Scientist and banker benefited from gold mined primarily by enslaved Africans in Brazil, book claims

Summary

A new book, Ricardo’s Dream by Nat Dyer, reveals that Sir Isaac Newton’s wealth was closely tied to the transatlantic slave trade during his tenure as master of the mint at the Bank of England.

Newton profited from gold mined by enslaved Africans in Brazil, much of which was converted into British currency under his oversight, earning him a fee for each coin minted.

While Newton’s scientific legacy remains untarnished, the book highlights his financial entanglement with slavery, a common thread among Britain’s banking and finance elites of the era.

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    183·
    1 month ago

    It’s interesting that our first instinct is to think of cancelling. Cancelling is a way for us to assert that we are not “that”, to affirm our disgust for those people. It’s flushing the shit away, if you will.

    Until you realize that it’s all shit, all the way down (cue in Ohio meme). The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Arabs, the Malians, the Turks, the Babylonians, the Indians, the Europeans, …every civilization until, what, 200 years ago, was a slave owning society.

    You can’t cancel all of human history, you can’t flush away the entire earth, even if ultimately, all soil is shit and rotting crap mixed with rocks.

    We have to go beyond cancelling. Instead, we have to recon with the fact that we are somewhat woke on the shoulders of giant douchebags. We can’t cancel our history away, we have to sit with the shit and see what it means for us today. Instead of absolving the past, cancel it out of sight and think we’re done with it, we have to wrestle with its legacy.

    Thanks for coming to my TED talk.