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The Caribbean people have a legitimate claim for slavery reparations 
Cecily Jones The Guardian Newspaper March 16, 2014 
The economic and social poverty of parts of the region are a lasting legacy of slave trading 
Caribbean heads of government gathered in St Vincent last week to discuss reparations from 
Europe for the enduring legacy of slavery. Professor Hilary Beckles, a Barbadian historian who 
chairs a reparations taskforce for these governments, wants to open talks with former slave-trading 
nations including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. 
Campaigners point to the continuing socio-economic problems that have their roots in the 
colonial era. They argue that the present-day underdevelopment of the Caribbean is a direct and 
lasting legacy of the slavery trade, and descendants of enslaved Africans should be 
compensated for present-day injustices, rather than historical suffering. That the legal case will 
be difficult to establish is in no doubt; the moral case, however, is less easy to dismiss – 
especially when the nations of the former colonizers owe their present prosperity to, and are still 
benefiting from wealth accumulated from the slave trade and slavery. Though whites in the 
Caribbean represent a minority, they own most of the wealth. 
Most of the largest businesses are owned by families who amassed huge fortunes from 
plantation slavery and, when slavery was abolished, from the compensation paid to them by the 
British government for the loss of their human property. By contrast, not a single enslaved 
man, woman or child received even a penny for the backbreaking toil they endured almost 
every day of their lives, or for the loss of mothers and fathers, children, brothers and sisters 
caused by the callous separation of families. There was no compensation for the pernicious 
brutality exacted against them, or for the violent sexual assaults on enslaved women. 
Even today, international trade agreements lock the region into disadvantageous western-imposed 
tariffs that stifle economic growth. Yet many people across the region harbor 
ambivalence and antipathy to the idea of reparations. Doing my own mini-research, I am struck 
by how many reject reparations through what I interpret as a deep sense of shame. It seems 
people are still coming to terms with a history of enslavement, and many would rather the topic 
wasn't discussed. 
I am reminded of this whenever I visit any of the great houses that are dotted around Barbados. 
Their foundations were literally built on slavery. Tour guides will talk about the gracious 
lifestyles led by the planter families who lived in them. But there is rarely any mention of the 
armies of enslaved peoples whose forced labor made such living possible, and who are all too 
often erased from these histories. It is as if islanders attach greater shame to being the 
descendants of enslaved peoples than the owners of these houses attach to having been the 
holders of human property. 
For me, as a descendant of African forebears stolen from their homelands and forcibly 
transported to Barbados, the issue of reparations is deeply personal. I am semi-resigned to the 
fact I will probably never know the African family names of my fore-parents. The family names
I carry (Forde on my father's side and Griffiths on my mother's) derive not from any African 
ancestors, but were almost certainly imposed by a now-anonymous slaveholder. 
Last week, I met a white American tourist. She revealed that she was descended from a 
prominent 17th-century Barbadian planter, though she knew very little of him beyond his name 
and the parish in which he had owned hundreds of acres and enslaved peoples. We shared an 
ironic laugh afterwards that I could lay out for her, her own genealogy stretching back to the 
17th century, yet knowledge of my own family tree begins and ends in the post-slavery era of 
the 1930s. 
I will probably never know with certainty where in Africa my ancestors came from. But I am 
not ready to resign myself to accepting the continuing effects of the European genocide against 
the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, or of the humans forced to work and die on the 
plantations of the Americas, and the colonization and exploitation of the natural resources of the 
African and Caribbean societies. The effects are deep and enduring, and can be felt at every 
level of every former colony and throughout the rest of the world. 
My parents, like thousands of their generation, journeyed from the Caribbean to England. They 
arrived in the era of estate agent signs that said, "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs". The collective 
humiliation suffered by people who left behind children and communities to come to work in 
conditions that many British people found unacceptable and demeaning is, in itself, deserving 
of compensation. 
And as I have wandered around Barbados over the last months, thinking about the connections 
between the lives of my parents, blighted by prejudice, and the persistent economic, social and 
cultural poverty that still bedevils Barbados, I believe more and more in the legitimacy of 
reparations claims. 
Professor Beckles, principal of the University of the West Indies, has set out a 10-point 
framework on which the case should rest. The first of these is a formal apology from all the 
nations who participated and gained from the trade in human beings. For me, an apology is a 
start. Not the end. 
Read the article by Cecily Jones 
On a separate paper: 
Write a persuasive letter to the leaders of the European Union supporting or disagreeing with: 
“Wealthy European countries that benefited from slavery should pay poor people in countries 
like Barbados” 
Use textual evidence to support your claim

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The caribbean people have a legitimate claim for slavery reparations

  • 1. The Caribbean people have a legitimate claim for slavery reparations Cecily Jones The Guardian Newspaper March 16, 2014 The economic and social poverty of parts of the region are a lasting legacy of slave trading Caribbean heads of government gathered in St Vincent last week to discuss reparations from Europe for the enduring legacy of slavery. Professor Hilary Beckles, a Barbadian historian who chairs a reparations taskforce for these governments, wants to open talks with former slave-trading nations including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. Campaigners point to the continuing socio-economic problems that have their roots in the colonial era. They argue that the present-day underdevelopment of the Caribbean is a direct and lasting legacy of the slavery trade, and descendants of enslaved Africans should be compensated for present-day injustices, rather than historical suffering. That the legal case will be difficult to establish is in no doubt; the moral case, however, is less easy to dismiss – especially when the nations of the former colonizers owe their present prosperity to, and are still benefiting from wealth accumulated from the slave trade and slavery. Though whites in the Caribbean represent a minority, they own most of the wealth. Most of the largest businesses are owned by families who amassed huge fortunes from plantation slavery and, when slavery was abolished, from the compensation paid to them by the British government for the loss of their human property. By contrast, not a single enslaved man, woman or child received even a penny for the backbreaking toil they endured almost every day of their lives, or for the loss of mothers and fathers, children, brothers and sisters caused by the callous separation of families. There was no compensation for the pernicious brutality exacted against them, or for the violent sexual assaults on enslaved women. Even today, international trade agreements lock the region into disadvantageous western-imposed tariffs that stifle economic growth. Yet many people across the region harbor ambivalence and antipathy to the idea of reparations. Doing my own mini-research, I am struck by how many reject reparations through what I interpret as a deep sense of shame. It seems people are still coming to terms with a history of enslavement, and many would rather the topic wasn't discussed. I am reminded of this whenever I visit any of the great houses that are dotted around Barbados. Their foundations were literally built on slavery. Tour guides will talk about the gracious lifestyles led by the planter families who lived in them. But there is rarely any mention of the armies of enslaved peoples whose forced labor made such living possible, and who are all too often erased from these histories. It is as if islanders attach greater shame to being the descendants of enslaved peoples than the owners of these houses attach to having been the holders of human property. For me, as a descendant of African forebears stolen from their homelands and forcibly transported to Barbados, the issue of reparations is deeply personal. I am semi-resigned to the fact I will probably never know the African family names of my fore-parents. The family names
  • 2. I carry (Forde on my father's side and Griffiths on my mother's) derive not from any African ancestors, but were almost certainly imposed by a now-anonymous slaveholder. Last week, I met a white American tourist. She revealed that she was descended from a prominent 17th-century Barbadian planter, though she knew very little of him beyond his name and the parish in which he had owned hundreds of acres and enslaved peoples. We shared an ironic laugh afterwards that I could lay out for her, her own genealogy stretching back to the 17th century, yet knowledge of my own family tree begins and ends in the post-slavery era of the 1930s. I will probably never know with certainty where in Africa my ancestors came from. But I am not ready to resign myself to accepting the continuing effects of the European genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, or of the humans forced to work and die on the plantations of the Americas, and the colonization and exploitation of the natural resources of the African and Caribbean societies. The effects are deep and enduring, and can be felt at every level of every former colony and throughout the rest of the world. My parents, like thousands of their generation, journeyed from the Caribbean to England. They arrived in the era of estate agent signs that said, "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs". The collective humiliation suffered by people who left behind children and communities to come to work in conditions that many British people found unacceptable and demeaning is, in itself, deserving of compensation. And as I have wandered around Barbados over the last months, thinking about the connections between the lives of my parents, blighted by prejudice, and the persistent economic, social and cultural poverty that still bedevils Barbados, I believe more and more in the legitimacy of reparations claims. Professor Beckles, principal of the University of the West Indies, has set out a 10-point framework on which the case should rest. The first of these is a formal apology from all the nations who participated and gained from the trade in human beings. For me, an apology is a start. Not the end. Read the article by Cecily Jones On a separate paper: Write a persuasive letter to the leaders of the European Union supporting or disagreeing with: “Wealthy European countries that benefited from slavery should pay poor people in countries like Barbados” Use textual evidence to support your claim