History must be told, insist descendants of slave owners

Great-great-grandson of Gladstone tells of profound sense of guilt’ as he joins calls for UK and others to make reparations

- EDITH M. LEDERER

Descendants of slave owners and those of enslaved people in former British colonies in the Caribbean sat around the same table at the United Nations headquarters in New York last week to discuss the contentious issue of reparations.

“This was a historic event,” said former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, one of whose ancestors owned sugar cane plantations in Grenada. Ms Trevelyan moderated the meeting on the sidelines of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent’s week-long session.

From around the year 1500, millions of west Africans were sent to work mainly on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas, including the southern United States. UN human rights chief Volker Turk told the forum that an estimated 25 million to 30 million Africans were uprooted for the purpose of slavery. Few nations have apologised for their role in slavery, and reparations have been the subject of much debate.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council has for years called for global action, including reparations, apologies and educational reforms, to make amends for racism against people of African descent. The 15-nation Caribbean Community, known as Caricom, has a 10-point plan for reparatory justice, starting with demands for European countries where enslaved people were kept and traded to issue formal apologies.