British abolition targeted Brazil to destroy its competing economy

Evidence

The British capitalists, however, remained unimpressed. In 1857 [30 January] an editorial in the London Times declared: “We know that for all mercantile purposes England is one of the States, and that, in effect, we are partners with the Southern planter; we hold a bill of sale over his goods and chattels, his live and dead stock, and take a lion’s share in the profits of slavery; … we are clothing not only ourselves, but all the world besides, with the very cotton picked and cleaned by ‘Uncle Tom’ and his fellow-sufferers. It is our trade… .” British capitalism had destroyed West Indian slavery, but it continued to thrive on Brazilian, Cuban and American slavery. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 755 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The attack falls into three phases: the attack on the slave trade, the attack on slavery, the attack on the preferential sugar duties. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, slavery in 1833, the sugar preference in 1846. The three events are inseparable. The very vested interests which had been built up by the slave system now turned and destroyed the system. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 786 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Britain profited from American and Brazilian slavery while destroying its own (similarity 0.88)
• British anti-slavery rhetoric masked thriving profits in other slave economies (similarity 0.88)
• British capitalism thrived on Brazilian slavery despite official abolitionism (similarity 0.87)
• British abolitionism of the slave trade served commercial empire-building (similarity 0.83)
• British capitalism ended West Indian slavery but thrived on American, Cuban, and Brazilian slavery (similarity 0.83)
• Industrial capital dismantled the slave system it had built once slavery became unprofitable (similarity 0.83)
• British slavery followed Iberian and Dutch models in substituting human capital for commodities (similarity 0.81)
• British antislavery policy served commercial empire rather than Black welfare (similarity 0.81)
• English capital subsidized both Brazilian independence and slave imports (similarity 0.80)
• Capitalism’s own matured interests destroyed the slave system it had built. (similarity 0.80)
• Free trade’s gains for Britain came at the British West Indies’ expense (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• British capitalism ended West Indian slavery but thrived on American, Cuban, and Brazilian slavery #corroborates (0.82) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 755
• Capitalist interests that built the slave system later turned and destroyed it #complicates (0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 786