THE BUSINESS OF SLAVERY AND REPARATIONS... Slavery was the transformative economic event of today’s global economy. It transformed Europe from a feudal agrarian economy to an industrial super power that platformed Europe economic strength to that has lasted to today. It took Europe from the Dark Ages into a period of unprecedented GDP growth which created the foundation for Europe’s economic, social, political, diplomatic and cultural ascendancy. Slavery was the beginning of pure uncontrolled capitalism and of rampant globalization. Slavery was the primary industry and the primary business event of our times. Slavery was pure business. It lacked morality, it lacked humanity. It embraced unimaginable exploitation, human destruction, millions of deaths and the simply the greatest crime on Earth. Slavery also transformed Africa from its natural historical economic evolution into the Dark Continent of death and destruction. Guyanese Professor Dr. Walter Rodney’s classic treatise “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” provides great analysis and details of this phenomenon. Clearly, when a Continent is deprived of the skills of its “best and brightest, the human capital necessary for sustained development and economic prosperity , is a critical missing factor of production. The numbers of this “greatest crime of mass murder and destruction” are incredible. So incredible is it that the World has used millions of words to hide this unique horror and evil. In his article “ The way I see it--“The Missing 100+ million”, Jack Crawford provided the following information from the World Almanac in the area of World population (1990 Edition page 539). Continent 1650 1750 1850 1950 Africa 100 95 95 200 Europe 100 140 265 530 The numbers do not lie and tell us that during the 200-year period from 1650 to 1850, there was a 165 million increase in the European population. While Africa’s population declined by 5 million. This illustrates the more than 100 million Africans that are missing from history and illustrates the multiplier effects of the total impact of slavery, wars to capture slaves, the wounded and helpless left to die, the destruction of birth cycles, famines resulting from crippled societies, children left unattended for, and the devastation and destruction of Africa. The numbers also show that whereas Africa’s population doubled from 100 to 200 million in the 300 years between 1650 and 1850, Europe’s population increased 5 fold from 100 million to 530 million. Such is the economic opportunity cost of slavery to Africa’s development. Slavery was the first “nuclear bomb” the World has ever experienced. Slavery annihilated Africa, African culture, African family structures, African institutions, African commerce, African growth, African history, African Pride and African economic development. Many Europeans have argued that slavery did not make Europe wealthy. This belies the facts and the reality of European growth and development. Slavery was a 400 year economic activity that enriched Europe. Dr. Eric Williams proved this wealth creation in his epic book “Capitalism and Slavery”. Dr. Williams showed how European states, Rulers, the Church, merchants, bankers, shipbuilders and many cities became wealthy. Moreso, the wealth from slavery allowed Europe to expand economic activity and dominance in other parts of the world. In 1692, Sir Joshua Child, a British nationalist and an economist, authored and published a book entitle: A New Discourse on Trade. He measured the Caribbean’s value to England in terms of the wealth repatriated to generate employment and the market for English manufacturers. Joshua Child concluded that in the seventeenth century, Barbados alone was worth more to England than all the American colonies combined. Sir Hilary Beckles even went further. He has reported that by 1775, the British West Indies plantations were valued at 50 million pounds (71.7 billion in 2010 values); only three years later they were estimated to be worth 70 million pounds (97.7 billion in 2010 values). It is well established that the British slave trade served as the cash cow for most British ports, towns and cities, through the eighteen century. Bristol, Liverpool, London and Glasgow became pre-eminent cities. In his book, “Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A study in International Trade and Development”, J.E Irihori provided the most empirical evidence, supportive of Dr. Eric Williams’ argument about the role slavery played in capitalism and European enrichment.. J.E Irihori demonstrated both the significant role of the slave trade in the capital accumulation in England as well as that the slave fuelled economic growth in the Americas was a vital component to Britain’s industrial growth. Others such as Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engerman in their book “British Capitalism and Slavery: the Legacy of Eric Williams” have persuasively argued that: “The Caribbean economy based on slavery benefitted Britain when investment was lagging, technical change was slow, growth in domestic demand for manufacturing was less than in external demand, and when the North American colonies depended on Britain for manufacture and the West Indies for foreign exchange with which to buy them”. It was our own Guyanese born I.K Cush who calculated based on the fact that because in 1808 Britain’s Caribbean colonies were valued at $432 million and the annual profits to Britain were $48 million…..that if one were to invest those annual profits over 100 years at 8% interest per annum with a 15% tax rate and a 3.1% inflation rate, the investment return would be US$ 34,543,513,346.00 (34.5 trillion dollars). Of course, we all know that Britain controlled her Caribbean colonies for much longer than 100 years so the 34.5-plus trillion dollars noted above undervalue the “immense economic gain” Britain derived from the enslavement of Africans in just her Caribbean colonies Similarly, Cush calculated bases on the average price per pound of cotton of 0.10 cent, that again over a 100 year slavery period, the United States of America would have generated based on annual profits, at 8% with a 15% tax rate and a 3.1% inflation rate ,.an investment return: US$71,965,652,802.00! (71 trillion dollars). Recently, Armond Zunder, the Chair of the Surinamese National Reparations Committee , in his book, HERSTELBETALINGEN, showed the wealth shipped to Holland from 1683 to 1863, the year of Emancipation. Table 2: Registered imports in the Netherlands from Suriname, 1683 - 1863 Major crops Weight in kilograms Value in Dutch florins Sugar 1,513,649,000 750,503,000 Coffee 405,110,000 470,722,000 Cotton 52,437,000 95,921,000 Cocoa 16,653,000 14,831,000 Total 1,987,849,000 1,331,977,000 To institutionalize capitalism, the private sector needs the involvement of both the state and non-state actors. Slavery was a prime example of this. The British state enacted many laws, including property and shipping laws, to underpin the slave trade. The British state approved slavery and agreed with the premise that Africans were property; hence the laws governing property prevailed. The British state also marshaled together the entire cultural and intellectual edifice, including a racist ideology, to justify the slave trade, and slavery, and to legitimize all those who engaged in slavery. The Church, the most powerful non-state actor, played a very significant role in slavery and capitalism. The Church of England blessed the sinners who made wealth out of human carnage and exploitation of Indigenous tribes. Additionally, under the coverage provided by the support of slavery by the Church, philosophers, politicians, and popular commentators bolstered the British state’s criminal policy of supporting slavery. Sir Hilary Beckles in his book Britain’s Black Debt made the following observation about slavery, capitalism and the role of all aspects of British society: “from the beginning to the end of the slave trade and slavery, the British state was intimately involved with this global commercial enterprise, hand-in-glove with the private sector, other non-governmental institutions in Britain, and the society as a whole. It was truly a national endeavor without moral scruples designed to enrich the British, especially its ruling and governing classes in real estate property, banking and finance, insurance, shipping and ship building, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and commerce , generally. The cities of London, Bristol and Liverpool , for example, were enriched by this triangular trade , led by Britain”. Slavery was business. Big Business. Free land obtained by Indigenous genocide , stealing and occupation was one input. Free water was likewise obtained. Free labour from 400 years of slavery, capital from the state, commercial banks and insurance agencies, completed the picture. The Church provided moral and social license for this criminal enterprise. Hence, slavery accelerated, institutionalized and popularized capitalism of the worst form: human exploitation, death, genocide, and racism coming together to create the “perfect storm” of unbridled capitalism. ADDING SALT TO THE WOUND Emancipation for the British colonies came in 1838 and this event again showed the impact slavery would have in furthering capitalism. Professor Beckles book Britain’s Black Debt again highlights this pure form of capitalism: “In 1838, the British People ended their 250-year old “national crime of black enslavement with a sum total payment of 20 million pounds to the last slave owning cohort…….Slavery, then, came to an end with a festive orgy of public money being showered upon slave owners, who for generations had been financially enriched, socially elevated and celebrated , and politically empowered and protected. Their final pillage came in the form of massive financial reparations from the British treasury”. Of this 20 million pounds, the slave owners across sixteen slave colonies in the British West Indies , received an aggregate of 16,356,661 pounds (11.6 billion in 2010 values) for 655,780 slaves. The largest sums received were for slaves in Jamaica (6.1million pounds); British Guiana (4.28 million); Barbados (1.7 million pounds); and Trinidad & Tobago (1.02 million pounds). These numbers don’t tell the real economic story. Twenty million pounds was 40% of the receipts or expenditures of the British state in 1838. Hence 20 million pounds would almost equate to 200 million pounds today. Their reparations payment was a threefold victory for slave owners. First, the cash was used to refinance their businesses. Beckles has listed 24 financiers who received reparations of 594, 339 (423 million pounds in 2010 values) for Jamaican slaves alone. Secondly, the slave owners were able to make new investments, mostly in British stock. Thirdly. The slave owners were still able to hold on to their west Indian enterprises and therefore by landing the “freed” persons largely landless, second class citizens in the colonies where they were formerly enslaved. Raw capitalism was also practiced as evidenced in Guyana . The Village Movement which started in 1839 with the purchase of Victoria for 10,000 pounds by 83 former slaves, was a continuation of the wealth obtained by slave owners. Land prices increased with each purchase by freed slaves, although the land may have been abandoned. When the planters realized that many Africans had accumulated to buy lands, they immediately raised land prices. When 61 Africans bought Beterverwagting, a plantation smaller than Northbrook, they had to pay $22,000 for it. The Guyana Reparations Committee will face three significant challenges in the next few months. The first is to develop a credible economic evaluation of Guyana’s reparations claims from the British and Dutch governments. The Committee is aware of the sums of monies paid out of at Emancipation to slave owners who had slaves in Guyana. But this is a small and relatively easy part of the evaluation process. We also are aware of what the Venn Commission found: namely, “History has recorded that (Guyanese) Africans “had driven back the sea and had cleared, drained and reclaimed 15,000 square miles of forest and swamps. This is equivalent to 9,000,000 acres of land. In short, all the fields on which the sugar estates are now based were cleared, drained and irrigated by African labour forces. All the plantations now turned villages and cities were built by unpaid African labour. In the process of building these plantations, careful research has shown that Africans installed the following (1) 2,580,000 miles of drainage canals, trenches and inter-bed drains, (2) 3,500 miles of dams, roads and footpaths, and (3) 2,176 miles of sea and river defense. The Venn Commission also reported that “to build the coastal plantation alone, a value of 100,000,000 tons of earth had to be moved by the hands of African slaves “(without machinery). To perform a comprehensive valuation , our historians will have to document the millions of pounds of sugar and other crops exported from Guyana to Europe during slavery and the economic costs of the lives of Indigenous people and Africans lost during the process. The Surinamese have been able to perform such an analysis but they were helped by the tremendous records the Dutch kept. Unfortunately, British records are not so detailed. The second challenge for the Guyana Reparations Committee is that of creating a correct detailed historical narrative of Indigenous genocide and African slavery. This narrative will cover several centuries and must be done in a manner that is both factually correct and detailed enough so as to assist in the first activity of economic valuation. The third major challenge is time. In January, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves will become the Chairman of CARICOM for a six month period. His main task is to focus on Reparations. With the help of the UK law firm of Leigh Day & Co, PM Gonsalves will work through the CARICOM Reparations Commission and the Regional Ministerial Committee on Reparations, Chaired by Prime Minister Freundal Stuart of Barbados and comprised of the Heads of States of Barbados, Guyana, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Haiti, and Suriname. The lawsuit will have four pillars, namely: 1. Proving the nature of historical discrimination. 2. Linking discrimination to present day inequality 3. Defining and proving the nature of modern inequality, and 4. Denoting policies adopted by Europe to continue this process This calls for a detailed economic valuation based on an accurate historical narrative and other detailed arguments, in a Court of Law, against three extremely powerful global forces who will engage in all acts and strategies not to pay reparations. The Guyana Reparations Committee is the least prepared of all the major CARICOM countries. Jamaica has had a Reparations Commission for over five years. Suriname has completed their economic valuation which took them a few years to put together. Guyana has 3 months and this process has been severely impacted by a few individuals who are more concerned about their own selfish needs than on the national need to work as a Team to get the many tasks completed. Guyana has to quickly complete the defined deliverables to meet the tight deadlines established by CARICOM and the Ministerial Commission on Reparations. The purpose of each National Reparations Committee, as Terms of Referenced by CARICOM Heads is very clear. Each National Committee will be responsible for delivering the above four elements for a legal case. Secondly, although each country will propose ideas as to how monies would be spent, it is CARICOM whose collective ideas will be the basis of such. So, in plain words, the Government of Guyana through its Reparations Committee will present CARICOM with ideas. CARICOM has significant issues facing Caribbean civilization (debt, climate change, economic woes etc.) as well as integration issues (transportation in the region, health care in the region etc.). On Sunday September 15th, the Caribbean Community opened the first Regional Reparations Conference at St. Vincent and the Grenadines Victoria Park. The Conference was mandated by the historic resolution unanimously passed by CARICOM Heads of Government in July, 2013 in Trinidad and Tobago. That resolution also requested each CARICOM Member State to set up its own National Reparations Committee to document the effects of European genocide against the indigenous inhabitants of the region, the slave trade in and the enslavement of Africans, and the colonization of the country. It was agreed that the body would be led by a Chairman and three Vice Chairs with responsibility for certain key tasks. Professor Hilary Beckles was elected as Chairperson of the CARICOM Regional Reparations Commission. Vice Chairs are Jomo Thomas, St.Vincent and the Grenadines ( responsible for inter-governmental relations), Dr. Verene Shepherd, Jamaica ( research), and Ahmad Zunder, Suriname, (mobilization). The CARICOM Reparations Commission was constituted to achieve the following aims and objectives: Establish the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of Reparations by the Governments of all the former colonial powers and the relevant institutions in those countries, to the nations and people of the Caribbean Community for the Crimes against Humanity of Native Genocide, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and a racialised system of chattel Slavery; 1. Advise and make recommendations for coordinated CARICOM action by the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparations; 2. Coordinate and support the work of National Reparations Commissions and Task Forces and encourage the development of Commissions in those countries that have not yet established national bodies; 3. Receive reports from National Reparations Commissions; 4. Develop and implement a regional strategy to pursue Reparations, including the following actions: • Coordinate and/or undertake relevant historical research at the national, regional and international levels; • Coordinate and/or undertake legal research to inform case preparation and litigation strategies; • Coordinate national and regional public education campaigns; • Coordinate and/or conduct national and regional public consultations on Reparations; • Develop and recommend diplomatic strategies to advance the case for Reparations in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, African Union, CELAC and with other supportive governments; • Identify and recommend the appointment of eminent spokespersons and champions for the cause of Reparations among artists, attorneys, scholars, indigenous peoples, Rastafarians, youth, women and politicians; • Engaging and partnering with national and regional civil society organizations involved in the Reparations Movement, especially the Rastafarian and Pan Africanist formations of the Caribbean; • Develop and recommend decisive political action at the national and regional levels through Parliamentary debates and resolutions and national, regional and international popular mobilization; • Conduct consultations to develop proposals on appropriate forms of redress through reparative programmes and projects; • Coordinate and/or undertake the preparation of a detailed brief on the cost of the damages and current manifestations of such damage on indigenous people and their descendants and on enslaved Africans and their descendants, in the following and other relevant areas: • Economic (including land deprivation) • Social, Cultural and Psychological • Spiritual and Religious • Demographic • Medical • Educational • Assume the responsibility for the preparation and presentation of the legal case for Reparations and highlight the special case of Reparations for Haiti; • Serve as a quick response mechanism and develop a pro-active media campaign to raise public awareness and canvas support. CONCLUSION Reparations is about the “business of development” and about the economic future of CARICOM and its member states. Recently. Sir Ron Sanders, on November 10, 2013, wrote an article entitled “Leaders in self-denial as Caribbean economic crisis worsens” Sir Ron Sanders quoted from a speech by Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Antony of St. Lucia who was also previously the Legal Counsel to the Secretariat of the 15-nation Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) “Make no mistake about it, our region is in the throes of the greatest crisis since independence. The spectre of evolving into failed societies is no longer a subject of imagination. How our societies crawl out of this vicious vortex of persistent low growth, crippling debt, huge fiscal deficits and high unemployment is the single most important question facing us at this time”. The Caribbean is at a serious crossroad for with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago where oil and gas revenues keep the economy buoyant, and Guyana with its broad agricultural and mineral base, the economic picture of the majority of CARICOM countries is grim. Yet, some governments try to airbrush from the portrait rising poverty, rising unemployment, rising debt and declining economic growth. As Sir Hilary Beckles has put it “The Reparations battle is about economics and justice . The Region was robbed of its wealth using slavery and Indigenous genocide as to Horsemen of Doom. After 300 years of wealth extraction under colonial rule, the British left a legacy in the 1960s independence decade of 70% illiteracy within the Post Slavery Black community. The figures are similar for the post indenture Indian community. Today, most Caribbean governments currently spend up to 70% of national budgets in a frantic effort to repair health and educational crisis resulting from colonialism.” Guyana has committed to a process that has no retreat. When PM Ralph Gonsalves occupies the Chairmanship of CARICOM, all bets are off and all National Reparations Committees have to deliver against their Terms of Reference. The “business of reparations is business”. And economics. And Caribbean survival.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 01:58:05 +0000
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