– As a descendant of a plantation owner who kept slaves, how does it feel to sit on one of their plantations with a descendant of a slave?
This is how the Grenadian researcher and writer saw it Dunbar Campbell says he asked (you switch to another service) From a BBC reporter From Laura Trevelyan a year ago, when he was visiting the island nation of Grenada in the Caribbean.
– I am ashamed of my ancestors who took part in the horrible enslavement, Cambell says Trevelyan replied.
Today, Laura Trevelyan is an activist who paid compensation for the descendants of slaves out of her own pocket. He has left his bread job (you move to another service) to campaign for other slaveholding heirs and former colonial powers to do the same.
Over a hundred Trevelyans are now apologizing
Late last month, Laura Trevelyan and six other family members traveled to Grenada with a letter in which the family apologized to the descendants of the slaves.
The letter was signed by 104 members of a wealthy British family.
Laura Trevelyan read the apology together with her cousin of John Dower with.
At the same event, Laura Trevelyan announced that she would donate 100,000 pounds, or about 113,000 euros, as compensation to the descendants of slaves. The money is channeled to promote the economic development of the poor Eastern Caribbean region, reported by, among others, the British broadcasting company BBC (you will switch to another service). The other Trevelyans also plan to make donations.
– Giving 100,000 pounds almost 200 years later… maybe it feels really insufficient, Laura Tevellyan said in an interview with the BBC. However, he hopes that the family will set an example for others.
Of John Trevelyan became a slave owner in 1757 when he married by Louisa Simon with. This brought the marriage a share of the plantations in Grenada. About a thousand slaves were owned, Laura Trevellyan has said In the story he wrote for the BBC (you will switch to another service).
Trevellyan noted that their ancestors received £34,000 in compensation for giving up slaves in 1834. Britain banned slavery at the time (you move to another service) – except Ceylon (you switch to another service)present-day Sri Lanka, where slavery was abolished in 1844.
The compensation amount for giving up the slaves is equivalent to about three million pounds in today’s money.
In total, Britain paid compensation to the slave owners of about 20 million pounds, in today’s money 17 billion pounds, or more than 19 billion euros.
Hundreds of thousands of those freed from slavery received nothing. Them was ordered to do instead (you move to another service) as “trainees” for years for their former slaves, free work 40 hours a week.
The difficulty of replacement plagues the former slave states
At the apology, Laura Trevelyan’s cousin John Dower appealed to the British government to start negotiations with Caribbean countries to pay reparations for centuries of oppression, says the British newspaper The Guardian (you will switch to another service).
The reparations paid by the Trevelyans are really just a pittance. Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were enslaved in America. 1.8 of them already died during the sea journey, says America’s Black Holocaust Museum. (you switch to another service)
Laura Trevelyan has decided to put herself in prison to make up for the sufferings of the past. He has resigned from the BBC and starts touring the former colonial powers to get compensation for the Caribbean countries, says, among others, the British newspaper The Guardian (you will switch to another service).
He also wants to help other descendants of slave-owning families who want to pay reparations.
Trevelyan plans to cooperate with, among others, a member of parliament from the Labor Party by Clive Lewis with. This has been urged by the prime minister Rishi Sunakia to begin negotiations with Caribbean leaders on reparations.
According to Lewis, the Trevelyans’ apology and compensation have opened a little more door for discussions.
Trevelyan on the other hand, considers that (you switch to another service) the door to discussions is opened more widely by the king Charles’s a comment in November that he was ready for an active debate about Britain’s involvement in the slave trade.
The debate about compensation is nothing new, but it has received a boost (you switch to another service) About the Black Lives Matter protests that started in the United States in 2020 and spread elsewhere, and about the anti-racism debate that got a new direction.
“The legacy of slavery can be seen in poverty”
In the United States, slavery was declared ended on June 19, 1865, a day that is now celebrated as Juneteenth. Since then, the question of compensating the descendants of the slaves for their suffering has been talked about, and no conclusion has been reached.
Every congress since 1989 has had something to think about a law that would establish a working group (you move to another service) to consider compensation, but so far without success.
Although generations have passed since the last enslaved people were freed, reparations advocates emphasize that the legacy of slavery is still visible in people’s lives.
Today, the average white family in the United States owns about ten times as much as the average black family, researchers say Rashawn Ray and Andre M. Perry on the website of the Brookings Institute in a published article. (you switch to another service)
In order for the “American dream”, the opportunity to succeed through one’s own efforts, to be realized equally, the government should pay compensation to blacks, who were denied ownership by the government for a long time, they believe.
Ray and Perry point out that the absence of a government-funded safety net makes the poor vulnerable in the event of a crisis, such as a financial crisis or pandemic, and leads to health care inequities.
In the case of the European colonial powers, the possibility of prosperity for the descendants of slaves and their home countries was also slowed down by the fact that even after slavery was abolished, the colonial power continued for more than a century. The lion’s share of the wealth ended up with the colonial powers and their citizens, says the researcher (you switch to another service) Luke Moffett from Belfast’s Queen’s University to the US public broadcaster PBS.
Strong resistance
by the University of Massachusetts the other year according to the opinion survey (you will switch to another service) more than 70 percent of white Americans oppose paying reparations to the descendants of slaves. Of the black respondents, 86 percent were in favor of compensation.
Opponents cited, among other reasons, that the economic impact of slavery is difficult to define, that no one directly involved is alive anymore, or that the descendants of slaves do not deserve compensation. Some were afraid that the compensation would be expensive and some suspected that the compensation program would be difficult to implement.
For example, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell comment on the matter in 2021 by saying: (you switch to another service)
– I don’t think compensation is a good idea for something that happened 150 years ago, for which no one alive today is responsible.
Paying compensation would not be exceptional in any way. Compensations have been received, among other things, by the Native Americans evicted from their land by the whites and the Japanese interned during the Second World War, i.e. isolated in camps. Germany, on the other hand, has paid compensation to the victims of the Holocaust, state (you switch to another service)Ray and Perry.
Compensation was paid locally
Reparations for slavery were attempted immediately after the American Civil War. General William Sherman ordered that (you switch to another service) each black family should receive about 16 acres of land confiscated in the Southern states.
President of Abraham Lincoln the president who came to power after the assassination Andrew Johnson however, rescinded the order and returned the lands to the former slave owners.
When an agreement on compensation has not been reached at the federal level, some municipalities and states have decided to take action themselves. In the second year, 11 city mayors promised to launch pilot projects in which compensation is paid, says, among others, the financial magazine Forbes. (you switch to another service)
The group includes both big cities like Los Angeles and Denver, as well as small towns. First, compensation started the payment (you switch to another service) City of Evanston, Illinois. At this point, you can get money for the apartment.
The most ambitious statewide reimbursement project is underway in California, reported by, among others, the news channel CNN (you will switch to another service). Yet is unclear, (you switch to another service) in what form the compensation will be received – if the proposals go through.
The idea that the heirs of slave owners could pay compensation has also been raised in the United States.
– Nowadays, there are large prosperous families in the south who once owned many slaves. All their wealth can be traced to the unpaid work done by blacks, the lawyer pointed out Willie E. Gary In Harper’s magazine in November 2000, when the compensation debate was also on the surface, news channel CNN quotes (you switch to another service).
The suffering experienced by millions of people over the centuries can hardly be compensated with any amount of money, but compensation still matters.
Accepting the Trevelyans’ apology, the Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell pointed out that the family was not obliged to present it.
– I understand that some see this as tokenism, an attempt to calm us down, but I think that sometimes even tokenism is a step in the right direction. They didn’t have to do this, Mitchell stated according to the loopnews news site. (you switch to another service)