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Dawit Alemneh
Syracuse University
Department of Africa American Studies

Topic: “Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide by

Hilary Beckles.

Beckles’ “Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide “is a very

informative work that helps us to understand the indigenous genocide and black enslavement in

the Caribbean, predominantly Barbados. It is written based on the idea of reparative justice. His

book is divided into two parts. In the first part, he discusses the importance of reparation as

“legal, political and moral right” (2). He cites his colleagues like C.L.R James, Michael Manley,

Walter Rodney and the like as a source of encouragement to finish this daunting task. It is a very

precious book that should get the attention of any pan-Africanist (3). It is one of the many efforts

to tell the truth about the misery of Blacks by digging out valuable evidence and letting them

known to the international community about the factual information behind the Slave trade and

colonialism. There was a crime against humanity.

The author tries to show us how the British colonial mode of capital accumulation

downgraded the Back race through harsh forms of exploitation and mass killing starting from

Jamaica in the north to Guiana in the southern extreme of the Caribbean.

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On the first chapter, he demonstrates the importance of reparation, its principles and the

politics behind it. The growth of Europeans was made possible not by their own effort restricted

to their territory rather by the labors and plunder of other nations without giving them due

attention to their human nature. The crimes committed by British on women, men and children

alike are so much so that it is difficult to forget it. It had a very lasting psychological, material

and social impact to those victimized family members and their progeny (11).

The author tries to provide us different exemplary experiences that show the apology

requests from various parts of the globe as a great evidence for other European countries

particularly of Britain to follow the same suit. Cases in point are the F.W.de Klerk apology of

millions of Black South Africans for the crimes against humanity during his presidency by the

White minorities (12).The book displays not only such circumstances but also unravels the

readiness of those few perpetrators to ask apology, and to repair the damage made by their past

ancestors by offering any form of compensation to the Black victims and their off springs. The

author tries to justify that the demand for reparative justice is a correct way of redressing the past

problem grounded on the international law (13).

The principles of the reparative justice also cited using different models. The Masada

suggests the three criteria to be fulfilled to claim for reparations: the injustice must be documented,

the victims must be identifiable as distinct groups, and the current members of the group must

continue to suffer harm are cited by Beckles (14).The European racism had made Britain hold the

Blacks for a long period as “a lifelong” slaves (18). As a result, the possessors claim a legal right to

do whatever they wanted on the body of the enslaved Africans, and this brought a serious human

rights violations. (21).The book shows the transition from formal (legal) slavery to the highest stage

of slavery that adopted Apartheid, reformed slavery (13). The book also shows how the

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profits of slavery became a springboard to make a transition from the merchant class to that of

royalty (23).

On the second chapter, the author tries to show us how the British were exterminating the

slaves labeling them as savages. In their right to defend their territories many people had been

killed by the British using their advanced military power as a tool for conquering the land of the

population. The author has ample resources to provide them as examples for the crime made in

the past against indigenous peoples. And one instance for this was the people of the Kalingas

who refused to give an inch of land to the British and killed in a cold blooded way.

A system of white supremacy was established using legal, fictional, and theological

grounds by treating Africans as “sub-human.” The British economic activity in the Caribbean

gained a firm base by reducing the native population into slavery and by importing Blacks from

Africa to work on the plantations (26-17).

Therefore, the author analyzes the myriad crimes committed in the process of

establishing and keeping the system of slavery starting from invasion, displacing of natives to

exterminating them. Moreover, in order to staff the shortage of workers in the plantation, they

hunted, captured and transported Africans into the Caribbean. The book also displays the many

crimes made during shipment of Africans to the new world: ranging from sexual abuse to

throwing them into the ocean. Beckles demonstrates us the execution of African chiefs who

refused to collaborate with slave raiding activists in the seventeenth century with the British (38).

Life on the plantation also presented as full of crime constituted killing, torture, and physical

punishment that followed by death. Slaves who were found guilty by their masters were

“branded with hot iron, have their noses slit and be dismembered” (61).

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It was the British that made a considerable effort to justify slave trading using literary and

intellectual project. The book is rich in mentioning many sources that talk about the correctness

of slavery on the British side. The mountain of published materials testifies the lowered moral

standard of the British in the meantime. The justification required from the church, however, had

an enduring impact because it increases the public support of the crime (39).Royal companies

were working highly in America for selling the black bodies (“Black Gold”) to remain in their

status under the confines of the royalty (42).

When the British slavery reached its maturity by the end of the eighteenth century, the

“Barbados model” copied and pasted to other parts of the British Empire (63).What the British

had done in Barbados used as a model to serve to other colonies. Enslaved people had no any

legal right to family life, leisure time or purchase of religion because they were regarded as

inferior specious that deserves nothing (65).

The author elaborates the Zong massacre and explains what it meant to the Blacks. Beckles

use hard language to portray the magnitude of the massacre because Blacks were equated with

“property” and “real state”. Africans body were bought and then “stored, packaged, and shipped,

like any other property” (68).The human body was a lucrative business and costs much higher

than “other commodities “such as machinery, livestock and land (69). Conversely, the book

shows the mass murder of Africans who were thrown overboard to protecting the ship and

covering the loss was fall upon the insurance companies (72-73).

In the first part of Beckles’ book (1-11chapters), we could find the unique conditions

associated with enslaved females. The British law did not accept her humanity status, and thus, she

was transferred to sexual abuse, rape, and forced reproduction as sexual objects (76-77). Black

women were encouraged to give more birth because of excessive breeding in the form of engaging

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them in prostitution. Excessive breeding meant high income for the family by selling the child of

the enslaved women. The author shows how women were part of the capital accumulation of

slavery (78-79).

With all the above encouragements, the mass killing of Africans made the population decline

extremely. It later meant to the British the end of the life of the engine and Beckles narrates

“the power , prestige and profits “that British gained in the Caribbean put endanger and began to

resettle more people to Barbados(83-85).

The author well documented the involvement of the church in the plantation economy in

Barbados and the controversy and the clash with the big British businessmen. The author in chapter

eight entitled “dividends from the devil” shows us the controversy of sympathetic nature of

Christianity and the inhuman activities of the church that used to buy slaves and stamped them as

church properties to work on the plantation (112). He also elucidates the cruelty of the church

that forced Blacks to be burdened with the excessive workload that fastened their death

(113).The church approved slavery. Chattels slaves were sources of excessive profit by the

bishop of the Church of England. The use of “scriptural references” to downgrade slaves helped

them to reduce African status to “property, chattels and real estate” (120).Thus, the book

provides us information that shows the fusion of the secular world with spiritual realm so as to

exploit Blacks in the Caribbean.

The author gives much coverage to the heartlessness of the church that officially voiced the

subhuman nature of the blacks and the irrelevance of giving recognition to a black family. This

dehumanizing project of the clergy shows the racial targeting of Africans was intensified to the

extent of exposing Blacks to a mental health problem and degraded their social position in later

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periods. One can look at the bad action of the church by reading this book and asks a question

about what would be the importance of the church to stop modern injustice at this point (119).

Beckles on chapter ten “Slave Owners in Parliament and the Private Sector” summarizes

the source of all evils. He presents the central role of the people in exploiting Africans and

committing a crime against humanity under the banner of “national interest” than the single-

minded slaveholder who imported and used Africans as ‘stolen goods’ (131-132).

This issue had been hotly debated in the first half of the nineteenth century, and those

political elites including members of the parliament were aggressively defending slavery as an

important asset for the public good. It had divided the political parties and the public opinion for

a long time. The political elites had a considerable role in exploiting the enslaved in the West

Indies by forming a powerful family business that helped them to amass high profit that could be

invested again in the domestic arena. They were exploiting the Caribbean residing in Britain as

absentee owners and followed up their business either through a periodic visit or manage it

through employed Caribbean management team (133-136).

The author also clarifies how the financial sector was strengthened with the creation of an

intertwined relationship between the slave owners and the British banking system. London

Banks were lending money to the owner using enslaved persons as assurance for keeping their

profit, and it applied to all banking networks. Out of the sixty London banks, thirty of them are

identified as major beneficiaries of the slave-based economy in the Caribbean (137-39).Thus, the

author shows how the primitive accumulation of capital had helped for the rise of the industrial

revolution that was preceded by the revolution in the banking system142).

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The final chapter entitled “Twenty Million pounds: Slave Owner’ Reparations” shows the

monetary reparation made by the British government in 1838 to the slave owners for the stoppage of

the “national culture “that was active for two hundred years in transporting Africans and exploiting

them in the Caribbean. This money that was equivalent to 76 billion pounds to today’s currency yet

had nothing to do with improving the life of Blacks. The money that was paid to the British slave-

owners as a compensation for surrendering their slaves in 1838 had simply enriched them and

justified today as the biggest compensation made in the British history (143-144).The abolitionist

policies of the British government freed slaves and gave them the legal status as human (146).The

long-lived treatment of Africans as subhuman as well as the legally adopted widely held view of

supporting the enslavement of Africans now came to an end. However, Beckles critics the mass

media, intellectual classes, political leaders and the like who justify the previous compensation that

paid to the enslavers as the final chapter to the demand for compensation by denying the misery of

the enslaved and hence, a racist outlook (154). The end of slavery had only made a transition from

forced labor to paid work with full of capitalistic features of exploitation that perpetuated material

impoverishment and hard labor through racial apartheid.

The second part of Beckles book rests mainly on issues like the case for reparatory

justice, the UN and reparations in Durban, the British unshaken stand on the issue of reparation

and the Caribbean reparation movement.

The author vividly lists out those major reasons as the basis for the Afro-Caribbean

government to ask reparatory justice before the British the government. Among the many, the few of

them are: First, the exploitation Afro-Caribbean for 400 years under the system of slavery (164-65).

Second, the enrichment of the British was made possible at the expense of the Caribbean and a

testimony for this was the expansion of British colony from “West Indies to the East Indies,

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Africa, and Australia” (166).Third, Beckles uses the argument of complicity and collaboration of

African leaders and refusal to obey cost them the destruction of their governments to show how

the cause of slavery was so serious (168). Conversely, Beckles shows us how the development

agencies and big governments intimidating Africans not to ask reparation (170-171).

The biggest problem associated with the debate over reparation is not about labeling it as

a crime or not. Rather, the political tone that loaded with it overshadowed the legal question of

the matter. The author advises that the question of reparations should be about morality and

politics than giving to the issue a political character (170).

The thirteenth chapter “Sold in Africa: the Unite Nations and the Reparations in Durban

“illuminates the division of African and Africans in the diaspora with the case of reparation. The

Caribbean delegates leave the 2001 United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial

Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance (WCAR), in Durban, South Africa, in

response to the comments of the Senegalese and Nigerian presidents on the irrelevance of the

reparation (172). Beckles chaired the Barbados delegation and also coordinated the Caribbean

delegates and hence, we can get the firsthand experience of him that makes his book more

astounding. Beckles pageants how the atmosphere at Durban was tense because countries were

allied based on their political interest. European and Americans were threatened to remove

themselves from the conference unless the idea of reparation removed from the agenda (176)

Beckles cleverly explore and documented the magnificent role of individuals like Chief

Abiola to bring the reparation payment to the global stage or advanced the question of reparation

as the main agenda of the UN summit that made him unpopular with western governments (179).

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Africans disunity made the conference stunted. The European and western blocs brought their

own draft paper that did not contain reparation. Senegalese President Wade brought a new

African initiative, the Gore initiative, an alternative to finding cohesion and consensus that was

also shared by Nigeria and South Africa. (186-188).It clearly shows how the division was deep

because of the politicization of the reparation than accepting the reality.

He argues that though a significant amount of evidence presented by Caribbean delegates

before they leave the conference, Britain refused to take responsibility for the past injustices, let

alone recognized it as the main problem of Africans (174-175 &186).The British feared of

accepting her previous crime for the reason that it leads to the reparation legal action (189).

The author further discusses this last issue both in depth and length in the next chapter

“British Policy: No apology, No reparation.” In this chapter, Beckles shows us how British has

remained obstinate on the issue of reparation and apology for the past crime against humanity.

No apology and no reparation policy affirm that how British had positioned herself to make a

strategic retreat escape legal blameworthiness.

The British argument of “it was a long time ago” was downgraded by Beckles citing the

post-slavery colonial reality (apartheid) which is a successor of slavery. Cases in point are the

massacre of the Jamaican workers in 1865 and it can be taken as the perpetuation of the crime

against humanity until the most recent modern period (196).

Despite the British government under Blair expressed its sorrow through the ‘statement

of regret’ at Durban, it did not dare to apologize. Beckles cites many examples that show Britain

apology to other people’s previously. The queen had apologized for the Maori people of New

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Zeland in the 1860s and the Indian people following the Amritsar Massacre in 1919. The author

asks why the Africans or Blacks did not get such an opportunity (199).

In the last chapter, Beckles argues that the Caribbean nations should insistently tell to the

UN World Conference attendees or to the wider world audience that crimes against humanity

contributed a lot to the economic development of the current British government. He also refutes

the argument on the British side that West African leaders were equally participating in the slave

trade. This book holds the biggest aim of breaking the already existed unsound argument on the

British side and tried to support the ongoing campaign by providing concert evidence.

Beckles also shows the conspiracy behind reparation and the straightforward elimination

of individuals. Those people who had a direct connection to reparation has been steadily

harassed. He cites the two repulsive measures taken by the West. Though he appreciates the fast

and immediate response of the French government under Jacques Chirac to apologize the Haiti in

Durban, on the contrary, he displays the Aristide demands of a US $21 billion reparations

brought his removal from office. Second, Abiola(targeted enemy of the west) after winning the

election, he was not able to lead Nigeria because of the military coup organized by Britain

(180&217).Beckles also clarifies the role the NGO and the Caribbean reparation commission as

the regional vehicle for negotiation.

The author vividly indicates how the Bicentennial year of the abolition of the British

Trans-Atlantic slave trade is helping as a source of increasing the intensity of the global

reparation movement (223). Kingston Harbor, in Jamaica, is the major place of the celebrating

the abolition of slavery by members the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Here, the place

symbolically associated with the first trauma of the arrival of slaves from Africa (225).

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Conclusion

The West Indies or the Caribbean had long become the main source of income for Britain

based on the agricultural economy. It was the British who was the most profitable country than any

other European nation in the Caribbean. Trading in African bodies was a culture. It was the British

merchandise ships that took millions of Africans to the New World and exploited them severely

without taking into consideration the human nature of Blacks. Since the International law supports

the issue of chattel slavery as a form of crime against humanity, the reparatory justice is a must and

should not only embrace the monetary dimension of the issue. It is the responsibility of the Caribbean

governments to force the British state to accept its crime against humanity.

British failure to apologize Africans (Blacks) may be because the apology would follow

legal proceedings that demand reparation. Compared to the degree of its damage, It thought to be

huge than doing it verbally like the Maori, Indians and the Irish. Although reparation has been an

issue that the perpetrators of the crimes do not want to deal with, this is the time to bring the

topic into discussion. The responsibility falls on various levels. The AU should take the footsteps

of CARICOM in seeking reparative justice, another important point is that we should not just

leave the issue to the AU and other leaders. Every conscious individual should play his/her own

part in disseminating the awareness on the crimes that are perpetrated against Africans and the

need for reparation. As a Pan-Africanist, a lot should be done to write and discuss the issue

especially using modern social Media.

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Works Cited

Beckles, Hilary. Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide.

University of West Indies Press, 2013.

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