UK owes Jamaica $13.5 B in reparation for slavery
Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister of sports, youth and culture.
Associated Press / Michel Euler
Caribbean Life, JULY 23-29, 2021 11
Along with increased effort
to sever formal ties with the
United Kingdom, Jamaican
Parliamentarian Mike Henry is
ready to send an invoice to the
Queen of England demanding
payment for the brutal and
profiteering role the government
meted with enslavement
of African captives.
The lawmaker approximates
a 10 billion pounds or ($13.5
billion) settlement to reasonably
compensate for the incalculable
debt owed by Britain for
enslaving and profiting from
free labor from 1655 to 1838.
With support from the island’s
two political parties the government
will proceed in petitioning
for collection.
The amount only represent
a fraction of payments already
doled out to British emissaries
who were sent to the island as
masters and overseers.
“I am asking for the same
amount of money to be paid
to the slaves that was paid to
the slave owners,” Henry, a
member of the ruling Jamaica
Labour Party said recently.
It has been documented and
widely reported that as recent
as 2015, Britain completed
payments on interests from a
$27-million loan the government
acquired in 1834 to compensate
slave owners after the
empire abolished slavery.
Allegedly, the amount represented
owed fees to ‘owners’ of
former slaves disfranchised for
forfeited ‘property’ — meaning
slaves.
That sum represented a mere
40 percent of the government’s
annual income and reportedly
approximately five percent of
Great Britain’s GDP.
Inflation calculators estimate
the rate today would be equivalent
to two billion pounds.
Some have even guestimated
today’s market price at more
than $17 or higher.
Henry believes the demand
from Jamaica is modest.
In actuality he intends to
petition for seven billion pounds
but concedes that the price tag
could be greater.
“I am doing this because
I have fought against this all
my life, against chattel slavery
which has dehumanized
human life.”
He is not alone in his assessment,
although a colleague and
fellow Jamaica Labour Party
member, Olivia Grange declined
to give a figure she amplified
his call saying: “We are hoping
for reparatory justice in all
forms that one would expect if
they are to really ensure that
we get justice from injustices
to repair the damages that our
ancestors experienced.”
Grange, Jamaica’s minister
of sports, youth and culture,
told Reuters “Our African
ancestors were forcibly
removed from their home and
suffered unparalleled atrocities
in Africa to carry out forced
labor to the benefit of the British
Empire.”
“Redress is well overdue,”
she added.
People’s National Party’s
Opposition leader, Mark Golding
also concurred.
“PNP has been part of the
thrust to seek reparations for
the ongoing effects of slavery,”
he said adding that “a commission
on reparations was established
some years ago and that
has continued across administrations
in Jamaica.”
“I would say there’s bi-partisan
support for the effort to
try and get an acknowledgement
of the righteousness of
the cause.”
While in a leadership role
from 2006 Portia Simpson Miller,
the PNP-elected first female
prime minister of the island
relentlessly called for an end
to the relationship of crown
sovereignty Jamaica maintains
with Britain.
Catch You On The Inside!
Inside Life
By Vinette K. Pryce
1st Session Trial Offer expires 8/31/2021