years i suffered a kind of guilt for this, but uk stamped it out and forced the rest of europe to follow, somthing the uk should be really proud of
Yes the slave trade was one of the worst things in Britain's history but only this year, at 80+, I discovered that all my working life my taxes helped pay of the British debt incurred when they, acting alone, forced the end of the open slave trade. This was one of the best things ever done by GB and I never heard a word about in my school history lessons!
America likes to take the credit for that while forgetting it was the rich slave owners who wanted to continue the slave trade who left England and went to America.
I'm so proud to be English and it always surprises me how powerful this tiny country was! Yes history can be tainted but we are tiny! Just look up how many people have British ancestry round the world even now is staggering...
@@Thurgosh_OG There is an area in Patagonia, Argentina, that still speak Welsh. Many coal miners from Wales, also went to live in America. I did notice that many came back.
@@Thurgosh_OG I don't really class myself as British I'm English... like a people from the other countries in Britain are proud to be Scottish or Welsh or Irish..
So, today I learned that what made the British Empire unique was a desire for wealth and power! Yeah, because no one else wanted those things. Remember most of our expansion was trade based and we didn't just march in and overpower the country. They benefitted too. We provided infrastructure, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and a system of fair governance that gave citizens rights previously ignored. India was run by about 400 odd civil servants on bicycles - hardly the evil colonisers that is the common narrative right now. Try to imagine a world without the British Empire...impossible. On balance I believe that the British Empire has had a mostly beneficial effect on civilisation and the advance of humanity. Think how we went above and beyond our duty the ensure slavery ended. We could have just abolished it ourselves without the enormous expenditure of resources and manpower to police the slavers leaving NW Africa but we didn't. I'm sick of the anti English sentiment being peddled now, even this refers to us INVADING 90% of the world. See who people would prefer as the big dog on the block? America is our favoured son and carries on the tradition or would everyone rather Russia or China or the Middle East take over? Don't think so!🇬🇧♥️🇺🇸
100% right on. I, too, get sick of the British being blamed for all the ills in the world. We never pretended that we made no mistakes, but on the whole we were a force for good. After becoming independent, most of the places we "invaded" ended up fairly stable. The empires of most other European countries did not.
@@chrissiemacalister6835 it's just following the whole anti white, especially British but also American narrative that's playing well in the cheap seats at the moment. People are actually equating the Stars & Stripes flag as racist and evil in the same way the confederate flag was seen. Kids are being indoctrinated in WHAT to think not HOW to think and the thick are way more easily swayed. The 1,920s were called the Roaring Twenties because it was a fun time after the great war( they didn't know it was the first of a two parter then!) fuck knows what this decade will be remembered as, the Tyrannical Twenties perhaps? 💩
Oh, Lucille, thank you! So glad to see the voice of reason. We weren't perfect but my goodness, we don't deserve the vilification and snide remarks in this commentary 🇬🇧
@@alimar0604 I had to say something because it's incessant and pernicious this narrative about the evil white man( I'm a woman but being a white man right now can't be easy- even with the white 'privelege'!). Every country would colonise and expand if they could which is why the world is lucky that it was plucky little Britain that did it and not Japan or China or ome corrupt African country. Remember when coloniser was a synonym for Victor, conquerer...winner? I'm just sick of being accused of being a racist ( not me personally) and all abuse against white people is sanctioned because it's 'Anti-fascist. Phew! Sorry. Had to rant.😀♥️
Has anyone noticed the even though we are painted as the bad guys these days like the Americans if there ever a flood earthquake or disaster we are one of first nations to be asked for help and go to there aid even though thay call us racist. If you wanted to call a country or nation anti democracy look at the United nations or the roman empire both want you to do things there way or thay get all stroppy
These sorts of videos always bring up Britain's involvement in the slave trade and yet, somehow, always manage to leave out that post-abolition they also spent vast quantities of wealth (arguably more than was ever accrued from the slave trade in the first place) forcing the rest of the world (particularly the French, Spanish and Portuguese) to abolish the slave trade also. So much money, in fact, that the debt accrued from doing so was only fully paid off in the last decade. The slave trade was an abomination, no doubt, and Britain's involvement in it was shameful in retrospect - but these historical videos could at least point out that there was something of a redemption arc to the story instead of making it seem like America was the driving force behind abolition.
That 'paying off' of the debt - the last century of that was taken up by continuing "compensation" to the British families forced to give up their slaves. It wasn't due to expenses arising from persuading other nations.
@@The_Original_Geoff_B I should, perhaps, have been more careful with the wording of my comment. I didn't mean to suggest that all of the debt was generated 'persuading' other countries (bribing and intimidating them is more accurate than persuading) but to suggest that none of the debt was accrued due to that is equally misleading. Britain spent vast sums bribing African nations into ceasing slave sales to other colonial powers and a signficant portion of the national defence budget funding fleets to hunt down slaver ships and paying bounties to privateers doing the same. Now, there's certainly a conversation to be had over the morality of compensating slave-owners. Personally, I see it as a matter of expediency and efficiency - slavery was a moral evil thus is was a moral imperative to end it as quickly, efficiently, and effectively as possible. Bribing the slave-owners into freeing their slaves ended slavery in the empire much more quickly and with much less threat of civil unrest lead by powerful corporations and wealthy landowners (the only people with the vote at the time) than imposing abolition by military force would have. I see that as much less morally reprehensible than allowing more generations of humans to be born into slavery, but I do concede that it's not morally praiseworthy either. Edit: Regarding "but to suggest that none of the debt was accrued due to that is equally misleading" - please note I'm not accusing you, personally, of doing this merely that doing so is particularly commonplace when the debt is referenced.
America is responsible for all good things in the world, didn't you know that? I could laugh myself senseless when they brag about giving human rights to their slaves, when unlike the vast majority of other slave holding countries they spent 100 years treating the freed slaves as sub human 2nd class citizens. O remember being utterly shocked to learn that in America segregation was only made illegal in the 1960s 😳
Wow, that was "one of the best infographic videos" JT has watched wow, there are errors and parts left out. 1. England and Britain are not interchangeable concepts (JT I thought you knew this better than most Americans! 2. In 1801 the Union Jack gained the red diagonals from Ireland. 3. A HUGE part that was conveniently left out was the slave trade was abolished in 1807 in Britain and in 1838 in the empire as a whole, 30 years before the United States.
It also glossed over the fact that the slave trade in Africa was facilitated by Africans themselves, with many Chiefs/Kings/Tribes willingly selling captured enemies, etc. to the English, Dutch and Portuguese. It should also be noted that, contrary to myth, the British and others did not go "hunting" for slaves in country, but again, were purchased from Africans.
@@JonInCanada1 And still some of these countries still have the slave trade . They were the slaves available at the time by their own people . Every nation or peoples have been slaves at some point in history if you go far back enough
Some good analysis mixed with some pretty dodgy history here, it's absolutely true that the Empire was mainly created through private ventures backed by a strong navy, but not that this funded a strong military capable of crushing any opponants, England and then the UK never had a very large army. It actually used a lot of negotiations and deals. Usually promising to support a local ruler in exchange for trading rights. Very few colonies, mainly the Americas and Australia involved displacement, and there there were very few people, it was trade mainly that was the focus. The West Indies in the time of sugar cane dominance, and India were profitable in themselves, but most colonies were not, their worth was in the captive market for British produced goods. That's the missing piece in the video, Britain's wealth was more to do with the industrial revolution than the Empire, it helped to have it because of selling goods to it, but being the only industrial nation for a while is more important.
Absolutely right Lee Hallam, but of course there is dodgy history here. Can`t make the Brits look good in any way, don`t you know! Oh, and I read a piece in a newspaper, or magazine recently that laid the blame for climate change squarely at the feet of the British - BECAUSE WE STARTED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. My weren`t we evil?
Nice overview, the Royal Navy was dramatically improved by Samuel Pepys, he drew up articles of service. That is contracts, also education. Any literate person could rise through the ranks to high level. Lord Horatio Nelson a good example. The amount of ships was also due to a bounty called prize money, where the value of a captured vessel was distributed amongst the crew, using a laid out formula. The "prize money " was stopped just after WW1. So a well trained motivated "Navy" was a win all round. Must not forget the Merchant Navy, also well trained. Slavery was not a thing in England due to legislation brought in by William the conquer.
The funny thing was, until Pepys long forgotten diary was discovered, Pepys was an extremely minor footnote in British history - no one had ever heard of him
Hi JT. Although you may not like the idea of only having sails as a power source, the Clipper Cutty Sark, under full sail would have produced 3,000 horse power. She was faster than the steam ships of that time and unlike the steam ships would not run low on fuel, that also made more space in the holds for goods than comparative sized steam ships.
This video is extremely selective in the facts it presents and biased in how they are shown the vast majority of these private expeditions were done on shoestring budgets with only enough troops to protect themselves they usually found local tribes and kings to partner with then assisted their allies in expanding their influence either by mediation diplomacy military advice or direct military support. Everyone thinks of the British Empire like the ones which came before but it was a very different animal it was a trading empire as long as trade prospered the Empire allowed all its citizens to live as they pleased which is why it became so vast and successful most of the foreign possessions were governed by a handful of Europeans assisted by thousands of locals and defended by millions of local troops trained and equipped to European standards the truth is if these local administrative staff and troops had not supported the Empire any British army sent to impose sovereignty would have been lost without a trace.
This video shows a fair bit of bias and many inaccuracies. We were the first country to ban slavery and we have only just paid off the families that were compensated for giving up slaves back in the early 19th century. It says something when the children of slaves are still being treated poorly by the richest, most modern country in the world. But, you’re right, money takes prime position there. Firstly, England is only the biggest country in Great Britain or the UK. The UK is GB plus N Ireland. Scots, Irish and Welsh were sent all over the world as soldiers. At one point, Scots were responsible for 40% of the world’s inventions. The British navy was responsible for many ideas and inventions, including standardisation of parts. Previously, each ship was built as a standalone. History lessons here didn’t teach us that the British government threw money at the navy and the army. Rather the opposite. That’s why private enterprise funded exploration and expeditions, not the government. The UK did explore and found ‘new’ countries - what was Captain Cook doing? The Dutchman, Abel Tasman, found Tasmania but somehow managed to miss Australia altogether. In losing America, America had a fair amount of help from France and the Continent. The UK army was spread over many lands and amounted to 45k men altogether all over the world at the start.
The Portuguese and Spanish was selling slaves before British business got into the game. They also took far many more slaves. This isn't supporting the UKs involvement, just pointing out, they wasn't the first.
Thank you for another fascinating video, JT. Just a shame about the narrator constantly referring to Great Britain/ the British as England/ the English!! Your "Wales people", the Scottish, and the Northern Irish also play a VERY significant part, as you, JT, now also know!
Thanks for mentioning Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland as when Americans on UA-cam react to British stuff, they always seem to think England did it all, all British people worked together to achieve what Britain is today.
Great reaction beardy boy…..this video portrays a very biased argument as regards to slavery, you need to do a reaction on Britains crusade against slavery which this video conveniently misses out, it also evades the issue that many civilisations in Africa also made huge amounts of money as a part of the Atlantic slave trade but also the slave trade into the Ottoman Empire and countries of the Middle East. Thomas Sowell has some very good videos on this subject , keep safe and well , love from UK ❤️🇬🇧👍
Right from the start the video was showing a very biased way of portraying the English/British Empire, albeit in a fairly minor way. Once they got on to slavery it became very biased, even talking about 'invading' Africa to collect slaves. As you are obviously aware they never ventured inland, leaving it up to black Africans to supply them with slaves. This is constantly, and almost certainly deliberately, overlooked because it does not fit the narrative.
@@annemariefleming yes, it’s the video I was thinking about but I couldn’t remember who it was done by…..I’m still waiting for Frankie Boyle’s reply btw…..
The Royal Navy was built because trade was being blockaded by other countries, mainly France, we didn't have the money so created the bank of England to raise money from public subscriptions.. the ships were used to protect the merchant ships. We blockaded the French navy in port and supplied those ships with food and water etc by supply ships so that they could stay at the blockade. Britain didn't invade 90% of the world, a lot of land wash a country, we colonised them, we only colonised a small part of America, it was America gained it's independance that they (invaded) the rest of America and displaced the indigenous people. India was invaded by East India Company who had their own private army and navy, some Indians enlisted into company army. It was when they ran into trouble that Britain took over the management of India. They are confusing invasion with wars. Wats with France was because we had a claim to the French throne, we even had a English king on the French throne once. We were on Spain and Portugal giving military assistance, not invading, same can be said in a lot of other countries.
The British done three things when empire building. One .Conquered the land .Two stabilized the land .Three exploited the land. Sir the vid at 5:53 . The British government did not throw money at the Royal Navy .The warships at that were well designed, lighter faster and had much better weaponry .The cannon on board were mounted on wheels so could load much quicker and made of cast iron . The British empire was build for trade not wealth unlike the Spanish and Portuguese.
@@helenwood8482 trade is about the movement of money, wealth is about the accumulation of money. Spain just took silver and gold and filled their coffers. Ended up with so much gold that it became worthless and tanked the economy of their entire empire.
There was actually something special about British naval ships back then compared to ships from other countries, we used heavy sails made from hemp, which wouldn't tear when cannon fire hit them, a common tactic was to destroy the sails to immobilize the ship then take the hull apart while circling. Most navies didn't use them because they were very heavy and took a lot of men to raise them, and back then there was a serious lack of health and safety policy :p
This might to do with that most of those “invasions” were “invasions” that most people wouldn’t normally consider as a “invasion”. You can say we Brits are pretty good in getting into other countries and pieces of land without other people knowing, that might to do with because we are a small country and even with pretty obvious big history people still underestimate the little guys 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
65 countries around the world celebrate their independence from Britain still today, including yours! The two greatest empires ever were the Mongol Empire and the British Empire. In the case of the latter you have to realise that we controlled every ocean and sea too.
One thing that video neglected to mention was that many of those government funded privateers had another name, PIRATES! Many pirates would also attack slave ships and release the slaves and use them to increase their numbers as free men and pirate crews.
India wasn't really invaded. Apparently the British east India company was formed in 1599 and landed in India in 1608, just over 100 years after the first European traders. It expanded by various methods over the following 250 years (which in my book is a bloody long time) becoming the dominant whatever until the revolt of 1857 led to the closure of the British east India company in 1857.The Crown then took control of India in 1858.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, Europe didn't create or exploit slavery, not to mention why does nobody ever talk about Europeans who were slaves, as an Englishman I'm fed up with this bull sh*t, yes we used slavery but that was the norm at the time, end of conversation there's nothing else to add !!!
This is a fairly simplistic description of British expansion. To start with Britain rarely had a very big army, usually several European powers had much bigger armies. Another is that internally Britain began advancing as a society in science, technology and industry until in the late 1700s they were leading the industrial revolution which they dominated for about 100 years. Many like to claim the British divided their enemies but for the most part that is untrue. The poeples of many if not most of the modern countries were already divided and sought alliances with the British. Many considered themselves separate countries and were united by the British, a prime example being India. Also some of the countries invaded were invaded to stop the slave trade. Many others were already controled by another European power and were invaded as part of a European war.
@@maettsook yep I'm British too and thought it was funny. One of the best things about us Btits is our ability to laugh at ourselves, from the first day at school and every single day thereafter we get to study the great art of piss taking
Another aspect of the trade slave is that it basically worked like this: Ships with European finished goods went out to Africa, their they were exchanged for slaves that then were shipped and sold to america, then in america they were exchanged for raw resources from america, sugar, cotton, tobacco e.t.c. which were shipped to England and then it was poor english people that made the finished goods from the resources. Especially clothes from imported cotton. So the emerging working-class in England itself was exploited more brutally as well, indirectly because of the slave trade overseas. The increased "streamlining" of agriculture and mechanization of industry also made more and more of the already poor people unemployed and encouraged to emigrate overseas (selling yourself into indentured servitude was amongst the most common way europeans emigrated to America in the 17th and 18th century). So the irony is that the slave trade far away overseas sort of created a demand for more tedious and exhausting work back home for Englands poor, in order to produce finished goods for an ever-growing market.
Sorry that’s not strictly true , we did actually invade one island belonging to Sweden after the Swedes had had to make an agreement with Napoleon in 1812 not to trade with UK . Howeverthe Swedes really didn’t mind and it allowed the British to use this island as a base to trade with all the other Baltic countries and secretly with Sweden as well
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 It was invaded by the British Navy to use as a base to protect access to the Baltic and also to protect our trade but not strictly as a trading port
@@steveosborne2297 so it was not a invasion it was to protect the ships and its trade that what the navy was they had money from merchants to protect them in that area but not a invasion as there was not a large army force stationed there.
With the emphasis on the Royal navy in the video I find it interesting that it didn't mention that it was the job of the Royal navy to enforce the decision of the British government to abolish the Slave Trade around the worlds oceans. Britain gets highly criticised for the Slave Trade, right so, but where is the realisation that the British people saw the barbarity of this Trade and decided to put an end to it.
All of Britain played a part In this JT,not just England. Wales, Scotland & northern Ireland did too, we all had a part to play, that's why the guy In the video you're reacting to said British & NOT JUST England. The Scots - the Welsh did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the overseas service JT.
Bear in mind that England first invaded the other parts of the UK, except Scotland, which nobody much wanted and which attached itself to us when it invented the UK.
@@helenwood8482 Scotland would never attach itself to England back then, Scots & the English didn't get on, but if it meant stopping other invading armies they would still fight against others even if they had to fight with the English. Still was known as the British empire not the English empire no matter who began the fight.
remember me? ive been subscribed before you hit 2k subs lol. I commented on the among us vent video. Glad to see you are doing well and your channel is doing amazing now. I hope to see you hit 100k subs.
Our involvement in slavery is our worst shame, but we did do something to fix it, ending the international slave trade because it was wrong, even though ending it was expensive.
The East India company and the husdon Bay Co company are two good examples. Hudson Bay company is still one of the biggest companies in the world today.
we are only strong still because of the experience the army has. that experience doesn't go away. plus with a nuclear weapon and advanced tech shared with the US makes Britain strong.
We strong because we invented our advantages and stupid weak politicians shared them to get rich. Uk would be like Germany today if not for politicians of yesterday Plus the real English men actually enjoy fighting or drinking! Could be drinking which leads to fighting. No true blood English man will ever back down or surrender as Churchill turning in his grave would be life changing even across the pond
East India Trading Company was in Pirates of the Caribbean as an antagonistic force. Interesting fact about the EITC is that their flag was very similar to that the US and Malaysia use today, many argue that the US flag was even based on this but there isn’t much evidence that it was. It is likely that both flags emerged by adding white stripes to their British Red Ensign flags, the US would then replace the Union Jack with stars.
The stars and stripes flag is almost identical to the family crest of one of the men who created the United States. They found some artefacts in a field recently, there was a symbol on them that looked identical at a glance to the flag, I can't remember if it had any stars and probably had less stripes.
England was actually was very slow to start to colonise. They got involved because they were under threat by the Spainish, Netherlands and other catholic countries but damn they mastered it
There's nought more powerful than a Brit in his shed. I think it was Napoleon who said "England is a nation of shopkeepers", totally missed the point of course because the shops were because we were a nation of empire builders and we learned from some of the best of 'em that came before us.
This is very questionable. Notice the number of countries ‘invaded’ on the map is far more than the countries that were ever part of the empire. Some of these ‘invasions’ was just arriving. I would also think they’ve included times when Britain acted with allies such as Crimea or where the object of invasion was not to conquer. Details are boring though aren’t they, Infographics!
Our standardisation of ship design was a big part too. If a french ship was damaged the crew had to make the custom parts to fix it. If a british ship was damaged the shipwrights would have the right shaped parts ready and waiting in a dockside warehouse when it tied up. Anywhere in the world.
One thing not mentioned was that when Britain fully colonised a country, incluiding setting up government offices & having civil servants move in, they also buiilt schools & hospitals for the locals. Look at India, it was not uncommon for people in Indian society who worked for us in governing the country to send their children to England to be educated in our public schools & universities. In the 19th century, we introduced a modern education to India, teaching a curriculum identical to what was taught back home, taught to boys & girls. We opened state schools in every district & also provided finances for affiliated private schools. This didn't happen as soon as we arrived in India but as the territory we controlled grew, we needed more Indians to join our government to help, & we needed them to be educated to the same level as us. Prior to this biysionly used to study in gurukul, where they lived with a guru & received an education based on what the guru thought was important. Girls were not formally educated usually, but stayed at home & relied on their parents passing on what they knew. A small number were lucky to be placed with a female guru. However, these gurus did not teach subjects we would recognise, such as maths. We needed people who could work in offices or do modern jobs, so we had to introduce a British-style education system to make sure they got the education we needed them to have. Just ask places in Africa whether they prefered living under British rule or the Belgians or Germans. We were pussy cats compared to rulers like Leopald II of Beligum (just Google what the atrocoties he carried out in the Congo, for example). In fact, we tended to be a lot more benign than others, so much so that some of the former countries have said that life was better under our rule than in their independent state. I'm not saying we were perfect, simply not as bad as others. Even when it came to slavery, we tended not to go somewhere & kidnap people. Instead we'd go somewhere & trade with local tribes who would sell us their enemies as slaves. A number of African tribes provided a steady stream of slaves when they sold us the neighbouring tribes they'd conquered. Even now, many of the former colonies have close ties with the UK as part of the Commonwealth. You don't stay in touch with someone if they've treated you badly, & you certainly don't have a warm, close relationship with them.
Funny hearing an American talk about how there are few points to in history as Britain using slavery, because America is guilt free there also I hear they treated the native Americans really well 🙄
Have you studied the Constitution of the United States? I hold Merits in the Political system in the USA.. Black's,native peoples and the poor were not included as Citizens,only landowners and people of wealth, for the disenfranchised to gain these liberties,they had to fight for them, it took a Civil War to bring about the abolition of slavery, 1864.. Full civil rights took America into the mid 1960,s race riots and demonstrations, you,re a young country,and you are politically evolving, but you have mush to learn, Europe has more civil rights than you. Please note..
The Royal Navy flys the Ensign red cross on a white background with the Union Jack in the top left corner, The Merchant Navy flys a red flag with the Union Jack in the top left it is also flown on civilian vessels and The Blue Ensign with The Union Jack in the top left corner is flown on British Government vessels.
nice description but a number of facts that are not correct. Slavery was banned in Britain from the reign of William 1st 1066 etc. Slavery to the colonies etc was ended in the 1800's by the Royal Navy
Not only that but we invested HEAVILY in naval academy’s as well as navigation and seamanship skills which ensured that British sailors were one of if not the best sailors in the world and would put perform Most European countries and again unlike everyone else who spent their money on their armies the British cut the cost of its military by as you hear renting or hiring mercenaries and the locals which allowed for a much smaller but more professional army at the fraction of the cost where it would be akin to allowing Amazon to hire and equips their own soldiers and the US government says, go to A and if you win you get to keep the place under the name of the US government but in return for said protection we get a cut of the profits ie 40%
The list of nations NOT invaded by Britain seems to have overlooked Siam. The rulers there cleverly played the various "Imperial Powers" off against each other.
Stuart Laycock also got one wrong. Monaco WAS invaded and occupied after the peninsular war. Britain was clever. It never had a large standing army, so it would use its financial power to subsidise a european ally to fight for/be a continental stalwart for them in order to preserve "the balance of power" (that they could keep an eye on). Usually Austria or Prussia but would also subsidise countries like Russia.
Apparently the very first Red Indian to meet the Plymouth Pilgrims ship when it landed was called Samoset, and he astounded them by asking in perfect English if they had brought any beer with them. lol
yes the east india trading company , broke so many Magna carter laws but as they were so far away , most of the time they went unpunished by the crown.
I'm English and British, and I love our rich and diverse history and culture, but even knowing how powerful the East India Company, and England, then the UK were, some of the things we've done in the past for resources, land, and money still shocks me. We've rarely been a peaceful nation over our 2+ millennia history, but even so, we've done good too, and we're still proud and patriotic in our own reserved way.
It's interesting that he talked about Britain's involvement in the slave trade, but said nothing about their massive involvement in ending it. Britain was about 80% responsible for ending slavery and the slave trade, but gets no recognition for it. The US didn't end slavery until over 100 years after Britain had already made it illegal and spent decades fighting it around the world.
The US also had a civil war to so the south against the north, & the south aim was to win the war & continue the black slavery in the US , but the north won & it eventually ended ..
As Flanders and Swann (sometimes) ad-libbed in A Song Of Patriotic Prejudice, "If it wasn't for the Engllish, You'd all be Spanish or French". It wasn't right, but it was different times.
@@iriscollins7583 The comment harks back to when Spain and France (and the Netherlands) 'owned' quite chunks of North (and South) America and had quite dominate naval assets.
I laughed hard at your surprise that England wasn't always the most powerful. Columbus was sailing for Spain, Hudson was in the service of The Netherlands. It was a Dutch explorer who discovered Australia and Cape Hope was a Dutch colony. Spain and Portugal had extensive colonies in South America somewhat in Africa and certainly quite a few along the coast of India and further in South East Asia. The Philippines were a Spanish colony named after the king, Philip II. I'm from The Netherlands and in our history I can safely say that, before Britain ruled the waves, The Netherlands did. For a hundred years or so. The Dutch were one of the first to focus on smaller ships that could sail closer to the wind rather than bigger 'floating fortresses' like the Spanish Galleons. Something the British copied. A fun one, not quite related to war, is the 'Fluyt'. Designed specifically for trade with the Baltic Sea and the East Sea. The wide hull and narrow deck were designed with the taxes in the Sont, the strait between Sweden and Denmark, in mind. Those taxes were calculated based on the width of your deck. The difference was that the rulers here lost their focus. They assumed that their position was safe. Investment in the navy stopped, the colonies were left to completely fend for themselves. There were dozens of little wars between Britain and The Netherlands, mostly fully fought in naval battles with no armies involved at all. Those wars weren't all won by Britain either, far from it. At one point the Dutch navy even sailed up the river Thames to destroy the British shipyards near London. In the end, Britain simply could keep it up for longer and kept its focus. It doesn't matter how many wars you lose, as long as you win the last one. They had more people, they had forests at home (The Netherlands traded extensively with Norway and Sweden for timber), they just had more everything.
The British were the ones, that when they held the reins of world power, INSISTED on the abolition of the slave trade. In those days if you saw a ship bearing down on you flying the Union Jack, you knew it stood for liverty!
It was enjoyable. The working British people were more abused than the citizens of countries they took control of. It was entertaining. Keep up the good posts.
@@iriscollins7583 I've done lots of research on labour in Britain in the industrial towns during the industrial revolution,mainly the 19th century. it was the hardest, most severe time for any workers in any civilisation in recorded history. I asked own grandmother who died when in 1977 and was born in 1889 about her working life in the cotton mills. She started work aged 11 and worked 60 hours a week for 2/6 when she started aged 11. She said they started at 5.30am with half hour for breakfast at 8 am. Then an hour for dinner then worked till 6pm for 5 days a week but in summer they had to work later at night because there was more sunlight. Oh and Saturday mornings until 12. In them days there was no sick pay and no holidays with pay, there was no nhs either or social security system, it was also before there was any pensions for old people. She thought she had it better than the previous generation!!!! You should read the history of child minimum working age and maximum hours. It's horrific.
Yes, slavery certainly had its own horrors, but you have to compare them to the working and living conditions of working people in Europe at the same time.
@16:00 There was no slavery in Britain after 1089 AD. Slavery in British run colonies already existed when Britain captured them from the Spanish, French or Portuguese and the economies just continued as already established. After a hundred years of being involved in the slave trade Britain banned the slave trade and forced other countries to stop the business, liberating hundreds of thousands of Africans.
This vid has a lot of crap in it. The list is long and I don't have the time to dispute this propaganda. I didn't hear much about the abolition of slavery and the role GB played in it and the cost, while stil fighting European wars.
Take it all with a bit of salt because a lot of countries just didn't exist. Nations were created through organisation, formalisation, border creation and the ability to sustain it. How do you think all these countries were actually created? Even the USA (previously just part of the Americas a single continent) was just a vast expanse until colonised by the Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese - it's not as if the native Indians understood the concept of land ownership or territorial boundaries. It was only after colonisation they started to form recognisable structures of governmental areas, that's where countries are created... We fight wars differently and always have. We've often faced stronger larger forces, but created alliance's and know how and when to fight. We've lost battles but won wars mainly because you don't fight for territory you fight to win... Somebody attacks you, you don't just defend - you attack them back striking at every point you can. It's how we grew so big, France attacks you take everything that French has, Spain attacks you take everything Spain has, sooner or later they stop attacking... As far as armies the private company - the East India Company had twice the soldiers the British army had. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch etc all had empires before the British. We didn't take most of these countries from their original owners, we took them from another empire that took it from the original owners or colonised a new territory, Britain and France were actually very late to exploration and colonisation. But revisionist history is quite prevalent. Africa and the middle east were formidable between 711-1492, which is when Spain kicked them out of the Iberian peninsula and began their growth into a world power. To keep it simple, Britain grew rapidly because in the resolution of a war we took the territory of the loosing side, which we also attacked during hostilities denying them their resources from far off lands... We strangled their resources and then took them upon winning the war... If you're wondering why we didn't do that in Europe, there was a strange array of alliances between royal houses and it prevented this very thing happening directly to them, but not their territories. It wasn't the government who established the Royal Navy it was Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I commanded a significant increase in naval power... It was monarch not government that built up British naval power back then the government ran national affair deemed beneath the monarch... It was also the monarch who granted license to private companies to trade in foreign lands independently - effectively outside of British government and legislative control. It was in name only British at first. This is actually why British law didn't prevent slavery in oversea territories, they were effectively independent and a blind eye was cast that way because it benefited British global business. It wasn't until later British law was enforced in British colonies forcing the criminalisation of the slave trade and it's eventual demise. If you look at where the British were you'd see they never extended too far inland, and that's because our power was sea based, the Americas for example French, Dutch etc, and in South America Spanish and Portuguese took whatever they wanted. British resources weren't complete, but we're substantial. It why when you went inland you'd find Dutch and French trappers but very few English, other than free indenture servants who chose to start a new life there... and there were 50,000 forgotten indenture servants sent to the Americas pen@l colony.
My mother's brother served in the British Indian Army in the 1930's. He was stationed at Agra in India, and saw sevice on the North West Frontier with Afghanistan. He was killed on the Canal line at Dunkirk in 1940.
Your fascination with us brits is so fun to watch! I’d love to show you around the uk and give you a look at the hidden gems and our culture. love the videos mate!
I like how you referred to Britain as England, I feel in this context you're right. My belief is the first colonys of "Britain" were Wales,Ireland and my home of Scotland hot take I know but we lost out language and culture and submitted to rule in England
So tell me, who was King James V of Scotland then if not King James 1 of England and Wales as well? It was his descendents who ruled England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, and who created the Act of Union that joined all the countries into the United Kingdom a hundred years later. So don't blame English people for the fact that the Scottish culture and language have been lost when it was Scottish rulers who controlled them. Furthermore, the Scottish have a long and proud history of invention and engineering development. In fact I think it was the Japanese who quantified it by saying that more than 50% of all the important inventions in the last 500 years or more came from the British Isles, and over 50% of them were invented either in Scotland, or by Scotsmen. So don't put your country or its contributions to the progress of the World down. Finally, don't forget that since devolution, Scottish MPs can still vote on English matters, but English MPs can't vote on Scottish matters. So who's got the upper hand now? Scotland, and it continues to dominate domestic expenditure of the British Treasury through the Barnett Formula, which gives Scotland more money per head of population than England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
@@BobHUK Show me where I blamed English people for anything ? You understand that me as a "scot" has English family ? I want the United Kingdom to end, but so does a lot of people English votes for English laws - it's something we're always talking aboot here in Scotland 😆 🤣 Barnet formula - what's goin on here ? Why u fishing for information mate ? Link to the GERS figures your using ? GERS = government expenditure and revenue Scotland - top line this year was about £80 billion I think Your a wee bit aw over the place wi yer scenarios - 13th century king James to EVEL in 2022 - very eccletic of you I'm not sure SNP MP's abstain when it pertains to the stuff ure on aboot
Us English have always been self reliant, back when Jesus' grandparents were still alive we were fighting and defeating the Roman Army led by Julius Caeser himself but they came back in force a century later and we spent a full thousand years as a conquered slave nation. After the Romans it was the Vikings then the French and eventually we got free only to be invaded by the Germans and the French, the Spanish and again the French trying to re-conquer us and we kind of lost it, like the bullied kid who goes to the gym and gets 'Roid rage' we just wanted to be safe from the bullies, so we got big, WAY BIG! The Royal Charter stated that 'The Royal Navy shall always be as large as the TWO largest navies know to other nations'. Or other words the Royal Navy will be more than just be the largest, it will be at least as big as the second and third biggest navies combined, this meant that it would take 'at least' three countries in an alliance to become a threat to us. Even our national anthem reflects this "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves, so Britain Never Again Shall Be Enslaved!" As an Island, if we control the seas, we can Never be invaded and it worked, not even the German war machine managed to reach us during WW2, thank to the newly born Royal Air Force we kept our coasts free from invasion, despite the RAF Pilots having a lower survival rate that the Japanese Kamikaze pilots. Yes, during the war the RAF pilots were more likely to die than suicide pilots, which is like asking US Marine's to fight so often against such unfair odds that they are more likely to die than a suicide bomber.
Whats not coming across here is that Britain did not use force ! They gradually gained power in these other countries through TRADE! The East I ndia Company played a large part. Google it.
This clip skips over the major point of contention for hundreds of years for fear of not wanting to step on anyone's shoes - religion. The Spanish, French, Irish, many Scottish etc. were constantly conspiring against England and they were allied predominantly through Catholicism. The pope was even against England. The English fought some battles like the Battle of the Boyne alongside other protestants including Danes, the Dutch, the Huguenots etc. Protestantism led England and other Northern European nations into the age of enlightenment and discovery. People had more freedom and free enterprise and market economics were encouraged. People aspired to be greater and to rise above impediments. Catholicism was severely corrupt and sucked vast sums of money out of people to fund wars, bribe people and get involved in politics. The official position of the Catholic Church up until some time during the last century was to conduct mass in Latin. It meant that only few wealthy people could understand what was going on and could even read the Bible. It was a deliberate position to ensure that ignorance prevailed and vested the maximum amount of power in the church. Basically very few could challenge their authority. They were not happy when Martin Luther decided that the Bible should be printed in German, the language spoken by the man in the street in the German principalities. Consequently Northern Europe pushed forward to discovery, industrial revolution, literacy, modern medicine, science etc. and the South of Europe stayed in the dark ages. There are still parts of Europe that don't have proper sewage systems to this day. For all of the trillions of dollars worth of gold extracted out of South America by the Spanish hundreds of years ago, it was all squandered and Spain continued to be relatively poor due to religion and politics. This film makes it sound like England had a choice and it was the aggressor. There have been times when the English fleet was under attack from the French, Spanish and Portuguese, and outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1 when failure would have meant total destruction and enslavement. The Scottish and Irish were constantly trying to provide a back door into England over land to the French and the Spanish. England was surrounded. This is why England had to crush any rebellion across Britain and Ireland, and at times banish Catholics because it was thought that they couldn't be trusted. England had to come out swinging and kill or be killed. Yes, there were financial interests, but it was all in the name of building the British empire and it enabled the country to survive against strong foes including Napoleon and Germany more recently. The clip makes it feel like the empire was all about greed. Every country in Europe wanted to colonise parts of Africa. Sweden even briefly contemplated colonising Australia.This had a huge impact upon influence and geopolitics. The British were actually far less abusive of local people than other nations and tried to build up institutions and infrastructure, whereas some of the others were just in it to exploit the resources and the people. Slave trading was already occurring in Africa for hundreds or thousands of years before Europeans arrived and it was the local people who were wealthy from doing all of the rounding up. The British were actually instrumental in ending the slave trade well before most other countries involved, so while everyone looks at the situation with a lot of modern ideas and sensibilities, Britain has actually been a force for good in the world on many occasions. Moral justice, respect and good behaviour are values that are commonly upheld in English literature. Money, greed and prosperity was only part of the picture and I feel as though it has been over played a bit. It is poles apart from the horrific plundering and atrocities committed by the Spanish during their conquest of South America.
People seem to forget early in American history we invaded the Barbary Coast as one of our first wars. Not saying it's as good as British Empire and their Companies but it was pretty difficult to war over the atlantic.
It was private companies within Britain who traded slaves, not the government, although they turned a blind eye to it. Slavery in Britain was abolished in 1102 under the influence of Lanfranc and his successor as archbishop of canterbury.
Another thing was surplus where Britain was just building warships for war but if they ever needed to they could simply sell them off as either well armed merchant ships or to other countries
Well, for over a thousand years, everybody invaded us, then we started fighting back. We got real good at it.
Mostly the Vikings that kept invading then we decided to show them how to master the dark mistress called the ocean
hell yes . !!!
Its natural for the mentee to become the mentor 😂 but i think we took that too seriously
To be fair, youse absorbed a lot of them. Still a good bit of French, roman, gaelic, viking and germanic blood in the current "native" English.
@@ffrrreeeakk that's literally what makes people native. A unique genetic makeup in one area. Duh.
Just a couple of things:
Although at one time we were involved in the slave trade, Britain is the main reason slavery was abolished around the world we were instrumental in that,
and Britain is still considered a major world power only America has more over seas bases than Great Britain,
Also the fact that we used to have the most powerful navy in the world is where the poem then song "Rule Britannia" comes from.
Britain is the reason the slave trade stopped, no one else wanted it to stop and we then forced everyone to stop except the middle east, still slaves now
The onlt reason America has so many over seas bases is because we had to give them up to them . We needed supplies and America said yer but you going to have to give us something extra. The 2nd world war and the USA broke us, we bacame the UK then and lost our "empire, Great Britain" stasis.
The Arabs started the slave trade 2 millenia before Britain got into the act.
@@badworm1921 Yep the destroyers for bases deal in 1940, they gave us 50 destroyers and we gave them 99 year rent free leases on 11 bases.
Will be interesting to see what happens in 17 years when the leases are up.
I think we will probably sell the bases to America.
@@lordprotector3367 Yep the Egyptian Pharos and Chinese Emperors were doing it a couple of thousand years before we started.
At the time Britain first got into the African slave trade, the Barbary pirates from North Africa were raiding towns in Cornwall and along the South coast of England for slaves. It is easy to forget how ubiquitous slavery was.
It's typical of these types of videos produced by 'Americans' that always miss out that slavery was already a big thing in many parts of the world and in fact Europeans were being taken for slavery to the middle east and Africa as slaves, with raids as far up as Britain and Ireland, where the people of whole Irish villages were taken in single raids (see Barbary Coast slavers and pirates for more info).
Absolutely true!
Yeah the issue isn’t intension it’s lack of information. It’s understandable to miss out a few details because of how vast a subject this is, however, it usually ends up being extremely important information that Is missed
Exactly the slave trade was worldwide, and unfortunately, but more hidden, it still is. The British only got in to the slave trade by getting in on the trade that was already there in Africa, selling their own people.
Yep hence the line 'Britain never never never shall be slaves' in our Rule Britainnia anthem
The world underestimated the power of tea and crumpets
We invaded most because they put milk in their tea before the hot water
And now we're on one long tea break
@@petebennett3733 the long dark tea_time of the soul
@@petebennett3733 aye
There's nothing better then sitting g down for a nice cuppa in the pouring rain at cricket game while reading Harry Potter to a portrait of the queen.
Until the Russians interrupted us with their war in Ukraine.
@@wackojacko0295 now you think anyone would of tried that if we still had the empire and definitely wouldn't be getting invaded by dingy divers from France
yes the british did run slave trade, but after 37 years, the outcry against it in the UK lead to the abolishment of the british slave trade and indeed set up the africa squadron that hunted down slaver ships, in fact one of the reasons for the american war of "independence" was the "founding fathers" wanted the slave trade to continue, it was never about taxes...
...but the thing is, we didn't!
We bought our slaves from African,Arab,traders, who had been running slave markets for hundreds, if not thousands of years!(and are still involved) The Europeans tapped into this "opportunity" , for many years, but eventually, it was abolished, and enforced on other country's, by the British I'm proud to say! Also, the word slave, is derived from the "Slavic" peoples who were enslaved and utilised to such a degree, the name became synonymous!
1807 was the year the British legally abolished the slave trade. The fuck talking about pal? That would only be just in time for the SECOND War of Independence in 1812 when we burnt the Whitehouse to the ground to let them know "we still got it".........
You people always say "The British" did this or did that as if it was something we all voted for rather than something carried out by only a few entrepreneurs, like the wholesale trade in surplus Africans, which wasn't illegal, and did benefit that race immensely ; for who today could have seen a real one without it ? There are 1000 times more of them now than there would have been without that involuntary diaspora.
@@leewheeler8308 That's gibberish! The slave trade was up and running, hundreds, if not thousands of years, before old Whitey appeared! Also, "we people" abolished the slave trade, and then enforced the ban, on other country's, in our arrogance!
@@leewheeler8308 The slave trade always gets used as a race thing but the thing is, Britain was trading with African states to get slaves because African states were getting filthy rich from the slave trade with one African king begging the British that they'd do anything but stop the selling of slaves as they saw it as a massive part of their culture. Also, the west Africans weren't the only ones selling slaves, where the west Africans sold cheap slaves to European powers the East Africans had been selling cheap slaves to the Arab nations for longer and the reason you dont see many black people in Africa is because the Arabs would castrate their slaves. If Britain hadn't ended the slave trade not just for themselves but the whole world and enforce this rule then the slave trade could of carried on til today.
One of the reasons the English succeeded so well where other colonists had failed was because they decided to teach other nations their language. This allows you to instruct local people to manage other local people so you need less English feet on the ground.
Always makes me laugh when ignorant Americans say "if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German".
If it wasn't for us, you either wouldn't exist or you'd be speaking arapaho.
British not English
@@nickthefox72 hmmm well no... not really... Britain didn’t exist until the act of union in 1707... Jamestown was founded in 1607... England wasn’t in control of Scotland... only Wales and all of Ireland at the time. The Scots also had colonies in the Americas - namely Novascotia (clue is in the name - New Scotland), also of course the infamous failed colony in Panama which resulted in the bankruptcy of Scotland and the 1707 act of union itself! So the first Empire was English and the second British. American independence was 1776 so you spent longer under English control than you did under British control. It’s in the first paragraph of the Wiki page British colonisation of the Americas, seriously dude? Up your game!
@@nickthefox72 Exactly. Boils my blood when they come the England B.S. talking about events that happened After 1707.
@@davidhealy4534 in the Second World War, it was the USSR at Stalingrad which in the words of Churc=hill "Tore the guts out of the Nazi War Machine. King George VI presented Stalin with the Sword of Stalingrad in thanks. And the Battle of Britain waa fought in 1940 BEFORE either the USSR or the boastful USA.
@@nickthefox72 I'm English not British
Andora, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Vatican City, & Sweden are still on our "to do" list! 🤣
Welllll "technically" as one of the leading members in NATO we are "sort of" in charge of Luxembourg already, and Sweden when they join "as the Borg would say they were assimilated "😜🤣😂🤣
Shhhh...
Don’t tell the Americans we took our country, the Americas back, through banking investments in the US mid 19th century.
Yes, and hopefully take over Monaco as well..first job to do would be to kick out the French.
Worth noting, America is an ex colony that went independent. Most Americans are British descendants, essentially Americans are British. They evolved into a different variant of Brit, with their own culture and style. Now America as a relatively new country is making its own mark on the World, a chip off the old block!
At some point their accent fucked up
Correction, the biggest percentage of immigrants to the US, are of German extraction.
@@johncampbell2979 - depends what you read and how you interpret the results. The 13 colonies were mostly made up of British people, although other European colonies existed. So pre America existing as a nation, the majority were British/descendants. But yes with later immigration there were huge numbers of German arrivals, it’s a mixed pot of European ancestry also of course with African ancestry. In context of the video England invading the World - essentially most of the original forefathers of the USA were British. So in a manner of speaking although later immigration warped the numbers the USA is at its core British. There really isn’t all that much difference! Most unfriendly nations in the World would paint both countries with the same stroke of a brush.
@@johncampbell2979 wrong mexicans are the largest
@@Anakinuk007 yes.
It wasnt a case of us venturing out to invade other countries, we were exploring which is how we stumbled across America and other countries. We were introduced to citrus fruits, nutmeg (there is a good book called Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton that tells that story).
For a small country we have given the world a lot.
Haha, Give? I think you mean 'stole a lot'
britain started 12 wars in india
it was definitely invading
@@lyveaudio2248clueless
Yep, as Edward Gatter said, King George 3rd signed into law the abolition of slavery in 1807. We spent ships, men and lots of money policing the oceans and stoping slave ships at the same as time as fighting the Napoleonic wars against France. Any slave that was brought back to England would be a free man.
Yes this is not spoken about enough here in Britain.
Not many people know about it. As good as "Roots" was as a piece of TV work, it was somewhat lacking in accuracy. Europeans rarely went further inland than the shores of Africa. They didn't need to because it was the Africans themselves who were catching and selling the slaves, not just the to Europeans but to the Arab countries.
The weird thing with Britain is that although we cherish preserve our long and colourful history, we are forward thinking and not frightened of change, especially if we realise we've been doing things wrong. ✌🇬🇧
@@coot1925 Yes, well put and correct, I get naffed off with us getting blamed for everyone’s woes when they have been self inflicted.
"Naffed off", Now that's a proper brit talking there. 😂😂😂✌❤🇬🇧
@@coot1925 lol, true, British and proud of it.🇬🇧🖖
Britain civilised most of the countries they visited & took over, the minute they were asked to leave, most of them fell apart!
ah yes, genocide and cultural annihilation = 'civilised'. lol
@@cezra833 Nonsense, how predictably pathetic, woke outrage tears, the sweetest of all.
@@Chillmax I'm not pathetic, or woke. I just accept the reality of British colonisation. It's beyond arrogant to assume that Britain always knew best and that by destroying centuries old cultures Britain was some how 'civilising' a populace for their own good.
@@cezra833 Nothing was destroyed & Britain always knows best, just like Nanny, you really should calm down dear, it's very un-British.
@@Chillmax Nothing was destroyed? Seriously? Read a book!
. As a brit 🇬🇧 that was really informative, but back in the day when I was in school we learnt all that, can't be said for the schools these days, also Britain was the first country to abolish slavery and again used our navy to enforce this law. Thanks again my American friend 🇬🇧🇺🇸
abolished slavery but reimbursed the slave owners with $20 million.
@mikkafjallraven5506 They weren't the saints it sounds like.
@@lilme7052 So you would have been happy to keep slavery then.
@@lilme7052 Welcome to the real world.
britain sold 3 million africans into slavery
There were a number of colonial powers, it's just the british were very well organised, we just did it better than anyone else.
Its no coincidence that most of the preferred places to live in the world have a strong british influence.
As far as slavery was concerned, it was practised long before the british were involved, arab slavers in africa, and various african kingdoms themselves.
Britain also wasn’t the first to start up the Atlantic Slave Trade (the video kinda made it sound like that), the Portuguese were the first to start trading for African slaves, because they were one of the first European powers.
@Jimmy Two Times
Its become common today to adjust history to suit a certain narrative or agenda.
@@Sparx632 not only that they WERE the first to abolish slavery and 10's of thousands of men died fighting to try and stop it elsewhere also. Britain passed a law that granted any slave rights and freedom the moment they passed over British borders. Britain's involvement in the slave trade is actually one of our proudest moments in history. Yet people around the world seem to think we created the slave trade lol
@@MDM1992 hence the line in rule britannia "never shall be slaves" but ignorant people seem to think that's racist as if its only referring to white English people when in fact it means anyone who comes from anywhere.
@@MDM1992 I think you forget the bit where we actually stopped it worldwide
Even the USA even though they would never admit it
But their move only came around because of the pressure from the Brits
The worrying thought is of the Germans had conquered the British empire game over world domination
i live near a sleepy village called bucklers hard, which was the center for ship building in the middle ages
when it comes to slavery, it has always been illegal in the uk, they got round this by keeping them within the docks, where they were technicly cargo. however the british were the last to get in on the existing slavery trade, and the first to actually ban it, also starting a campain to stamp it out, providing ships with the sole purpose of catching slavers and releasing the slaves. for years i suffered a kind of guilt for this, but uk stamped it out and forced the rest of europe to follow, somthing the uk should be really proud of
Yes the slave trade was one of the worst things in Britain's history but only this year, at 80+, I discovered that all my working life my taxes helped pay of the British debt incurred when they, acting alone, forced the end of the open slave trade. This was one of the best things ever done by GB and I never heard a word about in my school history lessons!
America likes to take the credit for that while forgetting it was the rich slave owners who wanted to continue the slave trade who left England and went to America.
I'm so proud to be English and it always surprises me how powerful this tiny country was! Yes history can be tainted but we are tiny! Just look up how many people have British ancestry round the world even now is staggering...
Be proud to be British, as it was the British Empire, not England alone.
@@Thurgosh_OG There is an area in Patagonia, Argentina, that still speak Welsh. Many coal miners from Wales, also went to live in America. I did notice that many came back.
@@Thurgosh_OG I don't really class myself as British I'm English... like a people from the other countries in Britain are proud to be Scottish or Welsh or Irish..
@@stu-j Same.. if anyone asks, I’m English first, British second..
@@woooster17 damn straight! 🎉
So, today I learned that what made the British Empire unique was a desire for wealth and power! Yeah, because no one else wanted those things. Remember most of our expansion was trade based and we didn't just march in and overpower the country. They benefitted too. We provided infrastructure, roads, railways, schools, hospitals and a system of fair governance that gave citizens rights previously ignored. India was run by about 400 odd civil servants on bicycles - hardly the evil colonisers that is the common narrative right now. Try to imagine a world without the British Empire...impossible. On balance I believe that the British Empire has had a mostly beneficial effect on civilisation and the advance of humanity. Think how we went above and beyond our duty the ensure slavery ended. We could have just abolished it ourselves without the enormous expenditure of resources and manpower to police the slavers leaving NW Africa but we didn't. I'm sick of the anti English sentiment being peddled now, even this refers to us INVADING 90% of the world. See who people would prefer as the big dog on the block? America is our favoured son and carries on the tradition or would everyone rather Russia or China or the Middle East take over? Don't think so!🇬🇧♥️🇺🇸
100% right on. I, too, get sick of the British being blamed for all the ills in the world. We never pretended that we made no mistakes, but on the whole we were a force for good. After becoming independent, most of the places we "invaded" ended up fairly stable. The empires of most other European countries did not.
@@chrissiemacalister6835 it's just following the whole anti white, especially British but also American narrative that's playing well in the cheap seats at the moment. People are actually equating the Stars & Stripes flag as racist and evil in the same way the confederate flag was seen. Kids are being indoctrinated in WHAT to think not HOW to think and the thick are way more easily swayed. The 1,920s were called the Roaring Twenties because it was a fun time after the great war( they didn't know it was the first of a two parter then!) fuck knows what this decade will be remembered as, the Tyrannical Twenties perhaps? 💩
Oh, Lucille, thank you! So glad to see the voice of reason. We weren't perfect but my goodness, we don't deserve the vilification and snide remarks in this commentary 🇬🇧
@@alimar0604 I had to say something because it's incessant and pernicious this narrative about the evil white man( I'm a woman but being a white man right now can't be easy- even with the white 'privelege'!). Every country would colonise and expand if they could which is why the world is lucky that it was plucky little Britain that did it and not Japan or China or ome corrupt African country. Remember when coloniser was a synonym for Victor, conquerer...winner? I'm just sick of being accused of being a racist ( not me personally) and all abuse against white people is sanctioned because it's 'Anti-fascist. Phew! Sorry. Had to rant.😀♥️
Has anyone noticed the even though we are painted as the bad guys these days like the Americans if there ever a flood earthquake or disaster we are one of first nations to be asked for help and go to there aid even though thay call us racist. If you wanted to call a country or nation anti democracy look at the United nations or the roman empire both want you to do things there way or thay get all stroppy
These sorts of videos always bring up Britain's involvement in the slave trade and yet, somehow, always manage to leave out that post-abolition they also spent vast quantities of wealth (arguably more than was ever accrued from the slave trade in the first place) forcing the rest of the world (particularly the French, Spanish and Portuguese) to abolish the slave trade also. So much money, in fact, that the debt accrued from doing so was only fully paid off in the last decade. The slave trade was an abomination, no doubt, and Britain's involvement in it was shameful in retrospect - but these historical videos could at least point out that there was something of a redemption arc to the story instead of making it seem like America was the driving force behind abolition.
That 'paying off' of the debt - the last century of that was taken up by continuing "compensation" to the British families forced to give up their slaves. It wasn't due to expenses arising from persuading other nations.
@@The_Original_Geoff_B I should, perhaps, have been more careful with the wording of my comment. I didn't mean to suggest that all of the debt was generated 'persuading' other countries (bribing and intimidating them is more accurate than persuading) but to suggest that none of the debt was accrued due to that is equally misleading. Britain spent vast sums bribing African nations into ceasing slave sales to other colonial powers and a signficant portion of the national defence budget funding fleets to hunt down slaver ships and paying bounties to privateers doing the same.
Now, there's certainly a conversation to be had over the morality of compensating slave-owners. Personally, I see it as a matter of expediency and efficiency - slavery was a moral evil thus is was a moral imperative to end it as quickly, efficiently, and effectively as possible. Bribing the slave-owners into freeing their slaves ended slavery in the empire much more quickly and with much less threat of civil unrest lead by powerful corporations and wealthy landowners (the only people with the vote at the time) than imposing abolition by military force would have. I see that as much less morally reprehensible than allowing more generations of humans to be born into slavery, but I do concede that it's not morally praiseworthy either.
Edit: Regarding "but to suggest that none of the debt was accrued due to that is equally misleading" - please note I'm not accusing you, personally, of doing this merely that doing so is particularly commonplace when the debt is referenced.
America is responsible for all good things in the world, didn't you know that?
I could laugh myself senseless when they brag about giving human rights to their slaves, when unlike the vast majority of other slave holding countries they spent 100 years treating the freed slaves as sub human 2nd class citizens. O remember being utterly shocked to learn that in America segregation was only made illegal in the 1960s 😳
A very well educated reply. Nice one!
That always interested me as america wasn't even in the top 10 when it comes to abolishing the slave trade.
Wow, that was "one of the best infographic videos" JT has watched wow, there are errors and parts left out. 1. England and Britain are not interchangeable concepts (JT I thought you knew this better than most Americans! 2. In 1801 the Union Jack gained the red diagonals from Ireland. 3. A HUGE part that was conveniently left out was the slave trade was abolished in 1807 in Britain and in 1838 in the empire as a whole, 30 years before the United States.
It also glossed over the fact that the slave trade in Africa was facilitated by Africans themselves, with many Chiefs/Kings/Tribes willingly selling captured enemies, etc. to the English, Dutch and Portuguese. It should also be noted that, contrary to myth, the British and others did not go "hunting" for slaves in country, but again, were purchased from Africans.
@@JonInCanada1 And still some of these countries still have the slave trade . They were the slaves available at the time by their own people . Every nation or peoples have been slaves at some point in history if you go far back enough
@@seanwiddowson5008 You're not wrong. Saudi Arabia is rife with it as are parts of the former Eastern Bloc.
Some good analysis mixed with some pretty dodgy history here, it's absolutely true that the Empire was mainly created through private ventures backed by a strong navy, but not that this funded a strong military capable of crushing any opponants, England and then the UK never had a very large army. It actually used a lot of negotiations and deals. Usually promising to support a local ruler in exchange for trading rights. Very few colonies, mainly the Americas and Australia involved displacement, and there there were very few people, it was trade mainly that was the focus. The West Indies in the time of sugar cane dominance, and India were profitable in themselves, but most colonies were not, their worth was in the captive market for British produced goods. That's the missing piece in the video, Britain's wealth was more to do with the industrial revolution than the Empire, it helped to have it because of selling goods to it, but being the only industrial nation for a while is more important.
Absolutely right Lee Hallam, but of course there is dodgy history here. Can`t make the Brits look good in any way, don`t you know! Oh, and I read a piece in a newspaper, or magazine recently that laid the blame for climate change squarely at the feet of the British - BECAUSE WE STARTED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. My weren`t we evil?
These countries were taken over eventually because of TRADE, not violence !
Now that you're seen that side of the British Empire, you should react to Sargon of Akkad's video, "The British Crusade Against Slavery"
Allot of people don't even know about the British fighting slavery. We don't even get taught about that part of our history at school.
@@ollie1704 I got taught it at school. But it was 30 years ago. West Africa squadron needs to be taught to end BLM
@@jamiebrooks3864 I somewhat disagree as BLM is a more American movement and their history is very different to the UK's.
@@ollie1704 exactly, why it needs ending in UK!
I think the story of the Battle of Bamber Bridge might be quite eye opening for him too.
Nice overview, the Royal Navy was dramatically improved by Samuel Pepys, he drew up articles of service. That is contracts, also education. Any literate person could rise through the ranks to high level. Lord Horatio Nelson a good example. The amount of ships was also due to a bounty called prize money, where the value of a captured vessel was distributed amongst the crew, using a laid out formula. The "prize money " was stopped just after WW1. So a well trained motivated "Navy" was a win all round. Must not forget the Merchant Navy, also well trained. Slavery was not a thing in England due to legislation brought in by William the conquer.
The funny thing was, until Pepys long forgotten diary was discovered, Pepys was an extremely minor footnote in British history - no one had ever heard of him
Hi JT.
Although you may not like the idea of only having sails as a power source, the Clipper Cutty Sark, under full sail would have produced 3,000 horse power. She was faster than the steam ships of that time and unlike the steam ships would not run low on fuel, that also made more space in the holds for goods than comparative sized steam ships.
"England" and "Britain" are not the same thing and should not be used interchangeably.
same with Netherlands and Holland....
Yanks probably think Wales is a part of London
Actually we treated the native Americans much better than the french and other countries did
This video is extremely selective in the facts it presents and biased in how they are shown the vast majority of these private expeditions were done on shoestring budgets with only enough troops to protect themselves they usually found local tribes and kings to partner with then assisted their allies in expanding their influence either by mediation diplomacy military advice or direct military support. Everyone thinks of the British Empire like the ones which came before but it was a very different animal it was a trading empire as long as trade prospered the Empire allowed all its citizens to live as they pleased which is why it became so vast and successful most of the foreign possessions were governed by a handful of Europeans assisted by thousands of locals and defended by millions of local troops trained and equipped to European standards the truth is if these local administrative staff and troops had not supported the Empire any British army sent to impose sovereignty would have been lost without a trace.
This video shows a fair bit of bias and many inaccuracies. We were the first country to ban slavery and we have only just paid off the families that were compensated for giving up slaves back in the early 19th century. It says something when the children of slaves are still being treated poorly by the richest, most modern country in the world. But, you’re right, money takes prime position there.
Firstly, England is only the biggest country in Great Britain or the UK. The UK is GB plus N Ireland. Scots, Irish and Welsh were sent all over the world as soldiers. At one point, Scots were responsible for 40% of the world’s inventions. The British navy was responsible for many ideas and inventions, including standardisation of parts. Previously, each ship was built as a standalone. History lessons here didn’t teach us that the British government threw money at the navy and the army. Rather the opposite. That’s why private enterprise funded exploration and expeditions, not the government.
The UK did explore and found ‘new’ countries - what was Captain Cook doing? The Dutchman, Abel Tasman, found Tasmania but somehow managed to miss Australia altogether.
In losing America, America had a fair amount of help from France and the Continent. The UK army was spread over many lands and amounted to 45k men altogether all over the world at the start.
The Portuguese and Spanish was selling slaves before British business got into the game. They also took far many more slaves.
This isn't supporting the UKs involvement, just pointing out, they wasn't the first.
Thank you for another fascinating video, JT. Just a shame about the narrator constantly referring to Great Britain/ the British as England/ the English!! Your "Wales people", the Scottish, and the Northern Irish also play a VERY significant part, as you, JT, now also know!
Thanks for mentioning Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland as when Americans on UA-cam react to British stuff, they always seem to think England did it all, all British people worked together to achieve what Britain is today.
"wales people" Welsh.
@@C.CUMM1NGS obviously, yes! But if you are a regular viewer of JT's videos, you will know that he always refers to the Welsh as"My Wales People".🙂
@@iainhughes8110 Yup i know that's why i put it in inverted comma's as well, just irritates me a bit when others copy it 😜
@@C.CUMM1NGS oh ok. I see- you were copying me Quoting JT , because it irritates you a bit when others copy it?! Interesting logic, but ok!😂
Great reaction beardy boy…..this video portrays a very biased argument as regards to slavery, you need to do a reaction on Britains crusade against slavery which this video conveniently misses out, it also evades the issue that many civilisations in Africa also made huge amounts of money as a part of the Atlantic slave trade but also the slave trade into the Ottoman Empire and countries of the Middle East. Thomas Sowell has some very good videos on this subject , keep safe and well , love from UK ❤️🇬🇧👍
Spot on mate
Right from the start the video was showing a very biased way of portraying the English/British Empire, albeit in a fairly minor way. Once they got on to slavery it became very biased, even talking about 'invading' Africa to collect slaves. As you are obviously aware they never ventured inland, leaving it up to black Africans to supply them with slaves. This is constantly, and almost certainly deliberately, overlooked because it does not fit the narrative.
I always point people in the direction of Sargon of Akkad's brilliant video.
@@annemariefleming yes, it’s the video I was thinking about but I couldn’t remember who it was done by…..I’m still waiting for Frankie Boyle’s reply btw…..
@@annemariefleming YES
The Royal Navy was built because trade was being blockaded by other countries, mainly France, we didn't have the money so created the bank of England to raise money from public subscriptions.. the ships were used to protect the merchant ships.
We blockaded the French navy in port and supplied those ships with food and water etc by supply ships so that they could stay at the blockade.
Britain didn't invade 90% of the world, a lot of land wash a country, we colonised them, we only colonised a small part of America, it was America gained it's independance that they (invaded) the rest of America and displaced the indigenous people.
India was invaded by East India Company who had their own private army and navy, some Indians enlisted into company army. It was when they ran into trouble that Britain took over the management of India.
They are confusing invasion with wars. Wats with France was because we had a claim to the French throne, we even had a English king on the French throne once.
We were on Spain and Portugal giving military assistance, not invading, same can be said in a lot of other countries.
The British done three things when empire building. One .Conquered the land .Two stabilized the land .Three exploited the land. Sir the vid at 5:53 . The British government did not throw money at the Royal Navy .The warships at that were well designed, lighter faster and had much better weaponry .The cannon on board were mounted on wheels so could load much quicker and made of cast iron . The British empire was build for trade not wealth unlike the Spanish and Portuguese.
The vast sums of money spent on the navy was why that happened. Also, it was about wealth. What do you think is the purpose of trade? It's profit.
Many of the best ships in the Napoleonic wars were captured French ships.
not conquer the land they used trading ports you can not conquer the land if you used trade
for you to conquer the land you need a army
@@helenwood8482 trade is about the movement of money, wealth is about the accumulation of money. Spain just took silver and gold and filled their coffers. Ended up with so much gold that it became worthless and tanked the economy of their entire empire.
There was actually something special about British naval ships back then compared to ships from other countries, we used heavy sails made from hemp, which wouldn't tear when cannon fire hit them, a common tactic was to destroy the sails to immobilize the ship then take the hull apart while circling. Most navies didn't use them because they were very heavy and took a lot of men to raise them, and back then there was a serious lack of health and safety policy :p
This might to do with that most of those “invasions” were “invasions” that most people wouldn’t normally consider as a “invasion”.
You can say we Brits are pretty good in getting into other countries and pieces of land without other people knowing, that might to do with because we are a small country and even with pretty obvious big history people still underestimate the little guys 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
65 countries around the world celebrate their independence from Britain still today, including yours! The two greatest empires ever were the Mongol Empire and the British Empire. In the case of the latter you have to realise that we controlled every ocean and sea too.
However, most them are still volunteer members of the British Commonwealth, accepting the
Royal family etc.
One thing that video neglected to mention was that many of those government funded privateers had another name, PIRATES! Many pirates would also attack slave ships and release the slaves and use them to increase their numbers as free men and pirate crews.
"If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and nicked his country."
Capt. E. Blackadder.
I dressed up as a British Redcoat once and I was so happy because I was just in my history nerd element lmao
It was called the BRITISH Empire, not the ENGLISH empire (1707 onwards).
1st of May 1707 when Scotland and England became one United Kingdom.. 🏴 +🏴= 🇬🇧
@@georgejob2156 Which is why I said it was called the BRITISH Empire, not the ENGLISH Empire...
Yep the Scots & Welsh actually did most of the heavy lifting when it came to overseas service.
Even though I'm English it really annoys me when people say England when it's actually British.
The Scots like to pretend their bit was minimal. Canada and Australia suggest otherwise with Perth and Nova Scotia and Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong.
India wasn't really invaded. Apparently the British east India company was formed in 1599 and landed in India in 1608, just over 100 years after the first European traders. It expanded by various methods over the following 250 years (which in my book is a bloody long time) becoming the dominant whatever until the revolt of 1857 led to the closure of the British east India company in 1857.The Crown then took control of India in 1858.
We were crusaders against slavery. Just ask a black veteran from world war II how Britain open their arms up to them.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, Europe didn't create or exploit slavery, not to mention why does nobody ever talk about Europeans who were slaves, as an Englishman I'm fed up with this bull sh*t, yes we used slavery but that was the norm at the time, end of conversation there's nothing else to add !!!
This is a fairly simplistic description of British expansion. To start with Britain rarely had a very big army, usually several European powers had much bigger armies. Another is that internally Britain began advancing as a society in science, technology and industry until in the late 1700s they were leading the industrial revolution which they dominated for about 100 years. Many like to claim the British divided their enemies but for the most part that is untrue. The poeples of many if not most of the modern countries were already divided and sought alliances with the British. Many considered themselves separate countries and were united by the British, a prime example being India. Also some of the countries invaded were invaded to stop the slave trade. Many others were already controled by another European power and were invaded as part of a European war.
One of my favorite quotes is The sun will never set on the British Empire because even God does not trust the British in the dark.
God loves the Queen God bless British people 🙏
this Brit likes that
@@maettsook yep I'm British too and thought it was funny. One of the best things about us Btits is our ability to laugh at ourselves, from the first day at school and every single day thereafter we get to study the great art of piss taking
We really can’t help it if god is an Englishman!
Another aspect of the trade slave is that it basically worked like this: Ships with European finished goods went out to Africa, their they were exchanged for slaves that then were shipped and sold to america, then in america they were exchanged for raw resources from america, sugar, cotton, tobacco e.t.c. which were shipped to England and then it was poor english people that made the finished goods from the resources. Especially clothes from imported cotton. So the emerging working-class in England itself was exploited more brutally as well, indirectly because of the slave trade overseas. The increased "streamlining" of agriculture and mechanization of industry also made more and more of the already poor people unemployed and encouraged to emigrate overseas (selling yourself into indentured servitude was amongst the most common way europeans emigrated to America in the 17th and 18th century). So the irony is that the slave trade far away overseas sort of created a demand for more tedious and exhausting work back home for Englands poor, in order to produce finished goods for an ever-growing market.
Sorry that’s not strictly true , we did actually invade one island belonging to Sweden after the Swedes had had to make an agreement with Napoleon in 1812 not to trade with UK .
Howeverthe Swedes really didn’t mind and it allowed the British to use this island as a base to trade with all the other Baltic countries and secretly with Sweden as well
so technically no it was a trading port you can only invade if you use a army .
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 It was invaded by the British Navy to use as a base to protect access to the Baltic and also to protect our trade but not strictly as a trading port
@@steveosborne2297 so it was not a invasion it was to protect the ships and its trade
that what the navy was they had money from merchants to protect them in that area but not a invasion as there was not a large army force stationed there.
@@XENONEOMORPH1979 We didn't need to.
We alao invaded icland in ww2 after denmark fell we didnt want the narzis to control it so we invaded while they were nigotiating with the narzis
As a English man myself
Enjoyed this
With the emphasis on the Royal navy in the video I find it interesting that it didn't mention that it was the job of the Royal navy to enforce the decision of the British government to abolish the Slave Trade around the worlds oceans.
Britain gets highly criticised for the Slave Trade, right so, but where is the realisation that the British people saw the barbarity of this Trade and decided to put an end to it.
That’s why when you look at a standard map of the world, you’ll find the U.K in the middle, at the top.
What you forget every country was involved in the slave trade and the Americans even worse
Jungles became Rainforest, Swamps became Wetlands, Slavery became trafficing, the empire became Nato
All of Britain played a part In this JT,not just England. Wales, Scotland & northern Ireland did too, we all had a part to play, that's why the guy In the video you're reacting to said British & NOT JUST England. The Scots - the Welsh did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the overseas service JT.
Scots and Welsh haha good one 🤣
@@leonardhpls6 Someone doesn't know their history, you don't obviously.😂 After all it's called British Empire not English Empire.
Bear in mind that England first invaded the other parts of the UK, except Scotland, which nobody much wanted and which attached itself to us when it invented the UK.
@@helenwood8482 Scotland would never attach itself to England back then, Scots & the English didn't get on, but if it meant stopping other invading armies they would still fight against others even if they had to fight with the English. Still was known as the British empire not the English empire no matter who began the fight.
@@emmahowells8334 👏 👏 exactly.
remember me? ive been subscribed before you hit 2k subs lol. I commented on the among us vent video. Glad to see you are doing well and your channel is doing amazing now. I hope to see you hit 100k subs.
Our involvement in slavery is our worst shame, but we did do something to fix it, ending the international slave trade because it was wrong, even though ending it was expensive.
The East India company and the husdon Bay Co company are two good examples. Hudson Bay company is still one of the biggest companies in the world today.
It’s crazy how powerful we are even now. As such a small country we shouldn’t have half as much power as we do. 🏴
we are only strong still because of the experience the army has. that experience doesn't go away.
plus with a nuclear weapon and advanced tech shared with the US makes Britain strong.
We strong because we invented our advantages and stupid weak politicians shared them to get rich. Uk would be like Germany today if not for politicians of yesterday
Plus the real English men actually enjoy fighting or drinking! Could be drinking which leads to fighting. No true blood English man will ever back down or surrender as Churchill turning in his grave would be life changing even across the pond
That's because the British are very good at adapting. The best in fact.
@@jamesoakley4570 Wrong. It's because the British are good at adapting. The best in fact.
Not so much actual power, but plenty of influence.
East India Trading Company was in Pirates of the Caribbean as an antagonistic force.
Interesting fact about the EITC is that their flag was very similar to that the US and Malaysia use today, many argue that the US flag was even based on this but there isn’t much evidence that it was. It is likely that both flags emerged by adding white stripes to their British Red Ensign flags, the US would then replace the Union Jack with stars.
The stars and stripes flag is almost identical to the family crest of one of the men who created the United States. They found some artefacts in a field recently, there was a symbol on them that looked identical at a glance to the flag, I can't remember if it had any stars and probably had less stripes.
England was actually was very slow to start to colonise. They got involved because they were under threat by the Spainish, Netherlands and other catholic countries but damn they mastered it
There's nought more powerful than a Brit in his shed. I think it was Napoleon who said "England is a nation of shopkeepers", totally missed the point of course because the shops were because we were a nation of empire builders and we learned from some of the best of 'em that came before us.
A great follow up is every country Britain ever invaded. World tour of invaded and conquered. Its great for the context of what Britain actually held.
This is very questionable. Notice the number of countries ‘invaded’ on the map is far more than the countries that were ever part of the empire. Some of these ‘invasions’ was just arriving. I would also think they’ve included times when Britain acted with allies such as Crimea or where the object of invasion was not to conquer. Details are boring though aren’t they, Infographics!
Our standardisation of ship design was a big part too. If a french ship was damaged the crew had to make the custom parts to fix it. If a british ship was damaged the shipwrights would have the right shaped parts ready and waiting in a dockside warehouse when it tied up. Anywhere in the world.
"Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves"
One thing not mentioned was that when Britain fully colonised a country, incluiding setting up government offices & having civil servants move in, they also buiilt schools & hospitals for the locals. Look at India, it was not uncommon for people in Indian society who worked for us in governing the country to send their children to England to be educated in our public schools & universities. In the 19th century, we introduced a modern education to India, teaching a curriculum identical to what was taught back home, taught to boys & girls. We opened state schools in every district & also provided finances for affiliated private schools. This didn't happen as soon as we arrived in India but as the territory we controlled grew, we needed more Indians to join our government to help, & we needed them to be educated to the same level as us. Prior to this biysionly used to study in gurukul, where they lived with a guru & received an education based on what the guru thought was important. Girls were not formally educated usually, but stayed at home & relied on their parents passing on what they knew. A small number were lucky to be placed with a female guru. However, these gurus did not teach subjects we would recognise, such as maths. We needed people who could work in offices or do modern jobs, so we had to introduce a British-style education system to make sure they got the education we needed them to have.
Just ask places in Africa whether they prefered living under British rule or the Belgians or Germans. We were pussy cats compared to rulers like Leopald II of Beligum (just Google what the atrocoties he carried out in the Congo, for example). In fact, we tended to be a lot more benign than others, so much so that some of the former countries have said that life was better under our rule than in their independent state. I'm not saying we were perfect, simply not as bad as others. Even when it came to slavery, we tended not to go somewhere & kidnap people. Instead we'd go somewhere & trade with local tribes who would sell us their enemies as slaves. A number of African tribes provided a steady stream of slaves when they sold us the neighbouring tribes they'd conquered. Even now, many of the former colonies have close ties with the UK as part of the Commonwealth. You don't stay in touch with someone if they've treated you badly, & you certainly don't have a warm, close relationship with them.
Funny hearing an American talk about how there are few points to in history as Britain using slavery, because America is guilt free there also I hear they treated the native Americans really well 🙄
Have you studied the Constitution of the United States?
I hold Merits in the Political system in the USA..
Black's,native peoples and the poor were not included as Citizens,only landowners and people of wealth, for the disenfranchised to gain these liberties,they had to fight for them, it took a Civil War to bring about the abolition of slavery, 1864..
Full civil rights took America into the mid 1960,s race riots and demonstrations, you,re a young country,and you are politically evolving, but you have mush to learn, Europe has more civil rights than you. Please note..
@@georgejob2156 gun owners have more rights in America than women now it's turning into a very sad state of affairs over there.
The Royal Navy flys the Ensign red cross on a white background with the Union Jack in the top left corner, The Merchant Navy flys a red flag with the Union Jack in the top left it is also flown on civilian vessels and The Blue Ensign with The Union Jack in the top left corner is flown on British Government vessels.
British by birth,English by the grace of God.👍
nice description but a number of facts that are not correct. Slavery was banned in Britain from the reign of William 1st 1066 etc. Slavery to the colonies etc was ended in the 1800's by the Royal Navy
Not only that but we invested HEAVILY in naval academy’s as well as navigation and seamanship skills which ensured that British sailors were one of if not the best sailors in the world and would put perform Most European countries and again unlike everyone else who spent their money on their armies the British cut the cost of its military by as you hear renting or hiring mercenaries and the locals which allowed for a much smaller but more professional army at the fraction of the cost where it would be akin to allowing Amazon to hire and equips their own soldiers and the US government says, go to A and if you win you get to keep the place under the name of the US government but in return for said protection we get a cut of the profits ie 40%
Not only that but the great man John Harrison solved the Longitude problem which opened up the whole World to British Ships!
The list of nations NOT invaded by Britain seems to have overlooked Siam.
The rulers there cleverly played the various "Imperial Powers" off against each other.
His beard has invaded 90% of his face
Stuart Laycock also got one wrong. Monaco WAS invaded and occupied after the peninsular war. Britain was clever. It never had a large standing army, so it would use its financial power to subsidise a european ally to fight for/be a continental stalwart for them in order to preserve "the balance of power" (that they could keep an eye on). Usually Austria or Prussia but would also subsidise countries like Russia.
Only 10% to go lads
Apparently the very first Red Indian to meet the Plymouth Pilgrims ship when it landed was called Samoset, and he astounded them by asking in perfect English if they had brought any beer with them. lol
The Brits didnt invade anyone, they had lots of {special operations}
yes the east india trading company , broke so many Magna carter laws but as they were so far away , most of the time they went unpunished by the crown.
Most countries tried and succeeded at invading and colonising, just the British did it better
I'm English and British, and I love our rich and diverse history and culture, but even knowing how powerful the East India Company, and England, then the UK were, some of the things we've done in the past for resources, land, and money still shocks me.
We've rarely been a peaceful nation over our 2+ millennia history, but even so, we've done good too, and we're still proud and patriotic in our own reserved way.
It's interesting that he talked about Britain's involvement in the slave trade, but said nothing about their massive involvement in ending it.
Britain was about 80% responsible for ending slavery and the slave trade, but gets no recognition for it.
The US didn't end slavery until over 100 years after Britain had already made it illegal and spent decades fighting it around the world.
The US also had a civil war to so the south against the north, & the south aim was to win the war & continue the black slavery in the US , but the north won & it eventually ended ..
Don't forget Africans sold fellow Africans to the Europeans. The dutch also had an east india company as well.
The birth of Capitalism, Holland.
@@iriscollins7583 Yes they had the first stock exchange.
As Flanders and Swann (sometimes) ad-libbed in A Song Of Patriotic Prejudice, "If it wasn't for the Engllish, You'd all be Spanish or French".
It wasn't right, but it was different times.
I love that song. I have most of their recordings.
@@annemariefleming They were an excellent duo, with lots of morth and some quite meaningful stuff thrown in
Couldn't they add German?
@@iriscollins7583 The comment harks back to when Spain and France (and the Netherlands) 'owned' quite chunks of North (and South) America and had quite dominate naval assets.
I laughed hard at your surprise that England wasn't always the most powerful. Columbus was sailing for Spain, Hudson was in the service of The Netherlands. It was a Dutch explorer who discovered Australia and Cape Hope was a Dutch colony. Spain and Portugal had extensive colonies in South America somewhat in Africa and certainly quite a few along the coast of India and further in South East Asia. The Philippines were a Spanish colony named after the king, Philip II.
I'm from The Netherlands and in our history I can safely say that, before Britain ruled the waves, The Netherlands did. For a hundred years or so. The Dutch were one of the first to focus on smaller ships that could sail closer to the wind rather than bigger 'floating fortresses' like the Spanish Galleons. Something the British copied. A fun one, not quite related to war, is the 'Fluyt'. Designed specifically for trade with the Baltic Sea and the East Sea. The wide hull and narrow deck were designed with the taxes in the Sont, the strait between Sweden and Denmark, in mind. Those taxes were calculated based on the width of your deck.
The difference was that the rulers here lost their focus. They assumed that their position was safe. Investment in the navy stopped, the colonies were left to completely fend for themselves. There were dozens of little wars between Britain and The Netherlands, mostly fully fought in naval battles with no armies involved at all. Those wars weren't all won by Britain either, far from it. At one point the Dutch navy even sailed up the river Thames to destroy the British shipyards near London. In the end, Britain simply could keep it up for longer and kept its focus. It doesn't matter how many wars you lose, as long as you win the last one. They had more people, they had forests at home (The Netherlands traded extensively with Norway and Sweden for timber), they just had more everything.
You should react to every country England has ever invaded visualised
The British were the ones, that when they held the reins of world power, INSISTED on the abolition of the slave trade. In those days if you saw a ship bearing down on you flying the Union Jack, you knew it stood for liverty!
It was enjoyable. The working British people were more abused than the citizens of countries they took control of. It was entertaining.
Keep up the good posts.
Fully agree. Old enough to have seen some if it. Miners, Foundry and Steel Workers,Women and Children in Mills and Mines, up Chimneys.
@@iriscollins7583
I've done lots of research on labour in Britain in the industrial towns during the industrial revolution,mainly the 19th century. it was the hardest, most severe time for any workers in any civilisation in recorded history. I asked own grandmother who died when in 1977 and was born in 1889 about her working life in the cotton mills. She started work aged 11 and worked 60 hours a week for 2/6 when she started aged 11. She said they started at 5.30am with half hour for breakfast at 8 am. Then an hour for dinner then worked till 6pm for 5 days a week but in summer they had to work later at night because there was more sunlight. Oh and Saturday mornings until 12. In them days there was no sick pay and no holidays with pay, there was no nhs either or social security system, it was also before there was any pensions for old people. She thought she had it better than the previous generation!!!! You should read the history of child minimum working age and maximum hours. It's horrific.
Yes, slavery certainly had its own horrors, but you have to compare them to the working and living conditions of working people in Europe at the same time.
@16:00
There was no slavery in Britain after 1089 AD. Slavery in British run colonies already existed when Britain captured them from the Spanish, French or Portuguese and the economies just continued as already established. After a hundred years of being involved in the slave trade Britain banned the slave trade and forced other countries to stop the business, liberating hundreds of thousands of Africans.
This vid has a lot of crap in it. The list is long and I don't have the time to dispute this propaganda. I didn't hear much about the abolition of slavery and the role GB played in it and the cost, while stil fighting European wars.
I think England was much more of trading nation than anything else, we occasionally use the navy to consolidate the trading agreements.
Take it all with a bit of salt because a lot of countries just didn't exist. Nations were created through organisation, formalisation, border creation and the ability to sustain it. How do you think all these countries were actually created? Even the USA (previously just part of the Americas a single continent) was just a vast expanse until colonised by the Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese - it's not as if the native Indians understood the concept of land ownership or territorial boundaries. It was only after colonisation they started to form recognisable structures of governmental areas, that's where countries are created...
We fight wars differently and always have. We've often faced stronger larger forces, but created alliance's and know how and when to fight. We've lost battles but won wars mainly because you don't fight for territory you fight to win... Somebody attacks you, you don't just defend - you attack them back striking at every point you can. It's how we grew so big, France attacks you take everything that French has, Spain attacks you take everything Spain has, sooner or later they stop attacking...
As far as armies the private company - the East India Company had twice the soldiers the British army had.
The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch etc all had empires before the British. We didn't take most of these countries from their original owners, we took them from another empire that took it from the original owners or colonised a new territory, Britain and France were actually very late to exploration and colonisation. But revisionist history is quite prevalent. Africa and the middle east were formidable between 711-1492, which is when Spain kicked them out of the Iberian peninsula and began their growth into a world power.
To keep it simple, Britain grew rapidly because in the resolution of a war we took the territory of the loosing side, which we also attacked during hostilities denying them their resources from far off lands... We strangled their resources and then took them upon winning the war...
If you're wondering why we didn't do that in Europe, there was a strange array of alliances between royal houses and it prevented this very thing happening directly to them, but not their territories.
It wasn't the government who established the Royal Navy it was Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I commanded a significant increase in naval power... It was monarch not government that built up British naval power back then the government ran national affair deemed beneath the monarch... It was also the monarch who granted license to private companies to trade in foreign lands independently - effectively outside of British government and legislative control. It was in name only British at first. This is actually why British law didn't prevent slavery in oversea territories, they were effectively independent and a blind eye was cast that way because it benefited British global business. It wasn't until later British law was enforced in British colonies forcing the criminalisation of the slave trade and it's eventual demise.
If you look at where the British were you'd see they never extended too far inland, and that's because our power was sea based, the Americas for example French, Dutch etc, and in South America Spanish and Portuguese took whatever they wanted. British resources weren't complete, but we're substantial. It why when you went inland you'd find Dutch and French trappers but very few English, other than free indenture servants who chose to start a new life there... and there were 50,000 forgotten indenture servants sent to the Americas pen@l colony.
My mother's brother served in the British Indian Army in the 1930's. He was stationed at Agra in India, and saw sevice on the North West Frontier with Afghanistan. He was killed on the Canal line at Dunkirk in 1940.
Your uncle must have been upset
So sorry 🌷
Your fascination with us brits is so fun to watch! I’d love to show you around the uk and give you a look at the hidden gems and our culture. love the videos mate!
England practiced on Wales first. Took them 200 years and once they managed it they found the rest of the world easy.
@Denise Bond and the Vikings, the Irish, the Germanics, the Dutch and the French
I like how you referred to Britain as England, I feel in this context you're right. My belief is the first colonys of "Britain" were Wales,Ireland and my home of Scotland hot take I know but we lost out language and culture and submitted to rule in England
Nah mate ure dead wrong, British stuff began in 1607 end of - Britain didnae exist
Stop apologising for Yanks wha dinnae understand Geography
So tell me, who was King James V of Scotland then if not King James 1 of England and Wales as well? It was his descendents who ruled England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, and who created the Act of Union that joined all the countries into the United Kingdom a hundred years later. So don't blame English people for the fact that the Scottish culture and language have been lost when it was Scottish rulers who controlled them.
Furthermore, the Scottish have a long and proud history of invention and engineering development. In fact I think it was the Japanese who quantified it by saying that more than 50% of all the important inventions in the last 500 years or more came from the British Isles, and over 50% of them were invented either in Scotland, or by Scotsmen. So don't put your country or its contributions to the progress of the World down.
Finally, don't forget that since devolution, Scottish MPs can still vote on English matters, but English MPs can't vote on Scottish matters. So who's got the upper hand now? Scotland, and it continues to dominate domestic expenditure of the British Treasury through the Barnett Formula, which gives Scotland more money per head of population than England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
@@BobHUK Show me where I blamed English people for anything ?
You understand that me as a "scot" has English family ?
I want the United Kingdom to end, but so does a lot of people
English votes for English laws - it's something we're always talking aboot here in Scotland 😆 🤣
Barnet formula - what's goin on here ? Why u fishing for information mate ?
Link to the GERS figures your using ? GERS = government expenditure and revenue Scotland - top line this year was about £80 billion I think
Your a wee bit aw over the place wi yer scenarios - 13th century king James to EVEL in 2022 - very eccletic of you
I'm not sure SNP MP's abstain when it pertains to the stuff ure on aboot
Pretty much has to do that they would only invade peoples that did not have firearms, gunboats or organised armies.
Us English have always been self reliant, back when Jesus' grandparents were still alive we were fighting and defeating the Roman Army led by Julius Caeser himself but they came back in force a century later and we spent a full thousand years as a conquered slave nation. After the Romans it was the Vikings then the French and eventually we got free only to be invaded by the Germans and the French, the Spanish and again the French trying to re-conquer us and we kind of lost it, like the bullied kid who goes to the gym and gets 'Roid rage' we just wanted to be safe from the bullies, so we got big, WAY BIG!
The Royal Charter stated that 'The Royal Navy shall always be as large as the TWO largest navies know to other nations'. Or other words the Royal Navy will be more than just be the largest, it will be at least as big as the second and third biggest navies combined, this meant that it would take 'at least' three countries in an alliance to become a threat to us.
Even our national anthem reflects this "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves, so Britain Never Again Shall Be Enslaved!"
As an Island, if we control the seas, we can Never be invaded and it worked, not even the German war machine managed to reach us during WW2, thank to the newly born Royal Air Force we kept our coasts free from invasion, despite the RAF Pilots having a lower survival rate that the Japanese Kamikaze pilots. Yes, during the war the RAF pilots were more likely to die than suicide pilots, which is like asking US Marine's to fight so often against such unfair odds that they are more likely to die than a suicide bomber.
Rule Britannia isn't our national anthem!
England isn't an island!
All of the UK was involved & did their bit, Wales, Scotland Northern Ireland & not just England. After all it's Britain the UK isn't just England.
Those ships have powerful motors on the masts. And they rarely ran out of fuel, which was free.
💪🏻🇬🇧
Whats not coming across here is that Britain did not use force ! They gradually gained power in these other
countries through TRADE! The East I ndia Company played a large part. Google it.
This clip skips over the major point of contention for hundreds of years for fear of not wanting to step on anyone's shoes - religion. The Spanish, French, Irish, many Scottish etc. were constantly conspiring against England and they were allied predominantly through Catholicism. The pope was even against England. The English fought some battles like the Battle of the Boyne alongside other protestants including Danes, the Dutch, the Huguenots etc. Protestantism led England and other Northern European nations into the age of enlightenment and discovery. People had more freedom and free enterprise and market economics were encouraged. People aspired to be greater and to rise above impediments. Catholicism was severely corrupt and sucked vast sums of money out of people to fund wars, bribe people and get involved in politics. The official position of the Catholic Church up until some time during the last century was to conduct mass in Latin. It meant that only few wealthy people could understand what was going on and could even read the Bible. It was a deliberate position to ensure that ignorance prevailed and vested the maximum amount of power in the church. Basically very few could challenge their authority. They were not happy when Martin Luther decided that the Bible should be printed in German, the language spoken by the man in the street in the German principalities. Consequently Northern Europe pushed forward to discovery, industrial revolution, literacy, modern medicine, science etc. and the South of Europe stayed in the dark ages. There are still parts of Europe that don't have proper sewage systems to this day. For all of the trillions of dollars worth of gold extracted out of South America by the Spanish hundreds of years ago, it was all squandered and Spain continued to be relatively poor due to religion and politics. This film makes it sound like England had a choice and it was the aggressor. There have been times when the English fleet was under attack from the French, Spanish and Portuguese, and outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1 when failure would have meant total destruction and enslavement. The Scottish and Irish were constantly trying to provide a back door into England over land to the French and the Spanish. England was surrounded. This is why England had to crush any rebellion across Britain and Ireland, and at times banish Catholics because it was thought that they couldn't be trusted. England had to come out swinging and kill or be killed. Yes, there were financial interests, but it was all in the name of building the British empire and it enabled the country to survive against strong foes including Napoleon and Germany more recently. The clip makes it feel like the empire was all about greed. Every country in Europe wanted to colonise parts of Africa. Sweden even briefly contemplated colonising Australia.This had a huge impact upon influence and geopolitics. The British were actually far less abusive of local people than other nations and tried to build up institutions and infrastructure, whereas some of the others were just in it to exploit the resources and the people. Slave trading was already occurring in Africa for hundreds or thousands of years before Europeans arrived and it was the local people who were wealthy from doing all of the rounding up. The British were actually instrumental in ending the slave trade well before most other countries involved, so while everyone looks at the situation with a lot of modern ideas and sensibilities, Britain has actually been a force for good in the world on many occasions. Moral justice, respect and good behaviour are values that are commonly upheld in English literature. Money, greed and prosperity was only part of the picture and I feel as though it has been over played a bit. It is poles apart from the horrific plundering and atrocities committed by the Spanish during their conquest of South America.
People seem to forget early in American history we invaded the Barbary Coast as one of our first wars. Not saying it's as good as British Empire and their Companies but it was pretty difficult to war over the atlantic.
It was private companies within Britain who traded slaves, not the government, although they turned a blind eye to it. Slavery in Britain was abolished in 1102 under the influence of Lanfranc and his successor as archbishop of canterbury.
Another thing was surplus where Britain was just building warships for war but if they ever needed to they could simply sell them off as either well armed merchant ships or to other countries