Final answer on Somerset case

LAST MONTH, the Youthlink history dealt with the topic 'The Road to Emancipation' and used the multiple choice form to teach about the Somerset case. The question was 'The Somerset case ruled that ...' and the options were 'the abolition of the slave trade should be delayed by another two years', 'once slaves are recaptured they should be returned to their slave owners', 'slavery was illegal in England', 'Somerset should have been deported from England'. Unfortunately, all four options are incorrect. Nevertheless, the Youthlink had the answer as the Somerset case ruling that slavery was illegal in England.

Apparently, the Caribbean Examination Council teachers and examiners will not budge on this factual error. And this patent misrepresentation on the Somerset case continues. Students of history should listen to 'Talking History' on Nationwide Network and ask host Verene Shepherd, professor of social history at the University of the West Indies, what was the ruling in the Somerset case. The United Nations has declared 2011 as 'The International year for people of Africa descent' and this ruling, which involved the enslaved African James Somerset and when slavery was declared illegal in England, should be resolved once and for all.

What Lord Mansfield ruled in the 1772 Somerset case was that enslaved persons in England cannot be forcibly removed from England. The 'owner' of Somerset wanted to force Somerset to go to Jamaica with him and all the ruling did was to prevent it. That ruling seems to be reinforcing slavery in England. In any case, in 1827, Lord Stowell ruled in the case of the enslaved Grace Jones, who came from Antigua to Britain and then went back to Antigua with her master, was not entitled to freedom because she had set foot in England. Indeed, there were enslaved persons in England in the 19th century.

No such law

Slavery was not declared illegal in England in 1772. For Mansfield to have ruled that slavery was illegal in Britain, he would have had to cite which statute prohibited slavery according to British law. There was no such law. Paradoxically, this is one of the sticking points against reparations, in that slavery was not illegal in Britain so the people of African descent cannot demand reparations from Britain on that ground.

Many leading historians have written on the Somerset case. Eric Williams, leading historian and former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, in his classic book Capitalism and Slavery corrected the false impression that the Mansfield judgment declared slavery illegal in pages 45-46. F.O. Shyllon, Black Slaves in Britain (1974); James Oldham, The Mansfield Manuscripts and the Growth of English Law in the Eighteenth Century (1992); and James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery (1993) are three books that contend that the Somerset case ruling decided that Somerset could not be forcibly removed to Jamaica.

It is important to get the facts right. In addition, we should not give the impression that Britain was the land of the free in 1772. It also belittles the efforts at resistance by enslaved persons from the 17th century, who gave their lives in the quest for emancipation to which we are now the beneficiaries.

If our young people grasp that legacy from our history, then they would have confidence to solve our chronic problems of high murder rate and poverty and recognise that God has given us gifts and abilities to help improve ourselves. With God's help, we can make a difference in our oppressive situation.

My final answer on the Somerset case and to complete the statement, 'The Somerset case ruled that ...', is that - 'an enslaved person cannot be forcibly removed from England'!

Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew.