Posted at 6:00 am
the descendant
PHOTO SUPPLIED BY ARLEY GILL
Arley Gill and Laura Trevelyan in Granada
Laura Trevelyan is the BBC’s New York correspondent. In 2016, one of his cousins, John Dower, discovered during bibliographic research that six of his ancestors owned estates in Grenada where 1,004 slaves worked. These plantations had been sold in 1860 and then forgotten. Taking this research further, Ms Trevelyan traveled to Granada last year to make a documentary for the BBC about her slave-owning ancestors. “We met them then,” says Arley Gill, chairman of the Grenada Reparations Commission, who will be at the University of Ottawa next Thursday for a lecture on financial reparations for ex-slaves. “She later attended our annual redemption forum via video. And she will officially arrive in Grenada on February 27 to present the £100,000 sum which will launch the research fund into the consequences of slavery at the University of the West Indies.
Compensation
PHOTO ANDRÉ PICHETTE, THE PRESS
Law Professor Amissi Manirabona from the University of Montreal
The problem is that in 1835 the Trevelyan family received compensation of £27,000 for the ‘dispossession’ of their freed slaves. This is currently equivalent to almost three million pounds (almost five million Canadian dollars). “We hope other members of the Trevelyan family will also pay reparations,” Mr. Gill said. Amissi Manirabona, a law professor at the University of Montreal who studies crimes against humanity in particular, believes the sums involved are less important than the gesture. “For the victims of crimes like slavery, an apology and a gesture like this are important,” Manirabona said. Historian Wendell Adjetey, a specialist in the African diaspora at McGill University, is less enthusiastic. “It’s a step in the right direction, but it shouldn’t result in slave traders’ descendants clearing their family names,” Adjetey said.
PHOTO FROM ANTHONY MORGAN’S LINKEDIN PAGE
Mr Anthony Morgan
For his part, Toronto lawyer and activist Anthony Morgan, who in Ricochet magazine called for a Canadian slavery redress program in 2019, believes the Trevelyan family’s donation is positive because it puts pressure on institutions such as the British royal family and the bank exercised by England to also pay reparations.
A Millennium of the Slave Trade
UNESCO estimates that 30 million Africans were enslaved and resettled in another region between the 9th and 19th centuries. Two-thirds of this violence took place between 1400 and 1900, and it is estimated that the Atlantic slave trade bound for America claimed between 10 and 15 million victims. Tens of thousands of Africans were forced into slavery in Canada, according to Me Morgan.
Other
PHOTO FROM RICHARD DRAX WEBSITE
British Conservative MP Richard Drax
The Guardian newspaper listed two other families with slave ancestry who recently announced donations similar to the Trevelyan family. A Conservative MP, Richard Drax, also made headlines last year for Barbados’ plans to nationalize a plantation still owned by the Drax family. “In December, the Dutch government apologized for slavery,” says Gil. In southern Europe, Latin America and the Islamic world, the movement is much less advanced, he said.
Africa
PHOTO FROM UBC WEBSITE
Economist Nathan Nunn
The reparations debate should include African countries, according to Nathan Nunn, an economist at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia. “The African countries hardest hit by the Atlantic slave trade are now less economically advanced,” says Nunn, who combed through hundreds of databases to come to this conclusion. “The hardest-hit countries also have lower levels of interpersonal trust. Atlantean slavery is partly responsible for underdevelopment in Africa. Slavery in North Africa and the Middle East didn’t have the same impact, although it claimed more victims than slavery in America because it lasted longer, over a millennium, and was therefore less intense, Nunn said.
Learn more
90% of slaves who crossed the Atlantic, were transported to Latin America or the Caribbean
Source: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
65% percentage of slaves from America living in the United States in 1860
Source: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
5% to 20% mortality rate on ships transporting slaves to America
Source: Unesco