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Q: You note in the book that there was a cultural gulf between Londoners and colonists when it came to how they thought of people of African descent and slavery. What was the disconnect — and why do you think it existed?
A: To be fair, there were only about 15,000 Africans in London in the 1770s. They were not the essential component of the English economy nor the Scottish economy. The exploitation of Africans basically took place thousands of miles away. And thus it became easier, it seems to me, for Londoners to have a more civilized attitude. It became easier for William Hogarth, the painter, to invest Africans with a kind of humanity that was marginally absent in terms of the consideration and contemplation of many in the colonies. And I think this also helps to generate the schism between the metropolis London and the mainland provinces that ultimately leads to an eruption causing a unilateral declaration of independence in July 1776. Increasingly, Londoners were coming to see the colonists as being rather uncivilized with regard to their maltreatment of Africans. This was particularly the case when the colonists showed up in London itself and would engage in beating enslaved Africans on the streets of London and this did not go down very well amongst the Londoners. It did not go down very well amongst the British subjects, generally. I do think that this is a factor amongst many that creates this yawning gap — in some cases wider than the Atlantic Ocean — between the colonies, on the one hand, and the colonial master in London, on the other.
full: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/30/white_supremacy_and_slavery_gerald_horne_on_the_real_story_of_american_independence/
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