Posted on 11/04/2022 10:24:32 AM PDT by SJackson
The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has set off a period of public mourning and celebrations of life. But even as many lauded Elizabeth for her 70-year reign, for some — including those from Britain’s former colonies — it was a fresh reminder of the country’s imperial past.
In the last two years, two former British colonies in the Caribbean have made robust efforts to further separate themselves from Great Britain — moves that have been under consideration for decades before. Last year, Barbados officially removed Elizabeth as head of state, becoming a republic, in a move that was partly motivated to create a formal break with its colonial past. Jamaica has indicated it may do the same. During official visits to these countries, members of the royal family had expressed regret for Britain’s role in the slave trade. On a visit to Barbados in Nov. 2021, King Charles III, then Prince Charles, spoke of “the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history.”
“There were slave owners and slave plantation owners in Queen Elizabeth II’s family,” said David Scott, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. “There is a deep connection between the monarchy and slaving in the British Caribbean.”
Over the course of almost two centuries, the British empire colonized islands in the Caribbean and transformed them into plantations labored by over 2 million enslaved Africans.
While Charles and his son, Prince William, have acknowledged the wrongs of slavery, critics have said not enough has been done by either the royal family or the British government in the form of reparations or restitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
The US should get reparations too. Worth noting the Royal African Company which ran the trade was established by the Stuarts. Also that slaves were branded either RAC or DoY, for the Duke of York. We honor him with a city and state name in the US, New York. There is no suggestion either name should be changed. After all, in honors a successful monarch, not like putting a native maiden on butter.
No one should get reparations. Not one thin dime.
A tiny percentage went to the future United States, where they were treated much better and produced numerous progeny.
No “reparations” for anybody.
People need to go work hard for their own money.
No mention of the fact that 10,000s of Royal Navy Sailors and Marines died throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries conducting anti slavery patrols around the coast of Africa, or of the fact that up until 2015 British taxpayers were still paying off the loan for the money borrowed to pay for abolishing slavery.
“Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him.
Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865
How about no!
If the people making the reparations argument were logically consistent, yes, this is correct. As a logical thought piece, this is the most important point. Reparations first and foremost ought to flow out of Europe.
In reality, the idea of reparations is offensive on all counts though and should never happen. I don't support reparations.
It should always be remembered that the Empire did force slavery on the United States, why should the U.S. be on the hook at a minimum for any slavery prior to 1776? Those were the Empire's colonies. Let England pay the reparations to African Americans for what it did.
England likes to brag that they abolished slavery in that country before everyone else. What they never tell you is that although it was abolished in England, the slave trade and the use of slaves was part and parcel of all those plantations that operated in British-held territories, and British merchants, and their investors got rich off of it.
Life owes me money too. I always said so.
Brazil, which was by far the largest destination, is on the Portugese. Don’t think reparations are an issue there. Nor should they be.
People in the UK are not happy now you’re gonna bill them for existing.
I have a G-G-G-G-G-Great Grandfather who was one of the largest slave holders in the West Indies. He was later honored as a great English patriot for standing up to King George on behalf of London’s interests. Five generations following him my Great Grand Father was so much a supporter of John Brown that he rode with John Brown’s sons in support of Lawrence, Kansas when it was raided, was accused(mistakenly) of being one of Brown’s Potowatamie Raiders, and was appointed by Lincoln as the Postmaster of his Kansas town.
I am entailed by neither and should not receive or pay for judgments now made outside the times and the legal landscape in which they lived.
I believe the first colony to outlaw slavery was Georgia, the King overruled them. A colony in New England attempted it with the same result, pretty much establishing the profitable institution.
In the early 1700s the House of Burgesses in Virginian began legal work to abolish slavery and the British Crown took action to overrule it. (See Patrick Henry’s biography)
True, but I think many British slave traders delivered slaves there.
“Charles and his son, Prince William, have acknowledged the wrongs of slavery”, it forgot to add that they nor anyone else living today had anything to do with it. If you want to find people guilty of slavery, look no further than the Muslim countries that are still practicing it.
Slavery was not made illegal in the UK until April, 2010, and only did so as a formality, because the status of “Slave” never existed in English Common Law, and thus a person could not be charged with the practice of “Slavery”.
Need that Not This... Again meme. How about thus. How about every English man gets DNA tested
Based in the % of Anglo-Saxon DNA v. Viking and Norman DNA each person will either write a check or receive a check. If it is a 50/50 split no need to write or receive a reparation check.
Anyone one who wants reparations can be given free, one-way relocation to the west coast of Africa.
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