Caribbean historian, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, took the case for reparations for slavery to the British Parliament on July 16 and, in doing so, presented an argument that, not only were the ex-slaves not compensated, they were cruelly required to pay for their emancipation.
Sir Hilary, Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, speaking to members of the House of Commons, asserted that, arising from the 1833 Act of Emancipation, the UK Parliament “betrayed the enslaved people of the Caribbean by forcing them to pay more than 50% of the cost of their own emancipation.”
This aspect of the history of emancipation had long been hidden from public view, charged.
Market value
Elaborating, he explained that “this Parliament in 1833 determined that the 800,000 enslaved people in the Caribbean were worth, as chattel property, £47 million. This was their assessed market value.”
“This Parliament,” he said provided the sum of £20 million in grants to the slave owners “as fair compensation for the loss of their human chattel.”
He told the British parliamentarians that their predecessors decided that the enslaved people would receive none of this compensation.
“The argument made in this House was that ‘property’ cannot receive property compensation. This Parliament, in its emancipation Act, upheld the law that black people were not human, but property.”
Hidden decision
But, according to the respected historian, the British Parliament hid one very important decision from the world. That decision, he said, was that “the remaining £27 million would be paid by the enslaved people to their enslavers, by means of a 4 year period of free labour called the Apprenticeship.”
He said this period of additional free labour by the emancipated represented the enforced extraction of £27 million by the state.
“It was a cruel and shameful method of legislating Emancipation by forcing the enslaved to pay more than 50% of the financial cost of their own freedom. The £20 million paid the enslavers by this Parliament was less than the £27 million paid by the enslaved to the enslavers as dictated by this House.”
He told the British Parliamentarians that they could not morally and legally turn their backs upon this past, “and walk away from the mess they have left behind.”
Instead, he declared, “this Parliament has to return to the scene of its crimes, and participate as a legitimate parliament, as a legal parliament, in the healing and rehabilitation of the Caribbean.”
He gave two examples of how this reparatory justice can work:
(1) Jamaica, Britain’s largest slave colony, was left with 80% black functional illiteracy at Independence in 1962. From this circumstance the great and courageous Jamaican nation has struggled with development and poverty alleviation. The deep crisis remains. This Parliament owes the people of Jamaica an educational and human resource investment initiative.
(2) Barbados, Britain’s first slave society, is now called the amputation capitol of the world. It is here that the stress profile of slavery and racial apartheid; dietary disaster and psychological trauma; and the addiction to the consumption of sugar and salt, have reached the highest peak. The country is now host to the world’s most virulent diabetes and hypertension epidemic. This Parliament owes the people of Barbados an education and health initiative.
CARICOM has already adopted a Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice and according to Professor Beckles, “these development issues that are central to the case Britain has to answer.”
Legal action is also being pursued, as a new generation of Caribbean leaders, supported by academics and civil society groups, become more responsive to their people’s call for reparation.
NOTE: You may read the full text of the presentation by Professor Beckles here.
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Sir Hilary Beckles takes Reparations case to UK Parliament
