By Dhanpaul Narine
You are standing at Goree Island, off the coast of Dakar, in Senegal. You descend to the dungeons and the shackles and chains greet you, echoes of history that wouldn’t go away. It is estimated that over 20 million Africans passed through Goree Island as slaves, during the period 1530 to 1848. The conditions on the island were brutal. Records show that as many ‘as 30 men would sit in an 8-square-foot cell with only a small slit of the window facing outward.’ There were diseases that took their daily toll. Once the slaves passed through the ‘door of no return’ it was miles of sea and cruelty. Another port, Luanda in Angola, also played a pivotal role in the trans-shipment of slaves. Those that survived the Middle Passage were sold in the Caribbean, and North and South America to help shape a new world.
Over the years, there have been calls for reparatory justice. A powerful voice is that of Sir Hilary Beckles, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. He invested a considerable amount of time to make a case for justice for the descendants of natives, slaves, and the indentured. It was simple and compelling. But the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Cameron, was not buying into it. He said that reparations were not the answer. When he addressed Jamaica’s Parliament in September 2005, Mr. Cameron admitted that slavery was ‘abhorrent’ and that the ‘wounds run very deep’ but he did not give much hope to the pro-reparation argument. In fact, Mr. Cameron wanted the Caribbean to move on and put the past behind. According to the Mr. Cameron, ‘I hope that as friends who have gone through so much together since those darkest of times, we can move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future.’
Cameron’s ‘building for the future’ included money to upgrade the Jamaican prisons so that criminals can be sent from British prisons to serve out their sentences in Jamaica. There was also a $600 million grant to develop infrastructure in the Caribbean. While some welcomed these proposals there were those that saw the British package as a band aid treatment to forget what is a major wound to the psyche of the Caribbean. In other words, the British response did not go far enough. It is no secret that slavery and indentureship uprooted families and imposed a culture that was alien to the victims.
The statistics show that around six million Africans were transported to America and the West Indies during the period 1610 to 1865. When slavery ended, East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese and poor whites were taken to the Caribbean to supply labour on the plantations. Native Indians too faced the wrath of the masters as their culture and economy were disrupted. Many Indians were ordered to hunt runaways and spent months away from their communities. There was no programme in place to attend to their welfare.
The idea of reparations has never really included slaves or their descendants. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia that called ‘for immediate emancipation and compensation to former owners who were loyal to the Union for up to $300 for each freed slave.’ This emancipator of slaves cared little about the future of blacks. By the end of 1862, a total of 930 petitions were approved from former slave owners. When the Civil War ended, General Sherman proposed 40 acres, and a mule apiece, for former slaves but nothing materialized.
In 1825, Haiti agreed to pay France 125 million francs, with interest, in compensation for lost property that included slaves. The sum was finally repaid in 1947 which helps to explain why Haiti has remained poor. In 2010, President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Haiti and said that Haitians ‘have been wounded but they are standing.’ No offer of reparations was made.
Over the years, the call for reparations has been intensified. Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that the system has made it difficult for blacks to move up the ladder and that America has a duty to repay its debts to blacks. In 1998, Rep. John Conyers introduced a bill H.R 4O in Congress to discuss reparations but that bill is still to be passed. In 2007, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that slavery was ‘shameful’ and a year later William Hague called the system ‘inhumane.’ These statements fell short of an apology and added little to the debate.
In 2014, Caribbean governments unveiled proposals to demand reparations for the sufferings inflicted by the slave trade. Sir Hilary Beckles became one of the principal spokespersons for the pro-reparations lobby. Sir Hilary spoke at the House of Commons, on behalf of Caribbean governments, and made a passionate plea for reparations. Sir Hilary pointed out that British slave ships ‘brought 5.5 million enslaved Africans into their Caribbean colonies and when slavery was abolished there were just 800,000 remaining.’ He called for the terrible wrongs to be corrected as it was the same House of Commons, in which he was speaking, that enacted legislation to enslave millions.
Sir Hilary also made a case for the East Indians and Amerindians, who along with Africans ‘were three acts of a single play’, a trifecta in chains in an imperial domination. They were part of a process in which the British extracted wealth through exploitation. As in the case of America, slave owners were compensated by the British Parliament and not a penny was given to the enslaved since they were seen as property. In fact, the ex-slaves were required to work for free for four additional years after 1833 in a system of Apprenticeship.
It was fitting then that Sir Hilary’s sterling advocacy should take him to New York, a city that was also built by slave labour. The setting was Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn at the Caribbean Research Center. The Center was celebrating its 30th Anniversary and some of the leading lights in education were present. They included college President Dr. Rudy Crew, Dean Dr. George Irish, and Provost Dr. Augustine Okereke and a wonderful singer Ayanna Irish.
Dr. Crew, a former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, hailed the work of the Center and supported the call for reparations. Dr. Irish thanked Dr. Crew for his magnificent work at Medgar Evers College and said that reparations were long overdue. Dr. Okereke said that he was pleased that visits were made to Nigeria and referred to the important links between Nigeria and the Caribbean.
Sir Hilary Beckles gave the keynote address ‘From Reparations to Sustainability.’ He described Medgar Evers as a place of communion. He said that he was grateful for the support of Danny Glover who has lent his voice for reparatory justice. Sir Hilary praised the work of the Caribbean Research Center and defined the Caribbean as a unifying civilization of modernity. But the Caribbean is much more. He said that an anchor from Columbus’ Santa Maria and a portrait of Toussaint L’Ouverture in the national museum in Haiti represented the beginning of a new world.
According to Sir Hilary, ‘this was the thesis and antithesis, the beginning of a world based on the genocide of our native peoples and the chattel enslavement of Africans. This was a world constructed on those principles. The Caribbean is a civilization dedicated in its intellectual energy, its cultural force, its philosophical mission to turn that world upside down and create a world of justice.’ This position was impressive and it set the tone for a healthy discussion on the role of the reparatory movement.
Sir Hilary pointed out that it was in the Caribbean that the idea of destroying slavery was first institutionalized to create a just society. In Haiti, for instance, the constitution of 1805 stated that any person of African or Native American descent that arrived in that country will be classed as free and would be given citizenship. This was groundbreaking in a hemisphere built on chattel slavery. Sir Hilary added that whether one listens to the music of Bob Marley, or reads the works or Walter Rodney, one is bound to feel the energy of the Caribbean. The idea is to build sustainable societies. The ex-slaves are leaders of their countries and are responsible for governance and this makes them unique.
The struggle continues for a just society and it has taken hundreds of years to come to terms with genocide and apartheid. Conflict and struggle have become the hallmark of Caribbean societies in Haiti, Cuba and the English-speaking Caribbean. A number of leaders went to prison as part of the independence struggle, including Cheddi Jagan and Alexander Bustamante. One of the legacies of colonial rule was to keep the subjects in a state of dependency. In Haiti, as we have seen, it was to repay a huge debt. In other countries, such as in Jamaica, only a fraction of the people was literate at Independence.
The colonial powers had extracted wealth from the colonies through a mercantile economy. But many countries have done well after independence. As Sir Hilary puts it, ‘Jamaica has done magnificently in converting a colonial mess into a nation state.’ It is fitting that Marlon James should win the 2015 Man Booker Prize and praise Jamaica’s rich literary tradition.
The Caribbean has come a long way. It has shown resilience and fortitude despite the forces of history being against it. Sir Hilary discussed two concepts as part of reparatory justice. The first is that the Caribbean will take responsibility for its future. This means that the Caribbean does not want imperial donations.
Sir Hilary said that given the complicated nature of the global financial system the Caribbean is moving ahead with building societies that celebrate human freedoms. He then proceeded to make the point that, ‘all of those colonial and slave-owning powers who have extracted the wealth and enslaved the peoples of the Caribbean have a responsibility and a duty to return to the scene of this impoverishment and enslavement and participate in the process of human development.’
This is a powerful statement that strikes at the heart of the problem. Sir Hilary Beckles has made the case for reparations. The Caribbean is not interested in pittances. Debt write-offs, the building of educational institutions, the setting up of viable industries, reconnecting with the motherlands and programmes that foster a sense of pride within the region are good starting points for sustainability. In March 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution which declared that the ‘trafficking of enslaved Africans was the gravest crime against humanity.’ The UN called for reparations as ‘a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.’
The United States voted against the resolution while the United Kingdom and all 27 members of the European Union abstained. The leader of Britain’s Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch is of Nigerian origin. She is opposed to reparations. “Britain led the fight to end slavery. We shouldn’t be paying for a crime we helped to eradicate and still fight today,” she said. Ms. Badenoch would do well to listen to Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama. He stated at the UN that slavery was the greatest crime against humanity and that the exploitation against Blacks continues to reverberate today.
The UN resolution is not legally binding but it is more than a jolt to the conscience that reparatory justice is long overdue.
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