Category Archives: Slavery

African and Caribbean nations agree move to seek reparations for slavery

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African Union and Caricom members establish global reparations fund and call for formal apologies from European nations

A global movement to seek reparations for slavery has been forged during a summit in Ghana this week, with the African Union partnering with Caribbean countries to form a “united front” to persuade European nations to pay for “historical mass crimes”.

The partnership between the 55-member African Union and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) of 20 countries will aim to intensify pressure on former slave-owning nations to engage with the reparations movement.

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UK politicians and campaigners call for reparative justice for African slave trade

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Cross-party MPs host inaugural conference to agree on common statement to put to parliament

Politicians, campaigners and community groups are uniting for the first time to make “a very distinct and clear call for reparative justice” at an inaugural reparations conference this weekend.

The all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations (APPG-AR), a group of cross-party MPs, is hosting its first reparations conference in Euston in north London to collectively agree on a common statement with stakeholders and grassroots campaigners that can be used by MPs to push forward a policy for reparative justice in the House of Commons.

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How Velázquez’s slave became a renowned artist in his own right

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Juan de Pareja’s story sheds light on the role of slavery in creating the great works of Spain’s golden age

The portrait, showing a man of African descent gazing frankly towards the artist, set the art world abuzz when it was revealed by Diego Velázquez in 1650.

The painting cemented the artist’s stratospheric rise, but the spotlight has been recently cast on the extraordinary trajectory of the man who is the subject of the portrait, Juan de Pareja, who went from being enslaved in Velázquez’s studio for more than two decades to becoming a successful artist in his own right.

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Brazil bank’s past slavery ties to be investigated in unprecedented inquiry

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Banco do Brasil, one of country’s biggest banks, under scrutiny as institutions called to account for role in trafficking of Africans

Brazilian prosecutors have launched a civil investigation into one of the country’s largest banks’ historical links to slavery, in an unprecedented move to hold Brazilian institutions to account for their role in the enslavement of millions of Africans.

Banco do Brasil was notified this week of the public inquiry seeking reparations for the bank’s connections with the transatlantic trafficking of Black people.

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London church unveils artwork to commemorate African-born abolitionist

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Che Lovelace paintings in St James’s church are first permanent art commission to honour Quobna Ottobah Cugoano

A permanent artwork to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the baptism of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, one of Britain’s most important abolitionists, has been unveiled at a church in central London.

The paintings by the Trinidad-based artist Che Lovelace, displayed at St James’s church, Piccadilly, are the first permanent art commission to commemorate Cugoano, a significant but largely forgotten figure in the history of Black Britain.

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UN report urges countries to consider financial reparations for transatlantic slavery

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UN secretary general says no country has comprehensively accounted for the past

A UN report calling on countries to consider financial reparations for transatlantic slavery has been hailed as a significant step forward by campaigners.

The report by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said no country had comprehensively accounted for the past and addressed the legacy of the mass enslavement of people of African descent for more than 400 years.

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Caribbean nations set to demand royal family makes reparations for slave trade

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Lloyd’s of London and Church of England also to be approached over role in past exploitation

Caribbean nations are preparing formal letters demanding that the British royal family apologise and make reparations for slavery.

National reparations commissions in the region will also approach Lloyd’s of London and the Church of England with demands of financial payments and reparative justice for their historic role in the slave trade.

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Ex-Tory MP apologises for ancestors’ links to slavery

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Antoinette Sandbach ‘struggling with difficult history’ after initially threatening to sue University of Cambridge over academic’s research

A former Conservative MP has apologised “for the acts of my ancestors” after an academic named her as a descendant of a merchant with links to the slave trade.

On Thursday, Antoinette Sandbach had threatened to sue the University of Cambridge over an online TED Talk given by Malik Al Nasir. On Friday she said she had raised the matter with the university over concerns for her personal safety, but that she did not object to being linked to a history “that is absolutely there”.

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Family of former British PM apologises for enslaver past in Guyana

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Descendants of William Gladstone urge British government to discuss reparations in the Caribbean

The descendants of the former British prime minister William Gladstone have apologised for their family’s past as enslavers in Guyana and urged the UK to discuss reparations in the Caribbean.

Gladstone’s father was one of the largest enslavers in the parts of the Caribbean colonised by Britain.

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Guyana’s president asks European slave traders’ descendants to pay reparations

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Irfaan Ali also demands posthumous charges for crimes against humanity for traders and enslavers

The president of Guyana has called on descendants of European slave traders to offer to pay reparations to right historical wrongs.

Irfaan Ali also demanded that those involved in the transatlantic slave trade and African enslavement be posthumously charged for crimes against humanity.

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‘A huge human drama’: how the revolt that began on the Gladstone plantation led to emancipation

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The Demerara Rebellion failed, but it was a step towards ending slavery in the British empire

• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

The Demerara Rebellion of August 1823 was a pivotal event in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

While the transatlantic slave trade, the largest forced migration in human history, was outlawed by Britain in 1807, slavery continued across the colonies. Conditions were brutal in Demerara, one of three provinces that made up British Guiana, where sugar plantations were among the most profitable in the world.

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How William Gladstone defended his father’s role in slavery

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The great Victorian statesman’s glittering career was financed by huge profits made in the 1820s and 30s on Guyanese estates

• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

William Gladstone’s father, John, was an absentee landlord who never visited his estates in the Caribbean but became fabulously rich from the proceeds of slavery.

His pursuit of profit at the expense of free – and then cheap – labour in Guyana transformed the South American country for ever.

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‘I felt absolutely sick’: John Gladstone’s heir on his family’s role in slavery

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Charlie Gladstone on why the only way he can live with his family’s dark past is to turn it into something positive
• William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

For Charlie Gladstone, the question is not what sort of ancestor he had, but what sort of ancestor he wants to be.

When he learned about John Gladstone’s involvement in slavery he was moved to tears. “I felt absolutely terrible. I really, really hated it. It was a shock and I felt absolutely sick.”

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William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery

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Descendants of PM, whose father’s wealth came from sugar plantations, travel to Guyana for 200th anniversary of rebellion by enslaved Africans

The family of one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers will travel to the Caribbean this week to apologise for its historical role in slavery.

Six of William Gladstone’s descendants will arrive in Guyana on Thursday as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of a rebellion by enslaved people that historians say paved the way for abolition.

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Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge explores founder’s slavery links

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Historic and contemporary pieces interrogate city and university’s connections to colonialism

An exhibition by the Fitzwilliam Museum will explore Cambridge’s connections to enslavement and exploitation for the first time, both in the university and the city.

Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance features works made in west Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe, and interrogates the ways Atlantic enslavement and the Black Atlantic shaped the University of Cambridge’s collections.

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Dutch study reveals extent of wealth made via slavery from three past rulers

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Report comes shortly before an expected apology from King Willem-Alexander in a speech in Amsterdam

Inside the stables of Paleis Noordeinde in The Hague is a golden coach embellished with images of colonial offerings to Dutch rulers that many, including the current Dutch king, regard as a symbol of exploitation that, according to a new study, netted three Dutch rulers the equivalent of more than €545m (£465m).

Historians calculated the staggering value of colonial profit for Willem III (also king of England, Ireland and Scotland), Willem IV and Willem V for a report published at the request of the Dutch parliament last week before a widely expected apology over slavery from the Dutch king.

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Sierra Leone’s symbolic Cotton Tree falls during storm in Freetown

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Centuries-old Ceiba pentandra marked where formerly enslaved people had prayed upon arrival in west Africa

A centuries-old tree that served as a historic symbol in Sierra Leone has been felled during a storm, the government has said.

The 70-metre (230ft) Ceiba pentandra – known by Sierra Leoneans as Cotton Tree – lost all of its branches on Wednesday during torrential rains and high winds, with only the base of its enormous trunk still standing. The tree, which was in the capital, Freetown, was about 400 years old.

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Belize likely to become republic, says PM, as he criticises Rishi Sunak

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Exclusive: Johnny Briceño attacks his UK counterpart’s refusal to apologise for atrocities of slavery

The prime minister of Belize, Johnny Briceño, has sharply criticised Rishi Sunak’s refusal to apologise for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, and said it was “quite likely” Belize would be the next member of the Commonwealth realm to become a republic.

Speaking to the Guardian in the country’s capital, Belmopan, Briceño argued the British government had a moral responsibility to apologise for the atrocities of slavery and added to the calls throughout the English-speaking Caribbean for financial reparations from the UK.

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Commonwealth Indigenous leaders demand apology from the king for effects of colonisation

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Exclusive: Aboriginal Olympian Nova Peris says ‘change begins with listening’ as campaigners from 12 countries ask for ‘process of reparatory justice to commence’

Australians have joined Indigenous leaders and politicians across the Commonwealth to demand King Charles III make a formal apology for the effects of British colonisation, make reparations by redistributing the wealth of the British crown, and return artefacts and human remains.

Days out from Charles’s coronation in London, campaigners for republic and reparations movements in 12 countries have written a letter asking the new monarch to start a process towards “a formal apology and for a process of reparatory justice to commence”.

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Ancestor’s Irish famine role could merit compensation, says Laura Trevelyan

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Sir Charles Trevelyan was Treasury official during great famine in 19th century when potato crops failed

The former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan has said her family would consider paying compensation to Ireland because of an ancestor’s role in the Great Famine of the 19th century.

Her great-great-great-grandfather Sir Charles Trevelyan, a senior British government official, was among those who “failed their people” during the humanitarian catastrophe in the 1840s, she said.

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