Reparations for slavery are financial compensation, legal remedy of damages, public apology and guarantees of non-repetition of enslavement. Victims of slavery can refer to historical slavery or ongoing slavery in the 21st century. Some claims for reparations for slavery date back to the 18th century.
There are some who argue that there is no case for financial reparations to be made. These include historians, ethicists, politicians and others.
United Nations resolution United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/147 refers to measures to repair violations of human rights including restitution and compensation.
Types Reparations can take numerous forms, including practical measures such as individual monetary payments; settlements; scholarships and other educational schemes; systemic initiatives to offset injustices; or land-based or housing-based compensation related to independence. Other types of reparations include apologies and acknowledgements of the injustices; the removal of monuments and renaming of streets that honour enslavers and defenders of slavery; or naming a building after an enslaved person or someone connected with abolition. Development aid is generally not counted as reparations. Some view financial reparations as insufficient, and demand as reparations for slavery the opportunity to repatriate to their country of origin before slavery and "bringing an end to the current political and economic system".
By region
Netherlands In December 2022, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, apologised on behalf of the Dutch Government for its role in slavery at an event at the National Archives in The Hague, which included representatives of various advocacy organisations. It also pledged to give €200 million towards "raising awareness, fostering engagement and addressing the present-day effects of slavery", and is planning a commemoration of the history of slavery on 1 July 2023, along with Dutch Caribbean nations, Suriname, and other countries.
United Kingdom By the 2010s examples of international reparations for slavery consisted of recognition of the injustice of slavery and apologies for involvement but no material compensation. In June 2023, the Brattle Group presented a report at an event at the University of the West Indies in which reparations were estimated, for harms both during and after the period of transatlantic chattel slavery at more than 100 trillion dollars. In October 2023, the UK Reparations Conference was held and a joint declaration issued to the effect that full reparatory justice must be "pursued and achieved".
The formal position of the British Government is that there is no intention to make any monetary payments in compensation for Britain's involvement in slavery or the slave trade. 60% of British people are opposed to the payment of reparations for slavery.
Slave owners' compensation
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that achieved slave emancipation in most of the British Empire. It involved compensated emancipation, as the members of the House of Commons were very mindful of the rights of private property, believing that if an entirely legally held asset could be alienated from one class of person, it set a precedent for other property to be taken by government. The amount of compensation in the Bill presented to Parliament was calculated by civil servants in the belief that it would be considered excessive and reduced, but this did not happen. Slave owners, mortgagees and others with an appropriate financial interest were paid approximately £20 million in compensation in over 40,000 awards for enslaved people freed in the colonies of the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. This represented around 40 percent of the British Treasury's annual spending budget and has been calculated as equivalent to about £16.5bn in today's terms. Some of the payments were converted into 3.5% government annuities, which caused a drawn-out process.
The Act, formally 1 and 2 Vict. 3, was the world's major statute of "compensated emancipation". It empowered the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Dept to raise the £20 million by issuing government stocks, effective borrowing against future tax revenues to pay former enslaves for the loss of their property.
Abuja Proclamation and ARM (1993)
The Africa Reparations Movement, also known as ARM (UK), was formed in 1993 following the Abuja Proclamation declared at the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in Abuja, Nigeria, in the same year. The conference was convened by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Nigerian government.
In early 1993, British MP Bernie Grant toured the country speaking about the need for reparations for slavery. On 10 May 1993 he tabled a motion in the House of Commons that, the House welcomes the proclamation and recognised that the proclamation "calls upon the international community to recognise that the unprecedented moral debt owed to African people has yet to be paid, and urges all those countries who were enriched by enslavement and colonisation to review the case for reparations to be paid to Africa and to Africans in the Diaspora; acknowledges the continuing painful economic and personal consequences of the exploitation of Africa and Africans in the Diaspora and the racism it has generated; and supports the OAU as it intensifies its efforts to pursue the cause of reparations". The motion was sponsored by Bernie Grant, Tony Benn, Tony Banks, John Austin-Walker, Harry Barnes, and Gerry Bermingham. An additional 46 Labour Party MPs signed to support the motion, including future leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn.
The Abuja Proclamation called for national reparations committees to be set up throughout Africa and the diaspora. Bernie Grant formed ARM UK in December 1993 as the co-founder and chairperson, with a core group including: secretary Sam Walker; treasurer Linda Bellos and trustees Patrick Wilmott, Stephen A. Small (a British academic specialising in slavery), and Hugh Oxley.
ARM aimed: to use all lawful means to obtain reparations for the enslavement and colonisation of African people in Africa and in the African diaspora to use all lawful means to secure the return of African artefacts from whichever place they are currently held to seek an apology from western governments for the enslavement and colonisation of African people to campaign for an acknowledgement of the contribution of African people to world history and civilisation to campaign for an accurate portrayal of African history and thus restore dignity and self-respect to African people to educate and inform African youth, on the continent and in the diaspora, about the great African cultures, languages and civilisations
Following the death of Bernie Grant in 2000, ARM UK became inactive.
Class action (2004) In 2004, controversial reparations lawyer Ed Fagan launched a class action lawsuit against insurance market Lloyd's of London for their role in insuring slave ships involved in the transatlantic slave trade."Slave descendants to sue Lloyd's". BBC News, 29 March 2004. Retrieved on 15 October 2009. The case was unsuccessful.
Apologies On 27 November 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement expressing "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade, saying it had been "profoundly shameful". The statement was criticised by reparations activists in Britain, with Esther Stanford stating that Blair should have issued "an apology of substance", which would then be followed by "various reparative measures including financial compensation". Blair issued another apology in 2007 after meeting with Ghanaian President John Kufuor."Blair 'sorry' for UK slavery role". BBC News, 14 March 2007. Accessed 15 March 2007.
On 24 August 2007, then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone publicly apologised for London's role in the transatlantic slave trade during a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the passing of the 1807 Slave Trade Act. In the speech, Livingston called on the British Government to pass legislation to create a UK-wide Annual Slavery Memorial Day, which would commemorate slavery.
Blair issued another apology in 2007 after meeting with Ghanaian President John Kufuor during Ghana’s 50th independence anniversary celebrations. While his remarks again expressed sorrow and described the transatlantic slave trade as a “stain on history,” they were still viewed by critics as falling short of acknowledging Britain’s systemic role and legal responsibility. Advocates for reparations contended that such language, while symbolic, failed to meet the standards of restorative justice or to lead to any binding policy change.
Heirs of Slavery
In February 2023, former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, whose family had owned plantations in Grenada, travelled to Grenada to make an apology for harm caused and to give reparations. Her family has also apologised to the island nation for harm caused by slavery, and the group has called on the British Prime Minister and King Charles to make a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom.
In April 2023, she co-founded Heirs of Slavery, a group of descendants of people who had profited from British transatlantic slavery and want to make amends. Trevelyan's family has donated money towards education schemes in Grenada via CARICOM, and hopes that Heirs of Slavery will bring similar actions on a greater scale. , the other members of the group are David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood; Charles Gladstone, who is descended from prime minister William Gladstone; journalist Alex Renton; Richard Atkinson; John Dower (of the Trevelyan family); Rosemary Harrison; and Robin Wedderburn.
Opposition to reparations Opposition to the payment of reparations has come from some academics, such as ethicist Nigel Biggar. He puts forward multiple arguments as to why reparations for slavery and the slave trade are inappropriate, both for the British government and for some British institutions that have made apologies or monetary payment. Included among his points are the following.
British involvement began in a historical context when slavery was common throughout the world. He feels that Britain is being made a particular target by the reparations lobby, when other nations with extensive historical involvement escape criticism. Not least of these are African and Arab slave traders. He sets the origins of the Industrial revolution in a context where its major influences were not derived from slavery. He points to Britain's early prominence in abolishing the slave trade and slavery, followed by the large and long-term financial, diplomatic and military effort to enforce and extend the ban on the slave trade. He feels that many of the economic problems of former Caribbean British colonies result from bad decision-making by their post-colonial governments, mentioning the efforts made by the British to bolster their economies after emancipation. He particularly challenges decisions by institutions, such as the Church of England, to make reparations based on a misunderstanding of their historical involvement.
Biggar's book has been favourably received by, among others, Indian economic historian Tirthankar Roy, leading historian of the transatlantic slave trade David Eltis and Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
United States
Slavery ended in the United States in 1865 with the end of the American Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". At that time, an estimated four million African Americans were set free.