Benedict Arnold - Misunderstood?

I'm posting this in a London pub, after visiting the grave of one of the most important figures of the American Revolution. General Arnold and his wife are buried in a very pretty riverside church in London. The church there has display panels about love, forgiveness and reconciliation - does everyone agree?

in the us his name is a synonym for a traitor because he defected to the british in the independence war

good one

But he's with his wife. That's all what matters.

easy to say for someone who married a hot spaniard girl, but maybe arnolds wife was a terrible person and now they are fighting in eternity

Absolutely nobody in London knows anyone named James Armistead. I'm now going away to google him.

Pulpofeira. I suppose so.

 OK. Back again after a quick trip to Wikipedia. So James Armistead was a slave who fought for the slave-holding Americans against the British. For information, slavery was illegal in England at this time and throughout the British Empire from 1812 (she says, carefully reading from Wikipedia). So if the War had gone the other way, black people would have been freed 50 years earlier than they were.

I agree he is buried there.

What else?

Actually I take that back. Just found this on Wikipedia.

Arnold was buried at St. Mary's Church, Battersea in London, England.^[120] As a result of a clerical error in the parish records, his remains were removed to an unmarked mass grave during church renovations a century later.^[121] His funeral procession boasted "seven mourning coaches and four state carriages";^[97] the funeral was without military honors.^[

No military honours because he was never a member of the British army, obvs. Like, it wasn't anything negative. There's a stained glass window, postcards (happy to mail then to anyone) and you can then get a boat back to Westminster- it's about 2 miles.

The Dutch and English introduced and promulgated slavery in the Americas.  Unlike Holland or England, these counties were suited for that abominable practice.   After making those colonies economically dependent upon slavery, enriching themselves with the spoils of slavery, it was far easier to abolish it on paper where is wasn't depended upon. However, that wasn't even the precise chain of events.
The Act of 1807 criminalized the act of buying or selling slaves (the US had banned slave trade into the states in 1800, criminalizing it in 1808). This law wasn't aggressively enforced and the slave trade continued, undoubtedly with officials looking the other way, even in Liverpool and Bristol. If things became too hot there, they moved offshore, flying foreign flags such as those of Spain or Portugal where slave trade was still legal. It was a general practice of the Royal Anti-Slaving Squadrons who supposedly patrolled the West African coast to resell the confiscated slave from ships they detained. Later they would honor their purpose more ethically.
In 1834, The British Emancipation Act ended slavery in the West Indies, Mauritius and South Africa but only after a 5 year indentureship for the freed slaves. In 1848, Britain prohibited slavery in India, but it wasn't until 1874 that Britain abolished would slavery in the Gold Coast.
During the 19th century, Britain traded with Cuba, a major sugar supplier, Brazil and of course the USA for cotton - rather than curbing the slave business, effectively encouraging it. Up almost to the American Civil War the House of Commons absolutely refused to act against the direct and indirect support of slavery.

There's no reason to think that had the Revolutionary War gone the other way that slaves would have been freed any sooner, and given the fact that souther ports were blocked during the Civil War, artificially ending Britain's dependency on this product, it's possible that the unfettered dependency on U.S cotton and tobacco might have extended slavery.... but who knows?

One should read "Washington's Secret Six," the story of Washington's Culper Spy Ring which exposed the Benedict Arnold-Maj Andre consipracy to "sell" West Point to the British. Arnold had been a hero. He felt he was due far more that he had received financially and in honors and promotions. He also led an extravagant lifesyle, courting and marrying the Philadelphia socialite Peggy Shippen - who also happened to be a loyalist.   Arnold was the military commander of Philadelphia, using that position for personal gain. Peggy played Washington for a fool and Arnold's fall was from a dizzying height. They left no wiggle room for forgiveness. Arnold wasn't misunderstood, but understood fully just in time to end his treachery.

Hi batgirl, thanks for saying that the British Royal Navy carried out their anti-slavery duties ethically. And they did that for 50 years with no possible benefit to them or the country.

FWIW I'm glad the revolutionaries won. More democrats and fewer kings sounds good to me. My mum here in the UK always voted Labour but always knew everything about the Queen and her children - never understood that.

 "During the 19th century Britain traded with Cuba, Brazil and the USA." Yup.

You could be right, if you could get a really big shark in it, and a huge ship sinking, then I'm in!

Urghh. No, that would be so so great! Let's see what everyone thinks of while we're asleep.

I don't know what it'll be, but I bet it will be unbelievably fantastic!

When the US finally surrender to the British, I might agree.

Only if jonny depp s in it, i imagine he would be a good captain

Mine is wonderful, but anyway it's not like I haven't experienced a nuclear holocaust on my head a couple of times...