Prince William’s trip to the Caribbean may not have been the triumph he and his team hoped it would be. But the one good thing to come out of it is reigniting the conversation around the payment of reparations.
When slavery was abolished in 1833, Britain paid £20million, equal to 40% of its annual income, in compensation. (They don’t teach you this in secondary school history.)
However, the money, worth about £17billion today, didn’t go to the victims of slavery. Instead it was paid to the powerful and rich slave owners who made their astronomical wealth off the back of this evil trade.
People like John Gladstone, the father of prime minister William Gladstone, received £100,000, the equivalent of £80million, in compensation for the 2,500 men, women and children regarded as his “property”.
Samantha Cameron is a descendant of William Jolliffe, a slave owner who received £4,000, around £3million in today’s money, in compensation for his 164 slaves. Her husband, former prime minister David Cameron, also had slave owners in his family who were awarded thousands of pounds for their “loss”.
In total some 3,000 slave-owning families received payment. Much of the £20million “compensation” was borrowed – and the debt so huge it wasn’t paid off until 2015.
Which means that taxpayers until very recently were footing the bill – something the Treasury thought was an appropriate #FridayFact on Twitter. It’s shocking to think none of that money went to victims.
The effects of slavery remain today. Almost 200 years later black people are battling racism and discrimination and fighting for justice and equality. You only have to look at how black people fleeing the war in Ukraine were treated to see how far we still have to go.
The issue of reparations isn’t going away. If as a country we are truly sorry for Britain’s role in the slave trade, then the very least we can do is set up a commission to look at this seriously. It’s a process that is under way in California.
I’ve spoken to friends of Caribbean heritage, some of who say it’s not about the money, rather it’s about the willingness to accept that countries like Britain and America were built on the backs of slave labour and to say a proper sorry.
No amount of money can make up for the hurt and the legacy of slavery but isn’t a meaningful conversation about reparations the least the victims of slavery and their descendants deserve?
