British descendants of people who were involved in and profited from transatlantic slavery plan to contribute funds to those affected and to raise awareness of the historical facts surrounding it.
In a phone interview on April 21, a member of the influential group, journalist and writer Alex Renton, explained why the group, Heirs of Slavery, was formed.
Renton wrote in his 2021 book Blood Legacy of his own sickening discovery that from the late eighteenth century his Scots ancestors had owned estates and enslaved people in Tobago (at Bloody Bay) and in Jamaica.
[caption id="attachment_1012554" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Bloody Bay, Tobago. British author Alex Renton's Scots ancestors owned an estate and enslaved people at Bloody Bay. - Photo courtesy Joanne Husain[/caption]
The Heirs of Slavery say, “There are wrongs in today’s world that derive from Britain’s exploitation of African people and their descendants. We believe it’s important to acknowledge this crime against humanity and address its ongoing consequences. We wish to support today’s movements seeking apology, dialogue, reconciliation and reparative justice.”
The group is also encouraging others in a similar position “to consider how personal charitable donations, according to their means, can help the futures of people in the Caribbean and Britain.” But its main purpose, it says, is “to lend our voices as heirs of those involved in the business of slavery to support campaigns for institutional and national reparative justice.”
It supports the Caricom ten-point reparatory justice plan and is calling for dialogue between the British government and other former colonial powers to discuss the plan with Caricom.
It also welcomes moves by British institutions to examine their role in and profit from slavery and their responsibility to the descendants of its millions of victims.
[caption id="attachment_1012552" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Demerara-rebellion 1823 -[/caption]
Ignorance is bliss
Renton says of his own experience, “If you ask anyone in the Caribbean, they want an apology first, but people in the UK can’t see why they should apologise in this case. There’s a culture war on this issue, and honest telling is really central to that.”
He himself, he admits, “grew up in ignorance except for (the British MP and abolitionist William) Wilberforce.”
This accords with British history lessons on the topic. As Eric Williams wrote in Capitalism and Slavery, “British historians write almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it.” Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and nominally granted emancipation in its colonies in 1834.
But in fact, Williams argued, it was to a considerable extent the profits from slavery and the slave trade that funded the Industrial Revolution and made Britain the dominant world power of the day.
[caption id="attachment_1012553" align="alignnone" width="550"] Diagram of the hold in the Brookes slave ship. -[/caption]
Gary Younge, a British jour
