Descendants of slave owners and enslaved people in the Caribbean call for reparations at the UN

TANZANIA – The great-great-grandson of 19th-century British Prime Minister William Gladstone said helium was horrified to larn 7 years agone that his ancestors were enslaved owners successful Jamaica and Guyana.

And erstwhile BBC writer Laura Trevelyan said she learned aft records of Britain’s Slave Compensation Commission were enactment online successful 2013 that 1 of her ancestors, Sir John Trevelyan, owned sweetener cane plantations successful Grenada and astir 1,000 enslaved people.

They spoke astatine a gathering astatine U.N. office successful New York this past week where, for the archetypal time, descendants of enslaved owners and enslaved radical successful erstwhile British colonies successful the Caribbean sat astatine the aforesaid array with diplomats and experts from those nations discussing the contentious contented of reparations.

“This was a historical event,” said Trevelyan, who moderated the gathering connected the sidelines of the U.N. Permanent Forum connected People of African Descent's weeklong session.

From astir the twelvemonth 1500, millions of West Africans were sent to enactment chiefly connected plantations successful the Caribbean and the Americas, including the confederate United States. U.N. quality rights main Volker Türk told the forum that an estimated 25 cardinal to 30 cardinal Africans were uprooted for the intent of slavery.

Few nations person apologized for their relation successful slavery, and reparations person been the taxable of overmuch debate.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council has called for planetary enactment for years, including reparations, apologies and acquisition reforms to marque amends for racism against radical of African descent. The 15-nation Caribbean Community, known arsenic CARICOM, has a 10-point program for reparatory justice, starting with demands for European countries wherever enslaved radical were kept and traded to contented ceremonial apologies.

Türk noted a European Union connection successful 2023 profoundly regretting the “untold suffering” caused by the trans-Atlantic enslaved commercialized and the African Union’s designation of 2025 arsenic the “Year of Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations.”

At the gathering of descendants of enslaved radical and enslaved owners connected Tuesday, Trevelyan spoke of her family’s determination to apologize to Grenada and to marque a publication of 100,000 British pounds (about $133,000) toward acquisition successful the Caribbean land nation.

Going to Grenada with household and apologizing “wasn’t precisely creaseless sailing,” said Trevelyan, who near the BBC and has go a campaigner for reparations. There were protests by 1 radical that thought the apology was inadequate and the wealth not enough.

Also astatine the gathering was Aidee Walker, who said she was shocked erstwhile a DNA trial revealed she was not lone predominantly Scots-Irish but besides portion Nigerian, past discovered that her great-great-great-grandfather, who moved to New Zealand, was the lad of a enslaved proprietor successful Jamaica named John Malcolm and an African housekeeper.

Walker and her sister, Kate Thomas, said erstwhile they recovered retired they felt they had to bash something.

Thomas said she discovered what Trevelyan was doing and got successful interaction with Verene Shepherd, a prof emeritus and vice seat of the CARICOM reparations commission, who encouraged the sisters to commencement with the apology.

Charles Gladstone, meanwhile, said helium felt “a profound consciousness of guilt” aft learning that erstwhile Prime Minister Gladstone’s begetter owned estates with enslaved radical — and that a large woody of his privileged beingness “was fundamentally connected to this transgression past.”

He said helium apologized to Guyana and Jamaica and volition effort to bash thing “to marque the satellite a amended place.”

While Britain’s role successful abolishing slavery successful 1833 is wide taught, Gladstone said, its engagement successful the commercialized “has been wholly buried.” The past indispensable beryllium told, helium said, due to the fact that "the evils of this transgression against humanity are not historical, they’re felt very, precise profoundly today.”

Britain’s lawman U.N. ambassador, James Kariuki, attended the gathering but did not speak. The British Mission, asked for a comment, sent a connection from Development Minister Anneliese Dodds to Parliament connected Feb. 25 saying she and Prime Minister Keir Starmer person been “absolutely wide that we volition not beryllium making currency transfers and payments to the Caribbean.”

Gladstone said supporters of reparations indispensable support moving together. If thousands of families similar his basal up and say, "'We would similar to bash thing astir this,' past determination is simply a accidental that the authorities successful Britain could bash thing much substantial," helium said.

Thomas agreed. “If we tin get the numbers, past that could power institutions and governments to act,” she said. “It’s a truly large commencement to what I deliberation volition beryllium a lifelong journey."

Shepherd, who taught astatine the University of the West Indies, said determination person not been galore apologies and, portion immoderate Europeans explicit remorse oregon regret for slavery, “no 1 is talking astir reparations.”

Arley Gill, president of Grenada’s National Reparations Commission, said, however, helium sees affirmative question toward reparative justness globally and believes “we are connected a bully way to guarantee these crimes against humanity are being recognized by the assemblage powers.”

Antigua’s U.N. ambassador, Walton Webson, who is seat of the Caribbean ambassadors’ caucus, ended the gathering by saying, “We person reached the constituent wherever speaking of reparations is nary longer taboo.”

Now, helium said, it’s clip to enactment reparations “on the lips of each child, each person” and commencement to instrumentality action.

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