The time is now for Reparations!

 

At the recently held 34th CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, it was agreed that a CARICOM Reparations Commission would be established and each member state would form a National Reparations Committee within which the Chairperson of each would sit on the parent body.

 

It was discussed amongst our Political Leaders that they would endeavour to make Britain compensate the Caribbean nation for the part it played in the shipping of over three million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean in the Transatlantic Slave Trade between 1662 and 1807.

 

At the Meeting, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said he conceptualised the call for reparations as an integral element of CARICOM’s development strategy, noting that the legacy and colonialism had severely impaired the Caribbean’s development options.

 

 

Spencer also stated that reparations are needed to repair the damage caused by slavery and racism and that the Diaspora must be made aware of its importance.

 

“We know that our constant search and struggle for development resources is linked directly to the historical inability of our nations to accumulate wealth from the efforts of our peoples during slavery and colonialism. These nations that have been the major producers of wealth for the European slave-owning economies during the enslavement and colonial periods entered Independence with dependency straddling their economic, cultural, social and even political lives.”

 

Over the years, many African countries have been making claims for compensation for the large reduction of their population but they were unsuccessful in their quest. They were not alone, for in the Caribbean a number of individuals and groups had made claims for reparations. Among these groups are the African Cultural and Development Association in Guyana, the Rastafari Brethren of Jamaica and the Rastafari Movement of St. Kitts-Nevis.

 

These groups have been seeking reparations long before Caribbean Political Leaders had decided to do so. Notably, two of them, the Rastafari Brethren and another one in Guyana had written letters to Queen Elizabeth ll seeking reparations but they were all turned down.

 

However, it is well-appreciated that CARICOM Heads of Government have decided to take the battle to Britain. But can we be assured of their success? This is the 40th year since the establishment of CARICOM; a dream in making the English-speaking West Indian islands and Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America, an integrated region.

 

As Kaieteur News columnist Frederick ‘Freddie’ Kissoon puts it: “This is the mystery about CARICOM forty years on. CARICOM hardly functions and achieves very little when the year is done. Another mystery of CARICOM is that its reality should have made it a role model for the world. Unlike the European nations where more than two dozen societies are culturally and linguistically distinct, thirteen of the fifteen CARICOM units are uncannily similar in culture and history. Yet the EU is a very tight and close integration movement, while the word ‘failure’ may not be too harsh a word to judge CARICOM’s record.”

 

He asked, “Do the leaders and peoples of the CARICOM want integration?”

 

In answering his question, Kissoon said: “A poll a few years back revealed that Jamaicans preferred to stay with British rule. Jamaicans will vote to opt out of CARICOM if the ballot is put to them. Trinidadians consider themselves a first world territory and look down upon the islands as backward places. Trinis will vote along the lines of Jamaica.

 

If Kissoon’s opinion mirrors the perception of the majority in the Caribbean region, then it is logical to conclude that not only will CARICOM fail, but also the quest for reparations. But, on the other hand, for its success, it is imperative for our Political Leaders to free their minds of insularity and act together now. Because, failing to act now will be perceived that their discussions on the horrors of the slave trade and slavery were meaningless and insipid.

 

 

History has taught us that our enslaved ancestors came primarily from a region stretching from the Senegal River in northern Africa to Angola in the South, and it is the latter from which nearly half of the slaves were sent to the Americas.

 

Packed like sardines aboard Europeans’ slave ships and travelling all the way from Africa to the West Indies, many of our ancestors had died during the long and gruelling journey whilst crossing the Atlantic Ocean, which was then known as the Middle Passage.

 

It is said that on every trip, 15 out of every 100 slaves died during the journey. Also recorded, is that because of the inhumane conditions under which they came to the West Indies to live a life of wicked involuntary servitude, many of them were lice-infected because of insanitary conditions and malnourished due to not being properly fed during the arduous journey. 

 

It is also recorded that days before reaching their destination where they would be up for sale, the slaves would be better fed. And before being sold at auction, sailors would rub down the naked slaves with palm oil to make their skin smooth and gleaming. 

 

According to Nairaland Forum, the British Slave Trade began in 1562 when Sir John Hawkins, a cousin of Sir Francis Drake, set sail for Africa aboard a vessel called “The Good Ship Jesus’. This wicked British aristocrat had claimed to be devoutly religious man.

 

 

Since then, British Plantocracy had our African ancestors enslaved on plantations planting and harvesting crops such as cotton, cocoa, coffee but primarily sugar, which produced huge financial gains to Britain.

 

There were many slave revolts in the West Indies during the 18th and 19th centuries. Among them were the April 1760 Rebellion in Jamaica which was led by Tacky; the February 1763 Berbice Slave Revolt in Guyana which was led by Kofi or Cuffy; the August 1791 Haitian Revolution which was led Toussaint L’Ouverture; the March 1795 Fedon’s Revolution in Grenada, which was led by a black planter named Julien Fedon; and the April 1816 Barbados Slave Rebellion led by Bussa.

 

 

For four centuries our ancestors had toiled from dawn till dust on sugar plantations and many who tried to resist the atrocities meted out to them were punished – some by the cat-o-nine-tails or placed in the rack.

 

While all of this were going on in the West Indies, and even in America, a British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, was influenced by another Englishman named Thomas Clarkson to lobby against slavery.

 

From 1789 Wilberforce regularly introduced bills in the British Parliament to ban the Slave Trade, but he was fiercely opposed by those making fortunes from the despicable and inhumane trade. However, on March 25, 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed, which brought an end to the trading of slaves in the British colonies. But that was not a bill for the abolishment of slavery as a whole in the British Empire; it was just the trade in enslaved Africans.

 

According to Spartacus Educational, “Under the terms of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807) British captains who were caught continuing the trade were fined £100 for every slave found on board. However, this law did not stop the British slave trade. If slave-ships were in danger of being captured by the British navy, captains often reduced the fines they had to pay by ordering the slaves to be thrown into the sea.”

 

Wilberforce however continued to fight for the abolition of slavery and subsequently joined the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. On July 26, 1833, the Abolition of Slavery Bill had its third reading in the House of Commons, but Wilberforce did not live to hear about the final Act on August 1, 1834. He died on July 29, 1834.

 

 

The final Act (August 1, 1834) stipulated that:

 

The August 1, 1834 Act was not one of total freedom for the slaves. The only free slaves were children under six years of age. This Act had instituted the Apprenticeship System in which praedials (field workers) were bound to their owners for six years and non-praedials (non-field workers and domestic servants) for four. 

 

The Apprenticeship System was also another atrocity designed by the British to emasculate the slaves. They termed it a course in socialisation for life in which the ex-slaves were supposed to learn and to accept the controls of freedom. 

 

The Apprenticeship System demanded that our ancestors should labour for 45 hours per week in exchange for food, clothing, accommodation and medical treatment. But the apprentices resisted that system and the planters, who claimed that their businesses were running at a loss, sought labourers from other countries.

 

 

IN 1838, the slaves were finally freed, and in an effort to continue enriching themselves and the British Empire, the British planters brought labourers to the West Indies; an era known as the Indentureship Period.

 

According to Suresh Kumar Pillai, “The British planters exercise began with the introduction of Chinese labourers and then with farmers from Madeira island in Portugal. The planters even tried to employ Africans from Africa and freed slaves from USA. The Chinese labourers who came to Caribbean ran away or committed large scale suicide. The Portuguese farmers on account of their white skin demanded better wages and living conditions and preferential treatment. Few years after their arrival Portuguese coolies as they known later left  the plantations and switched over to grocery merchants and retail and wholesale business.This brought them into conflict with freed Africans.”

 

Pillai noted that between 1838 and 1917 some 239 756 Indian indentured labourers arrived in British Guiana (now known as Guyana) and between 1845 and 1917 Trinidad received 143 939 to work on the sugar plantations. 

 

The first Indian indentured labourers arrived in British Guiana on May 5, 1838 aboard the Whitby and the Hesperus. Aboard the Whitby were 166 men, six women and nine children, while 141 men, six women and 10 children were aboard the Hesperus. And on May 30, 1838, 225 Indian indentured labourers arrived in Trinidad aboard the Fatel Razack.

 

Coolie is not a race, as many in St. Kitts-Nevis and countless others in the Caribbean believe. All indentured labourers were called coolies. A coolie is an unskilled labourer.

 

 

Evidence lies in the fact that the Europeans had plundered Africa and robbed that continent of much of its human resource, all in the name wealth accumulation. We mourn for our dead, but we know that death is one of the inevitables in life. Our ancestors were born free men and women, but they were forced into slavery, where husbands were separated from their wives, parents from their children and sisters from their brothers, etc. And the worst thing that anyone can do to another is to deprive him of his freedom.

 

The British did that for four centuries and, following the abolition of slavery, the most despicable and insensitive thing the Government of the British Empire did was to compensate the planters, who argued that the freeing of slaves was a violation of their property rights. The planters were paid £1B. What did our ancestors get? Nothing…but the scars of slavery taken to their graves!

 

Today, our Political Leaders have plans in seeking reparations, which can eventually enhance the living standards in the Caribbean region. But, then again, will they be successful in their quest? It is known that we of African descent are detested by white supremacy and are only tolerated because of our strength, brilliance and intestinal fortitude.

 

The British planters were not the only ones paid huge sums of money! What about the Jews?

 

According to Verene A. Shepherd, who provided a Summary Overview of ‘Jamaica and the Debate over Reparation for Slavery’, it is noted that during the first Pan-African Conference on reparations held in Nigeria in 1993, “Chinweizu noted that perhaps the most famous case of reparation was paid by the German state to the Jews in territories controlled by Hitler’s Germany to indemnify them for persecution”.

 

It is stated that initial payments included US$2B to make amends to victims; US$952M in personal indemnities; US$35.70 per month per inmate of concentration camps; pensions for the survivors of victims; and US$820M to Israel to resettle 50 000 Jewish emigrants from lands formerly controlled by Hitler.

 

Shepherd also stated: “Later, other, and largely undisclosed, payments followed; and even in 1992, the World Jewish Congress in New York announced that the newly unified Germany would pay compensation, totalling $63 million for 1993, to fifty thousand Jews who had suffered Nazi persecution but had not been paid reparations because they lived in East Germany. Reparation has also been paid to First Nation People in the USA and Canada, as well as to Japanese-Americans, Koreans and Japanese-Canadians.”

 

One of the views held by the European powers is that they could not be held liable because the Slave Trade was not a crime against humanity or contrary to international law at the time when Africans were brought to the West Indies by Europeans.

 

I am therefore making a fervent plea to the Federal Government and the Nevis Island Administration to launch a series of public discussion on Reparations in an effort to sensitise citizens and residents of this twin-island Federation on the atrocities meted out to our ancestors, while at the same time keeping us abreast with the developments on Reparations.