On May 6, Charles III was crowned King of the United Kingdom after the sun decisively set over the British Empire. The ceremony reminded us again of the connection of the British Crown with colonial loot and the slave trade, the foundations of the British Empire. The British royalty was not just the titular head of the Empire: the Royal African Company, which held the monopoly of supplying slaves to the Americas, was the direct property of the British Crown and was run by the Duke of York, the King’s brother. The royal monopoly ended when British proponents of “free trade”, London, Manchester and other city merchants, wanted their share of this lucrative trade.
Why am I writing about England’s role in the slave trade three hundred years back in a science and development column today? The answer is we have been taught a different history of the world than what has actually happened. Let us read the mythology of the West that passes as history. First is the Age of Discovery. It was followed by the Age of Enlightenment or Reason; and then the scientific and technological revolution that led to the modern world. There is no mention of genocide, modern slavery and the loot of the colonies in this story of discovery, enlightenment, and industrialisation.
According to Western historians, unfortunate events accompanied the rise of the West, but these are not the main story, which is about the rise of reason and science, monopolies of the Western mind!
— source newsclick.in | Prabir Purkayastha | 15 May 2023