UPDATED Statement on Britain's Historical Involvement in the Transatlantic Traffic of Enslaved Afrikans (TTEA)
'Public Statement by Civil Society Organizations in Europe and the
United States Representing People of African Descent on Britain’s
Historical Involvement in the Transatlantic Traffic of Enslaved Africans
and Its Far Reaching Impacts*'
Articles appearing this past
weekend in both the Guardian and Independent newspapers in Britain
reveal the shocking scale of British “slave ownership” found in scores
of official records which have found that thousands of modern-day
Britons, including Prime Minister David Cameron, are related to “slave
owners” who received huge sums of compensation when the trade was
abolished in 1833.
The occasion for the articles are the recent
findings of a six-year project by University College London and the
premier of the documentary, Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners: Profit and
Loss, which is presented by historian and filmmaker David Olusoga and
will be broadcast on BBC2 on Wednesday 15th July.
In the Guardian
piece Olusoga writes that, “The disadvantage and discrimination that
disfigures the lives and limits the life chances of so many
African-Americans is the bitter legacy of the slave system and the
racism that underwrote and outlasted it. Britain, by contrast, has been
far more successful at covering up its slave-owning and slave-trading
past.”
Olusoga adds that slavery has largely been “airbrushed out
of British history”; that many today have a more vivid image of
American enslavement than of life as it was for British- “owned”
enslaved persons on the plantations of the Caribbean. “The history of
British slavery has been buried,” he writes.
Historians generally
acknowledge that British ships transported 40% of the conservatively
estimated 12 million enslaved persons across the Atlantic and that
Britain made more profits from its investments in “slave trading” of
African persons than any other European “slave trading” nation. Britain
extracted more wealth from the Caribbean “slave plantation” than any
other European “slave-owning” nation. The Royal family, led by King
James II, established Britain’s first “slave trading” corporation – The
Royal African Company, charted in 1672. Like the Royals, the current
British Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron, is also an inheritor and
beneficiary of Caribbean “slave- produced” wealth.
The full
abolition of British enslavement on 1st August 1838 was followed by the
racial apartheid of colonial law and a racialised social hierarchy that
is still with the descendants of the original victims – in the United
Kingdom as in the United States and the Anglophone Caribbean.
The
2001 UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban, South
Africa, acknowledged that the transatlantic enslavement and trafficking
of human beings is a crime against humanity, that its
institutionalisation of race and racial stratification made it among the
major sources of racism in the world today, and that African peoples
and people of African descent were its victims and they continue to be
victims of its consequences.
As a signatory to the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
Britain needs to act urgently to settle its outstanding obligation to
those who continue to be adversely affected by centuries of its racial
apartheid. It can, and should, begin this year, which inaugurates the UN
International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024.
The ”Programme of activities for the implementation of the International
Decade for People of African Descent” (UN resolution A/RES/69/16) -
which was adopted by the General Assembly in November 2014 –
acknowledges and profoundly regrets “the untold suffering and evils
inflicted on millions of men, women and children” as a result of the
transatlantic enslavement and trafficking of human beings and
Eurocentric colonisation and empire.
It calls upon those States
“that have not yet expressed remorse or presented apologies to find some
way to contribute to the restoration of the dignity of its victims” and
invites “the international community and its members to honour the
memory of the victims of these tragedies with a view to closing those
dark chapters in history and as a means of reconciliation and healing.”
Moreover, it calls upon “all States concerned to take appropriate and
effective measures to halt and reverse the lasting consequences of
those practices, bearing in mind their moral obligations.”
Considering all of this, the following signatories of this Statement,
the European Reparations Commission (ERC), the National African American
Reparations Commission (NAARC), the Pan-African Reparations Coalition
in Europe (PARCOE), the Global Afrikan Congress in the UK (GACuk),
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Professor Verene A. Shepherd, Dr. Doudou
Diène, and members of the European Network of People of African Descent
(ENPAD), call upon:
1. The British Government and its Prime
Minister David Cameron to take full responsibility for the United
Kingdom’s involvement in Maangamizi (The African Holocaust) and its far
reaching consequences and to fulfill its obligations to African peoples
and people of African descent as well as to other victims of historical
injustices, as mandated by the United Nations;
2. The British
Government and its Prime Minister David Cameron to finally heed the
calls that have been made throughout the years – beginning with Quobna
Ottobah
Cugoano in Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked
Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787) – to
establish a National Commission of Enquiry on the historical and
contemporary national and international impact of Britain’s
transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans; including contemporary
issues that have followed in its wake such as debt bondage and other
injustices in international relations and the continuing impact of
structural racism and discrimination1;
3. That the British
Government and its Prime Minister David Cameron establish the month of
August each year as the National Maangamazi Awareness Month – beginning
with 1 August as a National Memorial Day for the abolition of Britain’s
enslavement and trafficking of African peoples and people of African
descent, and furthermore, to give recognition to the annual 1 August
African heritage communities march for reparatory justice, and greater
recognition to 23 August as the UN International Day for Remembrance of
the Resistance to the Transatlantic Traffic in Enslaved Africans and its
Abolition;
Furthermore, we, the signatories of this Statement, call upon:
4. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to assertively and firmly move
forward with its claims for reparatory justice from the United Kingdom
and other European states for the adverse and unjust consequences of
enslavement and Eurocentric colonisation and empire in the Caribbean,
and the British Government and its Prime Minister David Cameron to show
utmost care, concern and respect for these claims. Therefore we, call
upon (a) CARICOM to urgently submit to the Government of Britain the
“LETTER OF COMPLAINTS” that has been approved by the CARICOM Reparations
Commission (CRC) and is now before the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee
of CARICOM, and (b) the British Government to agree, on receipt of this
letter, to the proposed Summit outlined therein on Reparatory Justice
for the transatlantic enslavement and trafficking of human beings and
its legacies. We welcome Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission,
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles prediction, in the British House of
Commons on 16 July 2014, that “this 21st Century will be the century of
global reparatory justice.”
Signed by,
European Reparations Commission (ERC)
National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) Pan-African Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE)
Global Afrikan Congress in the UK (GACuk)
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Historian Professor Verene A. Shepherd, Historian
Dr. Doudou Diène, Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance
European Network of People of African Descent (ENPAD), including:
African Civil Society, Finland
African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe (ADYNE)
Belgian Platform of the European Network of Migrant Women, Belgium
Cambridgeshire Human Rights and Equality Support Service, UK
Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires (Le CRAN), France
D’HERO, Netherlands
Ebony African Cultural, Arts and Human Right Organization, Hungary Fight Racism Now (FRN), Sweden
The Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD), Germany Initiative of Panafrican Women Alliance, Germany
Narrative Eye, UK
New Urban Collective, Netherlands
Operation Black Vote (OBV), UK
PACUNET, Finland
Pan-African Women’s Liberation Organisation, Germany
Panafricanism Working Group, Germany
Platform of African Communities, Belgium
Raad van Afrikaanse gemeenschappen in Europa afdeling Vlaanderren, Belgium
Soul Rebel Movement, Netherlands
Trajets pour la Reconstruction du Kasaï, Belgium
Zwarte Piet Niet, Netherlands
*For more information about this Statement please contact Dr. Michael
McEachrane (mceachrane@gmail.com), member of the European Reparations
Commission (ERC) and the European Network of People of African Descent
(ENPAD).
For interviews and other inquiries in the United
Kingdom about this Statement and its demands please contact spokesperson
for the ERC in the UK, Dr. Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman
(natcphd@me.com) or Co-Vice Chair of the Pan-African Reparations
Coalition in Europe (PARCOE), Esther Stanford-Xosei
(estherstanford19@yahoo.co.uk).
For information on the work of
the ERC, please contact its General Coordinator, Dr. Louis-Georges Tin
(tinluigi@aol.com), and for ENPAD, please contact its General
Coordinator, Jamie Schearer (jamieschearer@isd-bund.org). For
information on the work of the National African American Reparations
Commission (NAARC), please contact Dr. Ron Daniels (ronmae@aol.com) and
Don Rojas (donjbrojas@gmail.com). For more information on the ongoing
efforts of CARICOM for reparatory justice, please contact Dr. Hilary
Brown, Executive Coordinator for CARICOM (hilary.brown@caricom.org).
1 We want to remind the British Government and Public that there
already is a national commission dedicated to the memory of the German
holocaust during WWII, the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission, which
issued a report this year and was tasked with establishing what more
Britain must do to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust is preserved
and that the lessons it teaches are never forgotten. There is no reason
for the United Kingdom to be less diligent in recognizing, researching,
remembering, teaching, keeping alive the memory of and otherwise
respecting its direct involvement in the transatlantic traffic in
enslaved Africans and its far reaching impacts.
PRESIDENT WASHINGTON ENSLAVED 316 BLACK MEN, WOMEN, & CHILDREN IN
VIRGINIA & TRANSPORTED 9 OF THEM TO AMERICA’S FIRST “WHITE HOUSE” IN
PHILADELPHIA AT THE CURRENT SITE OF THE NEW LIBERTY BELL CENTER AT 6TH
& MARKET.
