Talk:Thomas Guy

Slave trading

The Assiento was a relatively small part of the functions of the South Sea Company, and not a profitable one. The application of a category relating to that to the article thus seems misconceived. The South Sea Company was formed as a means of funding government debt. Sailor's tickets would be one class of unfunded debt during the War of Spanish Succession. Those tickets would have been exchanged into shares, whose dividends were funded by payments from the government. Guy should thus be categorised as an investor in government debt, not as a slave trader (as at present). comments please. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

While I understand the desperate psychological need of some editors to provide some kind of pathetic fig leaf with which to hide the original sins of British capitalism, I should point out that this is misguided. They do not increase the honour of Britain, Europe, Africa or the Americas. Instead, all they do is demonstrate their contempt for the millions of people ripped away from their homes, deprived of their loved ones. They demonstrate their contempt for the women beaten to death on the plantations, the children thrown overboard in Atlantic storms. They demonstrate their inability to identify with their fellow human beings at the lowest moments of suffering and desparation. They demonstrate their failure to live up to the 'Golden Rule'. They demonstrate their desire to 'wash their hands' - 'Who will rid me of this troublesome [ghost]'. To such editors, I say, stop identifying with a flag at the cost of all morality, all ethical constraints. The editors should learn that they themselves are not the flag. They can separate themselves from the monstrously extreme nationalism that always seeks to minimise and hide the sufferings of the enslaved masses. Such editors should instead embrace their common humanity. Ackees (talk) 10:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I certainly do not seek to minimise the horrors of the slave trade. However, blame should be attributed only to those who are blameworthy. I strongly suspect that the South Sea company bought its slaves in the West Indies and shipped them to Spannish possessions. If so, it was not directly guilty of the horrors of the Middle Passage. The proposition that I put forward was that a shareholder in a company managing government debt, but with trading interests (including in the slave trade) should not be classified as a slave trader. The South Sea Company in fact made little profit from its trade, which was why it began to give it up in the 1730s. Essentially, my point was that there ought to be a limit to how remotely the ill-repute of slave trading should be attributed. You are going to the opposite extreme to what you accuse me of. I purposely placed a comment on this page, rather than making the change, so as notto get inot an edit war. There has to be a line between (direct) involvement and indirect: where do you draw it? You could argue that every person who ate sugar or drank rum was complicit in the slave trade; certain anti-slavery campaigners did abstain from sugar, but to treat every one who did not as complicit would be ridiculous. Where is the line? Peterkingiron (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

The facts are clear. The primary purpose of the South Sea Company was to fulfill the Asiento in accordance with an international treaty. The Asiento was the legitimisation by the signatory powers of mass deportation and forced labour for life, including all descendants in perpetutity. All investors knew and 'assented' to this. They owned the company and its the ships and they were hence entirely responsibility for the enslavement of their ship's captives. According to Eltis et al, the South Sea Company undertook 96 voyages from London bound for Africa and then the Americas (this excludes voyages within the Americas). 35,000 people were deported from Africa and enslaved during the company's operation of the Asiento, resulting in the deaths in transit of about 4000. I can appreciate that for some editors, the enslavement of 35,000 people and all of their descendants for upwards of a hundred years is of no significance compared to the establishment of Guys Hospital or the accumulation or loss of fortune of various individual English men and women, whom they regard as being 'great' or whatever. However, such a position is merely an opinion. It does not detract from the fact that the South Sea Company was a slave-trading corporation and that the people who owned it were therefore slave traders. That English investors were so desperate to profit from slave trading that they created a bubble, should not be a source of surprise either as, in the ensuing century, England went on to become the chief Atlantic slave-trading power. So, despite the crash, the national will was fully realized as were Thomas Guy's profits.Ackees (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Slave trading 2020 Discussion

The facts are well sourced and unless there is evidence to the contrary the facts are that the South Sea company was substantially involved in trading slaves and Thomas Guy's fortune came from the sale of his stock in this company. Views that the company's slave trading activities were somehow minimal or minor are out of date. See https://www.southampton.ac.uk/economics/research/discussion_papers/year/2009/0924_the_south_sea_company_s_slaving_activities.page and http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/slavery_business_gallery_06.shtml. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and needs to represent mainstream findings whether or not they are liked. I have put tags on the page. Unless the well-referenced and relevant facts can be disproven, they should not be removed. Claire 75 (talk) 17:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The facts are indeed clear. The primary purpose of the company was not to trade in slaves. The slave trade took 2% of its capital - £200,000 out of £10 million. It WAS minor and minimal. The primary purpose of the Company was to consolidate government debt. Slavery was and is a horrible institution, but it was not the main focus of the South Sea Company. All historical work agrees on this, including Helen Paul's work. Her contention is that the Company did attempt to profit from the slave trade and was not uninterested, as many have contended. That does not mean it was a major part of the company. Yes, she finds that 96 ships took 34,000 slaves to Spanish America from 1714-1737, which is tragic. The vast majority of this, however, was after 1720, when Thomas Guy sold his shares. During the period in which he held shares, 1711-1720, the company did not turn a profit on its slave trading activities. In fact, it lost several hundred thousand pounds. The bubble was absolutely not about its slave trading, which was on pause in 1719-1720; the bubble was about the company's government debt consolidation schemes, in which it proposed to consolidate all outstanding government debt. Please do some research on this. Email Helen Paul if you want. Or read any of the many books on the subject. Thomas Guy was interested in the company for its steady dividend, guaranteed by the government (some £550,000 a year, or about 5%). Hence why, when he sold his shares in 1720, he bought other types of government debt and not, for example, shares of the Royal Africa Company. You simply do not know what you are talking about. I can appreciate that you are concerned about your institution being morally tainted by the awful stain of slavery, but this worry is misplaced in this instance. Guy did not profit from slavery. This is a fact. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 17:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Surely whether or not Guy turned a profit from the slave trade does not effect whether he had a role in it. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The BBC article is an example of the erroneous assertion that Guy earned his money through the slave trade. He did not. My wording specifically states that he was involved in the slave trade, I am not trying to hide that. I am instead stating he did not earn his money from the slave trade. This is a fact. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid that counts as original research, and we need to stick to what reliable sources say. If there is a reliable source out there which contradicts what the BBC source says then we can change the wording – that's certainly not inconceivable, it's a summary piece and there may well be academic papers which explore the subject in detail. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

That is not original research; that is evidence that people have the mistaken opinion that Guy earned his wealth in the slave trade. As seen in Elizabeth Donnan's article and other referenced sources, the South Sea Company did not earn a profit on the slave trade in the time period in which Guy was a shareholder. There are many academic papers which explore the subject in detail and I have referenced several, because I am very familiar with the South Sea Company and the literature on it. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

To help with verifiability, are you able to add a page to the Donnan reference stating that Guy did not make any profit from the South Sea Company? Richard Nevell (talk) 21:04, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Have you looked at Donnan's article? It is quite clear that in the time that Guy was a shareholder, the slave trading section of the South Sea Company lost several hundred thousand pounds. It did not turn a profit. Please look at it before needlessly editing this article further. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Money aside, why do you keep removing the number of slaves the company transported? Is there an issue with figure? Richard Nevell (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes. You, Dr. Nevell, and Claire have been citing information about the number of slaves the company transported from 1714-1737 - 17 years after Guy sold his shares and 13 years after he died. How is that at all relevant to him? But also, in the time that he was a shareholder, the slave-trading arm of the South Sea Corporation is not exactly relevant to him or his legacy, considering that he earned exactly £0 from the slave trade. It used less than 2% of the Company's capital. I fully understand, respect, and support the desire for us (Britain) to remove statues of people such as Edward Colston, who was directly involved in the horrible slave trade and made his fortune through it. And, indeed, I would love to have statues of people such as Rosalind Franklin put up, instead. But Thomas Guy was not directly involved in the slave trade, only indirectly, and earned no profit from his indirect involvement. He was undoubtedly an unpleasant person, judging from all reports, but he was not directly involved in slavery and, so, reporting details of what the South Sea Company did on his page is completely irrelevant to him and his legacy. He printed bibles for Oxford and invested in government debt. He was not a slave owner or slave trader. Please stop erroneously editing this page. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 22:17, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Having considered both this article and that on Edward Colston with reference to Juliet Gardiner's "The History Today Who's Who In British History", here is the full entry for Thomas Guy which, in contrast to Colston, does does not refer anywhere to the slave trade: "Guy, Thomas (c. 1645-1724), philanthropist. He became a bookseller in London in 1668 and built his fortune by successfully challenging the monopoly of the King's printers in Bible production, and then investing the money in government securities. MP for Tamworth (1695-1707), where he had grown up and where he built an almshouse and town hall, in 1704 he became a Governor of St Thomas's Hospital, to which he added three new wards. In 1720 he sold what had been £45,000 of South Sea stock at £270,000 and, guided by his friend Richard Mead, devoted it to the building of a new hospital opposite St Thomas's. Guy left £200,000, the largest sum in a will full of substantial legacies, to the governors of the hospital, which still functions as Guy's Hospital." In my view (as a trained historian of the period) Guy has no links to the slave trade worth mentioning in a Wikipedia article, except in the context of the present plans to remove memorials to him. In 1720 almost everyone in England was speculating in South Sea stock to some extent and Guy happened to be one of the lucky ones who sold at the right time; he was certainly not a slave trader and I would guess probably had very little interest in the subject compared to Bibles, philanthropy and medicine. - Sufcmad (talk) 23:12, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't really understand the desire to remove the references to slavery from this page. Guy was a major and rational investor who had held shares in the South Sea company for some time before selling them at a great profit to himself. The Asiento contract, irrespective of its immediate profitability, was a key part of the South Sea companies activities and a key part of the overall prospectus used to attract rational investors such as Guy. To quote Helen Paul's more recent work:

"One of the selling points of South Sea Company shares was the Asiento contract. It gave monopoly rights to trade in slaves to Spanish colonies in the Americas. There was also an annual ship which was licensed to bring goods to the colonies. The company was in a good position to smuggle more goods in. Lastly, there was a remote possibility that the Spanish empire would crumble. If that had happened, then the company would have been well placed to claim some of the land for Britain. A share in the South Sea represented a claim upon the government fee and potential gains from slaving and the trade in goods. It also gave the holder a stake in whatever else the company could grab from the Spanish: something similar to a lottery ticket in fact.13 The company itself was closely linked with fortunes of the state, or what has been termed 'the fiscal-military state'.14 It restructured part of the state's debts. It held the Asiento because of Britain's gains in the War of the Spanish Succession. It worked alongside another joint-stock company, the Royal African Company, to ship slaves from Africa to the Americas. It was given convoy protection and other support by the Royal Navy.15" http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/european-media/european-media-events/helen-j-paul-the-south-sea-bubble-1720. Claire 75 (talk) 23:02, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

It has also recently been found that the "slave trading created substantial positive returns for Company shareholders and precisely when the government used the Company to refinance the public debt." i.e., the period in which Guy was a major stakeholder in the company. https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2019/preliminary/paper/i3FRDG5N. As a tertiary source Wikipedia is required to reflect accurately the different major viewpoints of reliable sources and these should be included. Claire 75 (talk) 23:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I think that information would be better placed in the main South Sea Company article because as I've said above, there is no link to Thomas Guy personally. You suggest that Guy was personally attracted to invest in the company because of the Asiento contract but you've cited no evidence to support that. I think it's much more likely that he had little interest in the company's underlying activities and was merely trying to profit from rising share prices, as is the case for most speculators. - Sufcmad (talk) 07:40, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I have clearly worded the page in a way that references slavery. Hence: 'The South Sea Company was a government-debt holding company, and while there was a brief attempt to sell slaves in Spanish America, this was completely unprofitable in Guy's lifetime. Therefore, while he is sometimes erroneously portrayed as having profited from slavery, this is incorrect.' As I have said time and time again, the South Sea Company was primarily a government-debt holding company. When Guy was given shares in exchange for his government-debt, it was 100% a government-debt holding company. When he sold his shares, 1.64% of its capital was involved in the slave trade and this was about to decline even further. He then reinvested his money in different government-debt, indicating that he was interested in the government-guaranteed dividend. If he was interested in the potential slave trade, he would have stayed in the South Sea Company or bought shares in the Royal Africa Company. He did not. He bought more government debt. PedantischEdelmann (talk) 09:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

It is not the clear cut issue that you seem to think. Slavery was a fundamental activity of the company and its prospects at the time when Guy chose to invest, and the view that it was unprofitable at this time has also been revised (https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2019/preliminary/paper/i3FRDG5N). Guy did not buy as the prices were rising, but had held the shares for some time (Paul, 2010 chap 7. page no unavailable). Whether or not his interest was primarily the slave trading or government debt is not what is at stake; he chose to be a major investor in a company that was substantially involved in slavery and used the trade to attract investors. This is as far as the secondary evidence allows for a tertiary source such as Wikipedia and should be included. It is a biography, not hagiography or attempts at mind reading that is required. Claire 75 (talk) 22:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)