University said 18th-century philosopher and bishop bought enslaved people to work on his Rhode Island estate
Trinity College Dublin is to remove George Berkeley’s name from its biggest library because of the Irish philosopher’s links with slavery in the 18th century.
The university said on Wednesday it would “dename” the Berkeley library and review an academic award that carries his name, as well as portraits of the scholar.
Continue reading...Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa makes rare acknowledgement of centuries of forced transportation of millions of Africans
Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has said his country should apologise and take responsibility for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, the first time a leader of the southern European nation has suggested such a national apology.
From the 15th to the 19th century, 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels and sold into slavery, primarily to Brazil.
Continue reading...Heirs of Slavery body wants restorative justice to tackle ‘ongoing consequences of this crime against humanity’
The descendants of some of Britain’s wealthiest slave owners have launched an activist movement, calling on the government both to apologise for slavery and begin a programme of reparative justice in recognition of the “ongoing consequences of this crime against humanity”.
A second cousin of King Charles and a direct descendant of the Victorian prime minister William Gladstone have joined journalists, a publisher, a schoolteacher and a retired social worker, to create the Heirs of Slavery campaigning body, which will lobby the UK government to acknowledge and atone for its role in the transportation of 3.1 million enslaved African people across the Atlantic.
Continue reading...Read a summary of our findings about the personal enrichment of the royal family and origins of some of their wealth
Continue reading...Metal used for west African artworks was acquired from manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the slave trade
Scientists have discovered that some of the Benin bronzes were made with brass mined thousands of miles away in the German Rhineland.
The Edo people in the Kingdom of Benin, modern Nigeria, created their extraordinary sculptures with melted down brass manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the transatlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 240-year-old scrap of indigo woollen cloth identified as fabric made in Yorkshire to clothe millions of enslaved people
It is a scrap of indigo woollen cloth that is slightly moth-eaten and so tiny that few would give it a second glance, but a 1783 note on its reverse has revealed its chilling significance.
Discovered in a public record office in England, it has been identified as the only surviving fragment of its kind used to clothe millions of enslaved people in the Caribbean and North America for almost 200 years. This coarse fabric, known as “slave” or “negro” cloth, was woven in West Yorkshire, close to the town of Penistone, from which it derives its name.
Continue reading...Handwritten poem in Greek from his undergraduate years has recommended sale price of £20,400
A handwritten manuscript containing a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge railing against the slave trade has been temporarily barred from leaving the UK in the hope that a British buyer can be found.
The poem, written in Greek by Coleridge across six mottled pages, attacks the horrors of slavery and condemns those who overlooked the conditions of enslaved people on the Middle Passage transportation route in the late 18th century.
Continue reading...Labour MP says Rishi Sunak should talk to region’s leaders after Trevelyan family announcements
The Labour MP Clive Lewis has called on Rishi Sunak to enter negotiations with Caribbean leaders on paying reparations for Britain’s role in slavery, following the historic announcements by the Trevelyan family.
Speaking at a parliamentary debate on promoting financial security in the Caribbean, Lewis said the issue of reparations could not be dismissed as an obsession among a small group of “so-called woke extremists”.
Continue reading...The Trevelyans were shocked to see their name in a slavery database and a journey to Grenada confirmed the continuing impact of their grim history
An aristocratic British family is to make history by travelling to the Caribbean and publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans. The Trevelyan family, which has many notable ancestors, is also paying reparations to the people of Grenada, where it owned six sugar plantations.
Last weekend, the family met online and agreed to sign a letter of apology for its enslavement of captive Africans. Forty-two members of the family have so far signed and more signatures are expected.
Continue reading...Insurrection: A Work in Progress by Peter Brathwaite will highlight folk traditions as a form of resistance
A leading British opera singer is developing a work based on the music of his enslaved ancestors in Barbados as a way of examining complex historical events and highlighting forms of resistance.
Peter Brathwaite and the Royal Opera House (ROH) will present Insurrection: A Work in Progress to audiences in March, inviting feedback from the public that will shape the opera’s next stages.
Continue reading...Clerical leaders hope for ‘lasting legacy’ to serve places affected by past slavery trade, but fund may spread thinly across all of west Africa and Caribbean
The Church of England’s decision to set up a £100m fund for communities adversely affected by historic slavery is the latest – and biggest – step it has taken over the past few years to “address past wrongs” relating to its links to the slave trade.
The report on the origins of the C of E’s healthy £9bn-plus endowment fund correctly describes the 17th century slave trade as “abhorrent” and a source of misery and injustice.
Continue reading...Vessel that sank with more than 200 transported people onboard is being used to humanise the story of slavery
In 2015, a delegation from the Smithsonian Institution travelled to Mozambique to inform the Makua people of a singular and long-overdue discovery. Two hundred and twenty-one years after it sank in treacherous waters off Cape Town, claiming the lives of 212 enslaved people, the wreck of the Portuguese slave ship the São José Paquete D’Africa had been found. When told the news, a Makua leader responded with a gesture that no one on the delegation will ever forget.
“One of the chiefs took a vessel we had, filled it with soil and asked us to bring that vessel back to the site of the slave ship so that, for the first time since the 18th century, his people could sleep in their own land,” says Lonnie Bunch, now the secretary of the Smithsonian.
Continue reading...Mark Rutte says Dutch state ‘enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery’ for centuries
Mark Rutte has offered a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch state for the Netherlands’ historical role in the slave trade, saying slavery must be recognised in “the clearest terms” as a crime against humanity.
In a speech at the national archives in The Hague, the Dutch prime minister acknowledged the past “cannot be erased, only faced up to”. But for centuries, he said, the Dutch state had “enabled, encouraged and profited from slavery”.
Continue reading...Three-year investigation for King Willem-Alexander will span period from late 16th century until present
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has commissioned independent research into the role of the royal family in the country’s colonial past, the Dutch government’s information service (RVD) has announced.
Three Dutch historians and a human rights expert will carry out the investigation, which is set to take three years and will span the period from the late 16th century until the “post-colonial” present, the RVD said, without elaborating on the details.
Continue reading...A ‘certificate of origin’ scheme could counter concerns about renewables supply chains, says Clean Energy Council
The Australian clean energy industry has warned of growing evidence linking renewable energy supply chains to modern slavery, and urged companies and governments to act to eliminate it.
A report by the Clean Energy Council, representing renewable energy companies and solar installers, has called for more local renewable energy production and manufacturing and a “certificate of origin” scheme to counter concerns about slave labour in mineral extraction and manufacturing in China, Africa and South America.
About 2.6 million Uyghur and Kazakh people have been subjected to coercion, “re-education programs” and internment in the Xinjiang region of north-west China, which is the source of 40-45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon. A report by the United Nations office of the high commissioner for human rights three months ago found Xinjiang was home to “serious human rights violations”, and the US has listed polysilicon from China as a material likely to have been produced by child or forced labour.
On batteries, there were major issues with the mining of between 15% and 30% of the world’s cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Amnesty International found that children, some as young as seven, were working in artisanal cobalt mines, often for less than $2 a day. Mining conditions were reportedly hazardous, and workers often did not have adequate protective equipment and were exposed to toxic dust that contributed to hard metal lung disease.
On wind energy, there had been rapid growth in demand for balsa wood used in turbine blades that had reportedly led to workers in Ecuador’s Amazon region being subject to substandard labour conditions, including payment being made with alcohol or drugs. The demand for balsa has also reportedly increased deforestation, and affected the land rights of Indigenous people in Peru. Some balsa wood suppliers have more recently provided Forest Stewardship Council certifications, which verifies responsible forest management and fair wages and work environments.
Continue reading...Richard Drax reported to have visited Caribbean island for meeting on next steps, including plans for former sugar plantation
The government of Barbados is considering plans to make a wealthy Conservative MP the first individual to pay reparations for his ancestor’s pivotal role in slavery.
The Observer understands that Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, recently travelled to the Caribbean island for a private meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley. A report is now before Mottley’s cabinet laying out the next steps, which include legal action in the event that no agreement is reached with Drax.
Continue reading...Ascension of King Charles III has prompted renewed questioning of a British monarch as head of state
In a crisp black suit, white shirt and black tie, Daniel Pryce reached the end of a mile-long driveway flanked by palm trees and clipped lawns. He had come to King’s House to perform his duty, as he put it, by signing a book of condolence for the Queen, whom he served as equerry on her final visit to Jamaica in 2002.
“The very last moment of that visit, as she was about to alight the aircraft, she turned around and she shook my hand and she said ‘Thank you, Daniel’,” the 58-year-old recalled on Tuesday as flags flew at half mast in serene sunshine. “It was the first time she referred to me by my first name and that was special for me.”
Continue reading...Exhibition includes two specially commissioned works reframing story of former Trinidad governor
For more than a century, the portrait of Thomas Picton hung in a prominent position at the National Museum Cardiff, the image’s description hailing him as a military hero rather than a tyrant and a torturer, before it was removed from view in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.
From Monday the two-metre-tall portrait of Lt Gen Picton is back on display in the Welsh capital – but in a very different context.
Continue reading...New report says policy changes are needed to protect ‘hidden workforce’ from exploitation
Live-in care workers recruited from overseas to care for disabled and elderly people in Britain are being exploited by “unscrupulous” agencies who dock their pay to cover “accommodation costs”, according to new research.
The workers, who live with clients to provide round-the-clock care, in some cases had their pay reduced by hundreds of pounds a month despite being paid only the minimum wage to begin with.
Continue reading...Employment conditions can tie staff to roles for up to five years and impose fees of £14,000 for an early return home
• Trapped and destitute: how foreign nurses’ dreams turned sour
The NHS must halt the use of “repayment clauses” in contracts for international healthcare workers, MPs have said.
Members of the Commons health and social care committee came to this finding after an Observer investigation in March revealed how some workers were being forced to pay thousands of pounds if they wish to quit their jobs before their agreed contract ends. Widely used in both the private health and social care sector and in the NHS, the clauses are designed to help with retention of workers and recouping costs associated with overseas recruitment.
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