Slavery, Liberal Thought, and Reparations. Contesting the Compensation of Slave Owners in the Caribbean - Claudia Rauhut SCRIPTS Working Paper No ...
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Claudia Rauhut
Slavery, Liberal Thought, and Reparations.
Contesting the Compensation of Slave Owners in the
Caribbean
SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 6
Contestations of the Liberal ScriptCLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE “CONTESTATIONS OF SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER SERIES
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German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the Thought, and Reparations. Contesting the Compensation of
Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Slave Owners in the Caribbean, SCRIPTS Working Paper No.
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Author
Abstract
1 Introduction 3
2 The Systemic Effects of Slavery and Compensation for Great Britain 5
3 Persisting Legacies of Slavery and of Non-Compensation in the Caribbean 8
4 How A British Prime Minister’s Links to Jamaican Slavery Shape the Present 10
5 Was it Right to Compensate the Slave Owners? Reparations to the Enslaved
and Their Descendants as Long Overdue 14
6 How Jamaican Activists Counter the Notion of Legality of Slavery 15
7 The Externalization of Slavery Within Liberal Thought 18
8 Conclusion 20
8.1 Countering the British Denial of Recognition 20
8.2 Contesting the Contradictions Within Liberal Thought And Western Modernity 22
ReferencesSCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6 AUTHOR Dr. Claudia Rauhut completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Cluster of Excellence “Contesta- tions of the Liberal Script – SCRIPTS” from 2019 to 2020, and from October 2020, is the International Heinz Heinen Fellow at the “Bonn Center for De- pendency and Slavery Studies”. She is a Social An- thropologist and Political Scientist, and has been working on the long-term legacies of European colonialism, transatlantic slave trade, and plan- tation slavery in the Americas at the Institute of Latin American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focus lies in issues of redress, res- titution, and reparations as articulated in social movements, the politics of memory and history, religion, and material and immaterial heritage. rauhut@zedat.fu-berlin.de 2
SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
Slavery, Liberal Thought, and Reparations.
Contesting the Compensation of Slave Owners in the
Caribbean
Claudia Rauhut
ABSTRACT
This paper analyzes how Jamaican activists and schol- current social conditions, and finally generate a
ars are reassessing the compensation paid to British political agenda in support of reparations. From
slave owners at the end of slavery in the 1830s as part interviews conducted in my previous research, I
of their claims to European governments for repara-
elaborate on interviewee (hereinafter called “in-
tions. Based on anthropological research in Kingston,
terview partner”) interpretation of archival evi-
the author elaborates on her interview partners’ use of
archival evidence as a means to counter British denial dence which uncovered that former British Prime
of responsibility for slavery and unwillingness to con- Minister David Cameron has an ancestor among
front its legacies. She further emphasizes how activ- slave owners in Jamaica who profited from the
ists are questioning the notion of legality of the com- compensation – Cameron avoided any conversa-
pensation and of slavery itself, ending with a reflection tion about slavery and reparations when visiting
on this as a contestation of the liberal thought, which,
the Island in 2015. I explore how activists made
in its early genesis, externalized slavery. The paper in-
this incident public, resulting in a scandal, and
terprets the activists’ critique of the British politics of
denial and of the hierarchy of global power relations look into a bank loan for the compensation which
as part of a broader epistemological challenge to his- was only recently paid off.
torical narratives and political asymmetries that dis-
connect European capitalism, Western modernity, and Second, I explain how Jamaican reparation ad-
liberalism from slavery. vocates reject notions of the legality of slavery,
in particular when British politicians employ it
to delegitimize any conversation on reparations
1 INTRODUCTION at all, arguing that “slavery was legal in its time”
and thus cannot be subject to current redress. In
This paper is about how Jamaican activists and the view of the activists, slavery was partially il-
scholars are reassessing the compensation paid legal (since its legality was conditional – slavery
to British slave owners at the end of slavery in was legal only in the colonies) and therefore so
the 1830s as a crucial aspect of their claims to was the compensation of slave owners. The pa-
European governments for reparations for slav- per is centered around this specific reassessment
ery. In continuation of my previous research on and it leads me to reflect on the activists’ cri-
the history and transnational networks of Anglo- tique of liberal thought, which at its core leaves
phone Caribbean advocacy, this paper shifts the slavery out of the equation in the past and pres-
focus to how activists have questioned the legali- ent. I analyze how they contest the liberal order
ty of compensation, and of slavery itself. I first ex- and Western liberalism as it – in its early gene-
amine how they trace back the legacy of slavery sis – externalized slavery, effectively not grant-
and compensation to slave owners, link these to ing the promises of liberal ideals to the whole of
3SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
humankind, since it allowed African people to be Claims for slavery reparations are championed
enslaved and exploited. by the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC),
a transregional organization composed of civ-
Finally, I argue that the externalization of slavery il society actors from Anglophone Caribbean
is perpetuated in current British politics of de- States. Since 2013, the CRC calls upon European
nial and thus constitutes an inherent contradic- governments, starting with Great Britain, but al-
tion within liberal thought. The focus is on Jamai- so France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and
can activists’ counterargument to British denial Denmark as successor states of the colonial pow-
of responsibility towards slavery and its legacies. ers that invested in and profited from the slave
The paper takes a brief look at the activists’ cri- trade and slavery. It urges them to recognize slav-
tique of the still-in-place hierarchy of global pow- ery as a crime against humanity, to apologize and
er, which I interpret as part of a broader episte- to engage in reparation measures for long-term
mological challenge to historical narratives and damages still affecting societies, in particular the
political asymmetries that disconnect Europe- lives of people of African descent who represent
an capitalism, Western modernity and liberalism the great majority of the population in many Ca-
from slavery. These blind spots of liberal thought ribbean countries. Reparations are broadly con-
as a subject of current Caribbean claims to his- ceived as “righting a (historical) wrong” sought
torical responsibility and reparatory justice are not for individuals, but as collective investments
the object of my work as a postdoctoral fellow at in infrastructure in education, health, culture, or
the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the development (CARICOM Reparations Commission
Liberal Script – SCRIPTS” at Freie Universität Ber- 2014). The current agenda of the CRC references
lin from October 2019 to September 2020.1 This the United Nations declaration of Durban, South
paper briefly engages with these blind spots as Africa, of 2001, which for the first time officially
identified by Jamaican advocates in favor of rep- declared the transatlantic slave trade and slavery
arations who deconstruct the ambivalent rela- as a crime against humanity, recognizing that it
tionship between liberal norms, slavery, and no- has caused persisting structural marginalization
tions of legality. It also reflects the activists’ view and racial discrimination of Africans and people
that the liberal order, past and present, has been of African descent. Reparation claims are not new.
silent about slavery, colonialism, and structur- They are the result of a long traceable history of
al historical inequality, and that this silence is a reparation calls across the Americas, where Ca-
matter of contemporary redress. This might in- ribbean and US activists in different regions and
spire the Cluster to look at the various contesta- periods have always been at the forefront.2
tions of the liberal script from the perspective of
its historically established inconsistencies as a I focus on Jamaica as Great Britain’s most valu-
form of internal contestation. able former colony in the Caribbean. Between the
17th and 19th century, enormous profits on the
world market were generated through perfidi-
ous sugar plantation economies worked by en-
1 I would like to thank my SCRIPTS colleagues for their inspiring
input and ongoing exchange, in particular Sebastian Conrad who slaved Africans. Correspondingly, Jamaica is also
commented on my paper at the Jour Fixe colloquium in the sum-
mer term of 2020 as well as on this manuscript. This research is
a continuation of my broader project on “Transregional perspec- 2 I contextualize the history of activism as well as of the Durban
tives on slavery reparations: activism, debates, and the politics agenda (see United Nations 2001 including the pivotal role of the
of history in the Caribbean” at the Institute of Latin-American Caribbean, in particular Jamaican Rastafarian activists; more in
Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Rauhut 2018a, 2018b). An overview is also provided by Beckles
Foundation (2016–2019). (2013), Araujo (2017), and Frith/Scott (2018).
4SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
a forerunner for the Caribbean and even glob- issue is a highly politicized and polemical topic.
al reparation struggle, championed first by Ras- I decided to allow this bias as the activist per-
tafarians who petitioned the Queen to facilitate spective is strikingly underrepresented in aca-
their repatriation to Africa as a form of repara- demic and political discourse on slavery repara-
tion as early as the 1950s. Moreover, it was the tions (Rauhut in press a).4 Thus, by employing an
first country in the region to establish a National actor-centered approach, this paper contributes
Council for Reparations (NCR). The Jamaican gov- on empirical grounds to literature on philosophy,
ernment supported the foundation of the NCR in legal studies, and political science, which often
2009, which has since organized various national theorize on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of rep-
and international public activities and is an im- arations without taking into account the agency
portant player in the CRC. of those advocating for it. It demonstrates how
powerfully the notion of injustice relative to com-
My study is based on the anthropological re- pensating slave owners still resonates in Jamai-
search and interviews I conducted with members ca, as do the respective expectations of reparato-
of the NRC in Kingston in 2014, 2017, and 2020. The ry justice. Although I focus on Jamaica alone, the
NRC is composed of scholars of the University of need to redress slavery extends to other postco-
the West Indies (UWI), lawyers, human rights ac- lonial relationships between Caribbean societies
tivists, and journalists. I include extracts from in- and countries formerly colonized by Europe. Case
terviews with UWI faculty: Verene Shepherd, his- studies such as this might encourage further re-
torian, co-chair of the NCR, and director of the search and political debate on how to come to
Centre for Reparations Research; Rupert Lewis, terms with historical injustices through a frame-
Professor Emeritus of Political Science; Maureen work of reparations that address slavery, colo-
Warner-Lewis, Professor Emerita of African-Ca- nialism, and their long-lasting legacies.
ribbean Language; Clinton Hutton, Lecturer in
Political Philosophy and Culture. Interviews with
the lawyers Frank Phipps, Bert Samuels, and Lord 2 THE SYSTEMIC EFFECTS OF SLAVERY AND
Anthony Gifford are also cited. I further draw on COMPENSATION FOR GREAT BRITAIN
publications and speeches by Sir Hilary Beckles,
a historian from Barbados residing in Jamaica, This essay starts with a historical account dat-
current Vice Chancellor of the UWI, and chair of ing back to the years 1833–34, when slavery was
the CRC since 2013. All of them came across the abolished in British colonies in the Caribbean,
topic through their own research and professions Mauritius, and the Cape Colony. British plantation
and continue to employ their expertise to mobi- and slave owners, as a condition for agreeing to
lize the public to actively support slavery repara- the “Slavery Abolition Act”, claimed compensa-
tions nationally and internationally.3 tion for the loss of property, as they considered
their slaves property for which they had paid. The
I only engage with arguments in favor of repara-
tions and not those raised against, aware that the
4 Analyzing the overlap between scholarship and activism and
hence, of academic and political interests – as in the case of
my interview partners as well as concerning my own approach
3 I’m deeply grateful to all my interview partners for their con- – would require much more reflection, such as on the research-
fidence and support. I further thank Matthew Smith, who hosted er’s own positionality or on intertwined effects for research and
me as a visiting scholar at the Department of History and Archeol- politics. At this point, I thank my Cluster colleague Anne Menzel
ogy in 2017, and Verene Shepherd for inviting me to the Centre for for the ongoing exchange on her work on the impact of increasing
Reparations Research in February 2020, both at the University of professionalization on grassroots activism within classical fields
the West Indies, Mona, Kingston. of transitional justice, see Menzel (forthcoming).
5SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
British Parliament, itself composed of members subject to controversial debates in the present.
of a social elite who had links to the slave econ- Nowhere has the compensation of slave owners
omy, agreed and paid £20 million to slave own- been so precisely administered and implement-
ers over the transition period. Enslaved persons, ed as in Great Britain, which is considered by the
on the other hand, went into freedom without Jamaican activists to be of great benefit for their
any compensation for injuries they had suffered, cause. Academic research on slave owner com-
nor were they actually free as the British imple- pensation has been conducted during the 1980s
mented a system they called “apprenticeship”, and 1990s by several historians (Butler 1995; Hig-
forcing the now formally free people to remain man 1986; Shepherd 1988). However, the archive
working on plantations without being paid for a of the “Slave Compensation Commission”, which
further 4 years (originally designed for 12 years), administrated the compensation records be-
very often for the same masters (D. G. Hall 1970; tween the years 1834 and 1845, became widely
Wilmot 1984). This British model of “compensat- known to the public only in 2013, when British
ed emancipation” set a precedent which was later historians Catherine Hall, Nicholas Draper, and
followed in the French and Dutch West Indies, and their research team from University College Lon-
partly followed in Cuba and Puerto Rico as well as don launched an open access database, as part
in Brazil. All over the Americas, the gradual aboli- of the project Legacies of British Slave-ownership
tion of slavery between 1804 and 1888 went along (Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British
with some form of compensation to slave own- Slave-ownership 2013b; C. Hall/Draper/MacClel-
ers that could entail cash, loans, labor, land and land et al. 2014; C. Hall/Draper/MacClelland 2014).
goods, and in some cases a combination of these This database provides the first open access to
(Araujo 2017; Scott/Zeuske 2002). It secured max- the 47.000 digitalized records documenting par-
imum profit even after slavery had ended. The liamentary papers, claims made by slave own-
compensation was controversial and, similar to ers, and the different amounts of money given
the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade (first as compensation to them for their “property” in
by the British in 1807), subject to intense debate the Caribbean colonies, including Jamaica, Barba-
and negotiation in parliaments, public spheres, dos, Grenada, Trinidad, Tobago, and British Gui-
and commercial contexts. Both sides, those in fa- ana. By facilitating an advanced search by name,
vor and those against slavery, based their dis- sugar estate, colony, and location, the database
course on moral, philosophical, biblical, and le- allows us to approach slavery not as something
gal grounds. There is comprehensive research on abstract and anonymous, but as a system that is
this, and the debates partly intersect with broad- personally and concretely traceable.
er research on liberalism, enlightenment, and the
ambivalence of slavery therein (see Conrad 2012; The archival base of the online database relies
Davis 1975; Eckert 2010; Stuurman 2017; Swami- foremost on Draper’s book The Price of Emanci-
nathan 2009). pation: Slave-ownership, Compensation and Brit-
ish Society at the End of Slavery (2010), where he
In line with the scope of this paper, I only briefly analyzes the records from the 1830s and 1840s
engage with those aspects which reveal grounds and provides lists of individuals and corpora-
for the claims of current reparation advocates. In tions who benefitted, including “large scale and
their recourse to the archives of the 1830s, they small-scale slave-owners”, merchants, bankers,
not only question the legitimacy and legality of rentiers, clergy, nobles, and Members of Parlia-
the compensation process, but of slavery in gen- ment. Draper estimates that about 80 percent of
eral – both historical dynamics are therefore still the total amount of £20 million went to absentee
6SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
claimants – owners of Caribbean plantations re- individuals who received compensation – in some
siding in Great Britain (Draper 2010: 147). At the cases enormous amounts – and demonstrates the
time, £20 million was an enormous amount of subsequent investments they undertook. This al-
money, representing 40 percent of the total annu- lows them to establish links between recipients of
al budget in Great Britain. Draper shows that most compensation and influential economic, political,
absentee claimants invested their compensation financial, cultural, and religious institutions still
in British infrastructure, railways, banks, insur- in place today. Such evidence grounds the rep-
ance companies, and credit, financial, and cul- aration argument and leads to questions of ac-
tural institutions. Indeed, it stimulated a burst of countability. Indeed, Draper was concerned with
economic growth in the mid-19th century. Draper “locat[ing] the accountability for slavery more
reinforces the thesis of Trinidadian historian Eric precisely”, focusing on individuals, firms, banks,
Williams, who demonstrated in his book Capital- credit systems and their specific links to the Brit-
ism and Slavery (1944) that British industrializa- ish state rather than assuming a sort of “systemic
tion was heavily financed (although not exclu- collective responsibility of white Britain” (Draper
sively) by capital extracted from the slave trade, 2010: 14). These historians understand their em-
and specifically Caribbean slavery. Instead of lim- phasis on individual slave ownership as “com-
iting the discussion to wealth creation from slav- plementary to studies of the systemic effects of
ery in the 18th century (as Williams did), Draper slavery on the economy and of the British state”,
focuses on the ongoing wealth creation following acknowledging that the empirical evidence “will
the end of slavery in the 1830s and its aftermath be of use to many other researchers – includ-
through the “prism of ‘slave-compensation’”. He ing descendants of the enslaved who are con-
states: “A real enquiry into Britain’s ‘debt to slav- cerned to seek forms of reparation” (Centre for
ery’ does not end with the slave-owners and their the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-owner-
creditors at the time the system came to an end, ship 2013a). Caribbean scholars and reparation
but it can start there” (Draper 2010: 15). The cen- advocates definitely make use of this research,
tral contribution of the book is that it enables first and foremost Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the
tracing back the compensation in terms of its CRC and spokesperson for the case. In his book
consequences in the form of an intergeneration- Britain’s Black Debt. Reparations for Caribbean
al transfer of capital in cash, investment and so- Slavery and Native Genocide (2013), which has be-
cial status. It further highlights the fact that slave come a sort of guidebook for other Caribbean and
ownership was not marginal, but central to Brit- global reparation activists, he draws intensely on
ish society in the 1830s, where many of the Brit- Draper and reinforces the thesis of the intrinsic
ish elite had financial or family ties to slavery. interrelationship between British industrializa-
tion, the slave trade, Caribbean slavery and com-
The scholars of the Legacies of British Slave-Own- pensation (Beckles 2013). Beckles and Shepherd
ership Project were aware that their project “ in- delivered lectures at UCL and the Centre for the
evitably bears on the international discussion Study of International Slavery at the University of
of restitution or reparations for slavery” (Drap- Liverpool while Catherine Hall and her team visit-
er 2010: 12) and that, even if as historians they ed the University of the West Indies in the Carib-
avoid political positions, they “understand that bean. They acknowledge Shepherd “for her com-
there are potential implications of our work for mitment to connecting the project with initiatives
the debates around these issues” (C. Hall/Drap- in the Caribbean” (C. Hall/Draper/MacClelland et
er/MacClelland et al. 2014: 26). The implications al. 2014: xiii) – which are clearly those concerned
seem evident: the project clearly identifies the with reparations.
7SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
3 PERSISTING LEGACIES OF SLAVERY AND issue that blood money was owed, yes! It came
OF NON-COMPENSATION IN THE CARIBBEAN out very strongly! So […] there are people in
Trinidad, and in Jamaica here, who have men-
tioned to me that injustice. So, while they have
My research focuses on the dynamics around the
not formed a lobby over the issue historically,
work of Jamaican activists in reassessing com-
there is an awareness of ordinary people that
pensation and reconstructing the persistent leg- injustice was done. (Warner-Lewis 2014)
acies of slavery as crucial grounds for their rep-
aration claims. They work on records related to Warner-Lewis reminds us that the compensation
owners of Jamaican plantations and investments of slave owners is something that elderly people
they undertook subsequent to receiving compen- – who preceded the current organized political
sation money after the 1830s. Even more impor- struggle for reparations in Jamaica – experienced
tantly, they put a spotlight on the other side of as “injustice” and derive from it their right to rep-
that wealth, on the impoverishment of former arations (“blood money owed”). For Rupert Lewis,
slaves who remained in the Caribbean colonies this awareness of injustice, that something went
without any compensation: wrong when compensating the slave owners in-
stead of the enslaved, is a straightforward argu-
We see the lack of compensation to the ordi- ment in favor of the claims:
nary people in starting out a new life as civil-
ians. They were given no assistance whatever. People are receptive to the idea that if planters
And this is one of the reasons why other groups were paid reparations, actually given 20 million
have been able to come in and be successful, pounds, where is the justice? When those who
because the bulk of the people were left with- labored received no start up, nothing to go in-
out land, without money, without anything to to freedom with? (R. Lewis 2014)
start off! (Warner-Lewis 2014)
In another interview three years later, he empha-
In the interview I conducted with Maureen War- sized the general notion of injustice experienced
ner-Lewis, Professor Emerita of African-Caribbe- that still resonates strongly within Jamaican so-
an Language, and her husband Rupert Lewis, Pro- ciety:
fessor Emeritus of Political Science, two scholars
highly engaged in the reparation struggle since […] the extent of squatting in Jamaica, where
the 1980s, both draw attention to the long-term nearly 700.000 people are squatters, is evidence
effects of non-compensation persisting in Carib- of the injustice in terms of the land tenure sys-
tem. So, I would say yes, [the compensation] still
bean economic structures today. In the context
matters to people. And it has probably been the
of Warner-Lewis’ anthropological fieldwork on Af-
most persuasive argument in support of repa-
rican oral traditions in Trinidad and Tobago and rations. When people hear that, well, it’s bro-
Jamaica, she came across historical narratives ken down in terms of “Who benefitted?”. (R. Lew-
which refer to the compensation: is 2017)
When I was going around and speaking to the According to Lewis, unequal land distribution is
old people in Trinidad, […] ordinary people re- one of the direct consequences of compensation
sented the fact that the slave owners received paid to the white planter aristocracy, who invest-
compensation and the ex-slaves received none.
ed the money to buy and secure access to the
[…]. There was a Kumina group, for instance, in
most fertile land. Most people, the great majority
St. Thomas Parish here [in Jamaica] that I vis-
ited some years ago and they mentioned the of whom were formerly enslaved, were left with-
out land and still many Jamaicans do not have
8SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
legal titles for the land they live on. Without land independence in 1962, which had its own limita-
titles they are not only in danger of being evicted tions and constraints.
at any time, they cannot invest in developing the
land. The lasting legacies of slavery and non-com- We don’t see a complete separation from colo-
pensation in Jamaica are not limited to land is- nialism and its legacies and impact on what hap-
sues or economic deprivation. They persist in the pened in the postcolonial period. We talk about
infrastructural development, right? Money for
form of colonial-racialized social orders that still
schools, for hospitals. At the moment of eman-
today generate inequality, racial discrimination,
cipation there was no reparations for the freed
and a lack of social mobility among people of Af- people. In the moment of independence there
rican descent, who represent 92 percent of the was no development money. We continue to live
Jamaican population.5 Reparation activists point and to suffer from underdevelopment because
to extremely bad working and living conditions of the extraction of our resources! So, we think
for freed slaves and their descendants, increasing even in the postcolonial period the claim has to
take into consideration the underdevelopment
control over their work and their bodies, racial re-
which has been an impact of that. That is how it
pression, dependent forms of labor relations, and
comes into the present. (Shepherd 2017)
the violent oppression of rebellions, strikes and
so on (Beckles/Shepherd 1996; Holt 1992; Hutton Shepherd emphasizes the systemic character
2015). Numerous studies further emphasize the of the exploitation of labor and resources that
historical roots of persistent structural inequali- has created huge economic gaps that continue
ties after independence, focusing on the interre- to shape Caribbean societies in the present. In
lationship between poverty, unemployment, low pointing out the ongoing structural economic in-
education, and the high incidence of crime and equalities as a long-term consequence of slav-
violence (Gordon 1987; Thomas 2011). Caribbe- ery, the advocates crucially connect their agen-
an scholars mostly agree that the independent da to the development discourse. They challenge
governments have not had proper resources to the paternalistic tone of British and by extension
deal with all emergent issues within their soci- Western development aid, in particular when it is
eties to confront these colonial legacies, nor did proposed as a pretext to avoid answering repara-
they have enough power to negotiate their path tion claims or even deny their legitimacy as such.
to sovereignty on a level playing field with Brit- In this view, advocates “reframe the discourse on
ain. Barbadian sociologist Linden Lewis critical- development aid, shifting notions of charity or
ly questions the independence and sovereignty disciplining conditionality into an obligation to
gained, arguing that big decisions were and are repair historical injustices” (Rauhut 2018a: 146).
still taken not in the Caribbean, but in the me- They explicitly argue that Great Britain owes the
tropolises (L. Lewis 2013). Jamaican activists feel Caribbean some form of reparation not only for
that the social, economic, political, cultural, and the injustice of slavery and compensation, but
psychological injuries caused by slavery and com- also for having left its Caribbean colonies unde-
pensation have never been settled – neither after veloped after independence, and still benefitting
slavery ended, nor within the ongoing period of from structures established during the colonial
colonial domination and not even after Jamaican period. They further state that colonial structures
persist not only in the economy, but also in po-
litical and legal systems, in education, and more
generally in patterns of colonial thought. They al-
5 According to the 2011 Census of Population and Housing –
Statistical Institute of Jamaica, https://statinja.gov.jm/Census/
so admit failures of the post-independent Jamai-
PopCensus/Popcensus2011Index.aspx (accessed 6 May 2018). can governments in adequately addressing the
9SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
colonial past – they point however to a major re- In order to link the gains to the losses, activists
sponsibility of Great Britain and therefore clear- have calculated an equivalent to the £20 million
ly address the British state.6 paid as compensation in 1834 of around £16.5 bil-
lion today (Randall 2013). This amount has not yet
When activists and scholars stress the uneven de- been claimed as an official reparations sum but
velopment between Europe and the Caribbean as rather serves as a symbolic argument in order to
a result of slavery, compensation, and colonial- illustrate the enormous wealth Great Britain ex-
ism, they potentially deconstruct the arguments tracted only from compensation. It is up to econ-
raised against reparations in British politics and omists to further quantify the material damage
the public sphere. These arguments against repa- this has caused for the Caribbean slave societ-
rations basically state that slavery happened too ies. In terms of non-material damage, my Jamai-
long ago and that it is impossible to quantify the can interview partners have all underlined that it
damage and therefore impossible to repair it. Ja- is impossible to quantify the trauma slavery has
maican activists, for their part, argue that repara- caused and even more impossible to repair it with
tions are not generally impossible, as the wealth money. As such, a simple pay-out today would be
of Great Britain and by extension “the West” is contrary to their vision of reparations as a holis-
traceable, as are the devastating effects for those tic process involving recognition, history, culture,
who experienced the lack of compensation in the and politics. They do argue, however, that Great
colonies. They insist on demonstrating the lega- Britain could at least finance infrastructural in-
cies of a structurally unequal development start- vestments in education and health, roads, hous-
ed by slavery. Their exploration of the compen- es, school reforms, and building museums and
sation money of the 1830s and where that money research centers, as all of this requires material
has gone in terms of subsequent development al- resources. Reparations in this sense are sought as
lows them to emphasize the long-term implica- collective measures for the benefit of the whole
tions of both related, but counter-rotating pro- society. The “Realpolitik” of reparations and the
cesses: the enrichment of the British elite and the various ideas about how to implement, distribute,
impoverishment of the Caribbean colonies. In do- and administer them remains a matter of ongoing
ing so, they refute the assumption that slave own- and controversial discussion among the activists.
ers and the enslaved faced equal conditions after While it is important to include these internal ne-
slavery ended. On the contrary: while the wealth gotiations in the analyses, the scope of this pa-
of the British was passed from one generation per is limited to emphasizing the global level of
to another, the descendants of the enslaved re- the claims raised against the British government.
mained, for generations, disadvantaged in terms
of accessing land, property, and capital for do-
ing business and investing, and many were forced 4 HOW A BRITISH PRIME MINISTER’S
to work and live in conditions similar to slavery. LINKS TO JAMAICAN SLAVERY SHAPE THE
PRESENT
In this paper, I look primarily at why it is important
for activists to work with historical archives, since
6 The topic of persisting colonial legacies after independence,
problems of sovereignty of the former British-Caribbean colonies,
they empirically link a structural advantage and
and, in particular, how both conditions are linked to repara- disadvantage of the past to present consequenc-
tion claims as well as the inherent critique on the development
discourse require more research. For now, see Rauhut (2019),
es, for Great Britain and the Caribbean respec-
Rauhut/Boatcă (2019), and L. Lewis (2013). tively. Activists consider this generally necessary
10SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
in order to counter the British position of down- in the political relationship between the UK and
playing or even denying the impact of slavery in Jamaica concerning the matter of redress: “It was
the present. To this end, activists demonstrate the the first time in our history that our political lead-
devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism in ers stood up and said to the British Government
terms of structural deficits still shaping current ‘We don’t agree with your denial of the justice of
Caribbean societies. Furthermore, as a mobilizing the claim for reparations!’. That was very import-
factor, they pick up examples of prominent per- ant!” (R. Lewis 2017).
sonalities such as David Cameron, Great Britain’s
Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016, whose remote Cameron however rejected, as have all previous
ancestor, General Sir James Duff, received com- British politicians and the Royalty, any talk of rep-
pensation for 202 enslaved people he owned at a arations when he addressed the Jamaican Parlia-
sugar plantation in Jamaica. On the eve of Camer- ment on 30 September 2015:
on’s visit to Jamaica in September 2015, the NCR
organized a public lecture on reparations in Lib- I acknowledge that these wounds run very deep
erty Hall in Kingston where, according to Rupert indeed. But I do hope that, as friends who have
Lewis, who was among the speakers that night, gone through so much together since those
darkest of times, we can move on from this pain-
over 400 people attended, some of them wear-
ful legacy and continue to build for the future.
ing T-shirts with “Mr Cameron say sorry” written
(Government of the United Kingdom, Prime Min-
on them (R. Lewis 2017). Various members of the ister’s Office 2015)
NCR, among them the lawyer Bert Samuels, ap-
pealed to Cameron as an individual and as head This statement was widely perceived as an affront
of a former enslaving state “to atone, to apologize in Jamaica, in particular when he offered, instead
personally and on behalf of his country” (Dunk- of a dialogue on reparations, to provide funding
ley 2015). Beckles addressed him in an open let- for a prison to receive Jamaican deportees from
ter on 26 September 2015 as “a grandson of the the UK. This resulted in indignation in the nation-
Jamaican soil who has been privileged and en- al and international media7 as well as among my
riched by your forebears’ sins of the enslavement interview partners:
of our ancestors”. He pointed out Britain’s share
in the “monumental mess of Empire” left in the When he told us to move on, people were an-
Caribbean and connected this to political respon- gry. Which shows that also people that are not
sibility to share in present duties (Jamaica Ob- coming out for strongly campaigning for rep-
arations, there is feeling, and I think that the
server 2015).
rejection of the prison kind of symbolized the
contempt where the Jamaican people expressed
A short time before, the Jamaican Parliament had itself. (Gifford 2017)
approved a motion brought in by Minister Mike
Henry which affirms that the government of Ja-
maica not only supports, but is going to seek Cameron is by blood related to a slave owner […]
reparations from Great Britain, though the ap- and he is coming out that we should walk away
propriate legal and political form is still under and forget the past? That was an insult to us! So
we felt […] he had the scorn and the disrespect
discussion (Phipps 2017). Subsequently, the for-
for people who were enslaved! (Samuels 2017)
mer Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Mill-
er raised the issue of reparations when meeting
7 Beyond the Jamaican daily newspapers The Observer and The
Cameron (The Gleaner 2015). Lewis welcomed her Gleaner, also the British Guardian, the BBC and the New York
statement as it brought hope for a potential shift Times have largely reported on it.
11SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
Oh well, we have come a long way as friends! Britain face up to its crimes against humanity?”
And his forebears benefitted from slavery, be- in February 2018. Author Kris Manjapra, a histori-
cause they were directly involved! So they [the an at Tufts University and close to the Caribbean
British government] are actually tying them-
reparation activists, engaged with a tweet post-
selves up […] I mean, those arguments are not
ed by the Treasury of Her Majesty:
sustainable! (Hutton 2017)
Activists disapproved of Cameron’s refusal to Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions
recognize and apologize for the past, as well as of you have helped end the slave trade through
for his use of the word “friends”, which he used your taxes. Did you know? In 1833, Britain used
£20 million, 40% of its national budget, to buy
as someone who represents the unequal pow-
freedom for all slaves in the Empire. The amount
er relations between Great Britain and its former
of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act
Caribbean colonies. In doing so, they dismantle was so large that it wasn’t paid off until 2015.
British politics and the ideology of “moving on” Which means that living British citizens helped
as cynical and false: “Mr. Cameron himself had pay to end the slave trade (Manjapra 2018).
slaves here. And he had the brazenness to come
and say ‘move on’? This was an affront to us! But The Treasury deleted the tweet after 24 hours.
he has sparked much stronger backing for repa- But the information had already been seen and
rations within the population!” (Phipps 2017). I do triggered immediate and vigorous reactions in
not know if Frank Phipps unconsciously or inten- the media and among activists. Manjapra decon-
tionally stated that “Cameron himself had slaves”. structs the tweet, correcting first that it was not
He might have used this rhetoric to underline a the slave trade but slavery that was abolished in
crucial argument for reparations: it does not mat- 1833. Secondly, no freedom was brought to the
ter if it was Cameron himself or his ancestor who enslaved, as in fact they were forced into unpaid
received the compensation money. What matters labor within a harsh system of apprenticeship
is that generations have profited – and there is that increased the level of exploitation, punish-
empirical evidence that has traceable links to the ment, and torture. Therefore, instead of afford-
present. Moreover, even if Cameron had not prof- ing a new life without bonds to the now free peo-
ited as an individual, as Prime Minister of the suc- ple, “the process of emancipation marked a new
cessor state of the principal European enslaving phase of British atrocities and the terrorization
power, many believe he should be committed to of blacks” (Manjapra 2018). Ironically, the tweet
a dialogue on reparations. The general argument suggests that generations of British taxpayers
emphasizes the structural more than the individ- “helped to end the slave trade” (actually slavery),
ual traces of slavery. However, the symbolic ref- and this implicitly creates the illusion, I would
erence to powerful public personalities is used argue, that they helped the enslaved. In reality,
to denounce moral shame, to incite public out- their taxes were used for a period of 180 years,
rage and to mobilize support for the case. Cam- apparently without their knowledge, to pay off a
eron’s statement was classified as a scandal but loan that compensated the slave owners rather
at the same time as an “incident” that has “light- than the enslaved. The Caribbean activists imme-
ened the road for the reparations movement” (R. diately countered the tweet, which misinterpret-
Lewis 2017). ed and decontextualized the whole process that
ended slavery. In a media conference at the Cen-
Yet, the story went on through another incident tre for Reparation Research at the UWI on 21 Feb-
uncovered by the Guardian article “When will ruary 2018, they uncovered the false assumptions
behind the tweet and opposed it with their own
12SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
analysis and interpretation of slavery and com- million planters claimed as the commercial val-
pensation, providing new arguments in favor of ue of all the enslaved Africans they owned in the
reparations.8 Caribbean. As the latter had to pay for their free-
dom, Beckles exposes the frequently used argu-
When Cameron spoke in the Jamaican Parlia- ment: “The British therefore can no longer say
ment, he was aware that the Bank of England as they did over the decades ‘We freed the Afri-
and the Treasury department and British tax- cans!’” (University of the West Indies / Centre for
payers are still paying those persons who held
Reparation Research 2018). I would furthermore
the bonds on the slavery loans. […] Which means
add that enslaved Africans and their descendants
that this transfer of public money to the pri-
vate holders of the slave bonds makes it a pres- not only paid with forced labor: they also paid by
ent-day activity […]. For me this is the great- risking their own lives in the many rebellions and
est political act of immorality in my time and uprisings in order to fight slavery – so the end of
we were told consistently that this happened slavery first and foremost has to be attributed to
in the past, let’s get away, let’s move on. And them and not to the British abolitionists.
know we learn from a tweet of Her Majesty’s
Treasury that it’s only two years ago that these
Additionally, the expression “help to end” once
bonds have been repaid! (University of the West
Indies / Centre for Reparation Research 2018) more perpetuates the British abolition narrative
that prefers to highlight Britain’s efforts in ending
According to panelist Beckles, the evidence of the the trade instead of talking about the centuries
bank loan demonstrates that slavery is not as far of slave-trading and slave-owning that predat-
away as European politicians wish. He criticizes ed it. The whole story to tell is that Great Brit-
Cameron for his discourse of “let’s move on” that ain benefitted for a period of 300 years, similar
systematically ignores the concerns of Caribbean to other European powers, from an economically
societies, who still have to confront the legacies profitable system based on the exploitation and
of slavery and therefore cannot look upon it as a dehumanization of millions of Africans and their
closed chapter of the past. He exposes the dou- descendants. The compensation records clear-
ble standards of the British position, which on the ly show that this was not limited to the time of
one hand claims that slavery dates back too far slavery. And finally, the British Slave Trade Abo-
and therefore cannot be the subject of any po- lition Act of 1807 did not at all result in the end
litical or legal regulation, but on the other hand of slavery itself. It did not prevent slave traders
conceals the fact that the bank loan, and thus the and the planter aristocracy from continuing to
legacy of slavery, is “present-day activity”. Fur- invest in and maintain the still profitable slavery
ther, Beckles refutes the assumption that Brit- economies in the Americas. Caribbean activists
ain abolished slavery due to moral doubts and have long criticized Britain’s unilaterally reduc-
instead shifts the attention to driving economic tive narrative of abolition. Already in 2007, they
forces. He classifies the apprenticeship system as disapproved of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s
a second form of compensation given to the Brit- statement during the celebrations of the bicente-
ish planter aristocracy in addition to cash mon- nary of the abolition of the slave trade, when he
ey, which was only half of the total amount of £47 admitted a “deep sorrow” that slavery ever hap-
pened but stated that “ it was legal at the time”.
8 The stream is posted on social media, the websites of CAR-
Already then, many people were outraged as this
ICOM, and quoted in Jamaican and international media. I reflect statement was not followed by a long-expected
more on the criticism raised by the panelists and the politiciza-
tion of the “incidents” relating to Cameron and the bank loan in
apology and recognition of the crime (Beckles
Rauhut (in press b). 2013; Shepherd et al. 2012).
13SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
5 WAS IT RIGHT TO COMPENSATE THE expressed 200 years ago – first and foremost by
SLAVE OWNERS? REPARATIONS TO THE the enslaved themselves, but also publicly in the
ENSLAVED AND THEIR DESCENDANTS AS British Parliament. Draper also refers to the en-
LONG OVERDUE slaved who expected reparations after the end of
slavery – something still resonating in the region:
Many people in Jamaica today, even outside the
context of reparation advocacy, perceive the com- What the compensation process did not set
pensation of slave owners as unjust, immoral, and out to do, of course, was to compensate the
as a legally dubious process that requires correc- enslaved, or make any financial provision for
the transition of the enslaved to freedom. The
tive action. Moreover, my interlocutors question
economic and social consequences for the en-
not only the legitimacy and legality of the com-
slaved of the structure adopted for the abolition
pensation process, but of slavery in general. They of slavery were therefore disappointing relative
refer to reparations as something overdue, as ex- to expectations prevalent ahead of Emancipa-
pressed and expected already by the enslaved tion, and are arguably still evident in the former
and their descendants after the end of slavery. colonies of the West Indies and the Caribbean
Elaborating the activist’s criticism on the stated today. (Draper 2010: 271)
legality of slavery in relation to legal-historical
scholarship leads us again back to the 18th and Research reveals that enslaved people not only
19th century and the archives, which they use to expected compensation, they went to courts and
support their argument of a legal connection be- claimed it, charging either their former owners or
tween past and present. Frank Phipps emphasiz- governments for unpaid labor, unlawful enslave-
es the compensation in the 1830s as a crucial ar- ment, deprivation of freedom, or mistreatment.
gument for reparations not only in a moral, but Araujo provides an overview of the manifold an-
even in a legal sense: “Because you recognize ti-slavery pamphlets, public speeches, and legal
that there was a legal relationship. You choose actions spanning the Caribbean, the US, and Bra-
to compensate one – did you compensate the zil, which have implicitly and explicitly concep-
right person?” (Phipps 2017). The court proceed- tualized the idea of reparations for the enslaved
ings and decisions of the 1830s constitute, ac- (Araujo 2017). Manjapra (2018) shows, referring to
cording to Phipps, a legal precedent that shows contemporary press coverage of the 1820s that
the general possibility of reparations. The redress “[m]any mainstream abolitionists felt uncomfort-
of slavery therefore includes, next to the histori- able about the compensation of slave-owners,
cal, moral, political, and economic dimension, an but justified it as a pragmatic, if imperfect, way to
explicitly legal aspect. achieve a worthy goal”. Some were not only op-
posed to the idea stating that “[i]t would recon-
Moreover, Phipps draws attention to a serious cile us to the crime”, they even suggested that it
doubt that many people share, then and now: should be the enslaved instead of the owners to
Was it right to compensate the slave owners in- get compensation: “To the slave-holder, nothing
stead of the enslaved? By today’s moral-political is due; to the slave, everything”, as an antislav-
standards, “you might expect this so-called ‘slave ery pamphlet from the 1820s proclaimed (Man-
compensation’ to have gone to the freed slaves japra 2018). This position however was, as Araujo
to redress the injustices they suffered”, as Man- (2017) concludes, rather marginal within the par-
japra (2018) suggests. The Jamaican activists go liaments and public debates of the time.
even further and stress that this view is not only
obvious from today’s perspective but was already
14SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
The slaveholding elites dominated the debates status of property over which the owner had un-
and profited from the particular way in which limited power of disposal, including sexual vio-
emancipation was negotiated all over the Ameri- lence and arbitrary sale and separation. Chattel
cas. Based on their enormous economic and po- slavery was racialized and linked to racial discrim-
litical power, they were able to underscore re- ination, consolidated by special laws prohibiting
spect for their property rights on human beings interracial marriages or determining the unfree-
above all other rights and that they were entitled dom of their descendants. Italian philosopher Do-
to compensation “just as for any other property” menico Losurdo argues that precisely this form of
(Araujo 2017: 59). Nevertheless, this was not un- racial chattel slavery, based on property of per-
questioned even then and can at least be criti- sons, emerged together with liberalism in a “twin
cized according to today’s ideas of justice: “when birth” (Losurdo 2011: 35–37). This form of chattel
governments compromised indemnifying former slavery never existed in England and was exclu-
masters and planters, they took the clear deci- sively invented to be practiced in the British col-
sion to engage existing resources to subsidize onies, Jamaican activists assert. They find back-
those who over more than three centuries al- ing in research on corresponding court decisions
ready benefitted from slavery, rather than sup- since the end of the 17th century, which forbid the
porting […] freed people.” (Araujo 2017: 6). Within possession of property over people on the territo-
the British debate, the voices of those Members ry of Great Britain and thereby rejected slavery as
of Parliament who represented the economical- contrary to English law (Wittmann 2013: 117–120).
ly and politically influential West Indian (Carib-
bean) planter lobby owning still profitable plan-
tations due to enslaved labor were louder than 6 HOW JAMAICAN ACTIVISTS COUNTER THE
those in opposition to compensation. As slavery NOTION OF LEGALITY OF SLAVERY
was so central to British economy, finance, and
credit system, they convinced Parliament that Activists refer above all to the well-known 1772
emancipation without compensation “would en- case of James Somerset that symbolizes, also for
danger the whole frame of society”, as John Palm- broader historical and legal research, a landmark
er, Governor of the Bank of England, had warned case that outlawed slavery. Somerset was a slave
(Draper 2010: 82). The only way to negotiate abo- from Virginia who was taken to England and es-
lition with slave owners was to compensate them, caped. After his recapture, Somerset was impris-
as they exercised their property rights and the oned on a ship bound for Jamaica with orders
“chattel nature” of their slaves. from his owner to be sold. With the support of
prominent abolitionist Granville Sharpe, Somer-
Chattel slavery was a particular form of slavery in- set obtained his release before the Court of Kings
vented within the transatlantic trade in enslaved Bench in London, in 1772 (van Cleve 2006: 610).
Africans, first introduced by Spanish and Portu- Sharpe convinced Chief Justice Lord Mansfield
guese slave traders, and advanced by the plant- that the personal freedom of the plaintiff Som-
er elite in the Caribbean and American colonies erset outweighed the property right of its owner,
since the 17th century. They have defined their which cannot be transferred from the colonies to
slaves as livestock, as cargo, as a “thing” compa- England (Swaminathan 2009: 68, 87). Precedents
rable to household possessions, as exchangeable since 1696 ruled that “as soon as a negro comes
economic goods, not as human beings, at best as to England, he becomes free: one may be a vil-
“human animals” (Davis 2006). The Africans were lein in England, but not a slave” (van Cleve 2006:
stripped of their human qualities, degraded to the 618). Whereas in the colonies the ownership of
15SCRIPTS WORKING PAPER NO. 6
slaves was regulated by the “slave codes”, the le- that the difference in rights, between metropolis
gal and social status of slaves in the motherland and colony, was rather the norm than the excep-
was rather vaguely described as “near slavery” tion.9 The Somerset case illustrates the contro-
or “slavish servitude”, clarifies van Cleve (2006: versial legal status of slaves within British-Carib-
603). Most courts of the time definitely agreed bean colonial laws and represents an application
that “no one can have a property in another” and in practice, however, legal inequality and its dif-
“slaves who came to England were no longer sub- ferent nuances in colonialism requires more re-
ject to chattel slavery” (van Cleve 2006: 614; Wit- search. For the purpose of this paper, I want to
tmann 2013: 117). draw attention to the particular interpretation of
the Somerset case by Jamaican activists – a prom-
The separation of legal systems between the me- inent case that, despite its narrow legal scope,
tropolis and the colonies was the key point – in serves as evidence that slavery was not uncondi-
the Somerset case, Judge Mansfield achieved tionally legal. This might contribute to expanding
a balance of interests between powerful slave research on legal contestations within colonial-
owners on the one hand and the ideas of Brit- ism and, further, on the fragmentary postcolonial
ish freedom and national identity on the other condition itself. It includes similarly the non-ac-
(Swaminathan 2009: 50). Scholars agree that the ceptance of “legal inequality as standard” as well
Somerset decision does not condemn the insti- as of “legality of slavery”. One of the pioneers of
tution of slavery, it only says that colonial laws this legal struggle is the British lawyer and hu-
such as the slaveholder’s right to property of hu- man rights advocate Lord Anthony Gifford, who
man beings can only be adopted in the colonies holds Jamaican citizenship and has campaigned
and not transferred to England (van Cleve 2006: for reparations in the Caribbean as well as in oth-
639). So, the ruling was neither in opposition to er global contexts since the 1990s. Joined by Ja-
slavery, nor the notion of chattel slavery as far maican lawyers Bert Samuels and Frank Phipps,
as its practice was limited to the far away colo- who all form a legal subgroup in the Jamaican Na-
nies, which were declared as “corrupted satel- tional Council for Reparations, Gifford explores
lites” of the motherland (Swaminathan 2009: 52). the options to claim reparations within the in-
Ultimately, according to Hulsebosch (2006), this ternational legal system. In our interview in 2017
legal division consolidated the status of slavery he states:
in the colonies and created legal certainty for
planters to continue investing in human proper- I think the idea that slavery was legal at the time
ty. The imperial legal order of the time not only is wrong. If you look at the many court judge-
established conflicting laws between the mother- ments in England, it was always recognized, par-
ticularly the kind of chattel slavery, the con-
land and the colonies, it reflected a difference in
cept of human beings as property, treated and
identities within the Empire. This finally “allowed
abused like animals, this concept was always il-
Mansfield to rationalize the brutality of slavery legal. […] It was the particular characteristic to
while locating it offshore, thus facilitating the co- treat people as cargo which was certainly ille-
existence of slavery and freedom […] admitting gal in that time. In fact, it was made legal in Ja-
that slavery was an unfortunate ‘necessity’ in the maica by the colonist law, it doesn’t make it le-
colonies” (Hulsebosch 2006: 655, 657). gal in the decisions of the English courts. You
see Somerset – this case shows that it was not
Somerset represents a certain standard in colo-
9 I thank Sebastian Conrad who brought up this point during my
nial regimes based on gradated systems of rights paper discussion at the SCRIPTS colloquium on 7 July 2020 at Freie
and sovereignty. Sebastian Conrad has clarified Universität Berlin.
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