Reparations For Caribbean Islands Including Grenada To Rebuild Education, Healthcare Systems After Devastations Of Slavery – Laura Trevelyan Interview

Reparations For Caribbean Islands Particularly Grenada – Laura Trevelyan Interview About Slave-Holding Ancestors, Moving Forward 

Staten Islander News spoke with former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan.  For those readers familiar with our story on the Great Irish Famine, this name may be familiar.  Laura is descended from Charles Trevelyan, who was the treasurer during the Famine.  As a consequence, many have blamed him directly for the Famine, as most of the deaths and emigration were caused directly by the lack of a consistent response by the British government, of which Ireland was a possession at the time.  

During Laura’s tenure with the BBC, she went to Ireland to cover the fight for their independence, and at that point was confronted by someone who instantly recognized her name.  At the time, she was unaware of her family’s notoriety in that event.  

At this time, Laura is in the spotlight for a quite different issue, also related to her family’s origins: slavery.  In Britain, in order to pass abolition of slavery through Parliament in 1833, it was necessary that part of the law involve “reparations.”  These were not reparations to the enslaved, as one might expect.  Rather, the reparations were to the owners of the human “property,” in other words, the slaves.  Each person or family was given a certain sum of money for the “hardship” of losing their slaves.  

While this may seem shocking to us, at the time it was just par for the course.  Each slave owner was given a certain sum for the number of slaves they had at the time of abolition, and this was recorded by the government.  Back in 2014 or so, the database of all those who had received such compensation was placed into a database and put online.  One of Laura’s family members casually typed in the Trevelyan name, and came to find that their family had been paid a sum of 26,000 pounds to split among themselves, in compensation for their “lost property.”  

Laura, and other members of her family, were shocked to learn of this.  The slave owning history of her family was not well known, and was a result of a marriage of one of her male relatives to the daughter of a prominent slave trader.  At first, she did not know what to do with this information.  As the reporter in the family, she was encouraged to do something about it, but it wasn’t until the Black Lives Matter movement in 2016 that she began to see the connections.  At this point, she decided to explore the issues facing Grenada and other Caribbean islands, and took a trip there to see what the lasting effects were on that small island of the slave trade.  

There are several lasting issues that were noted during her trip that are legacies of slavery.  Lack of education is the first.  While there is now a university there, and many of the children are educated, there are lasting effects from the years during which this was not the case.  Overall, there has been a chronic underinvestment in education.  

Another issue is the lack of adequate healthcare funding.  This means that people are not able to get the medical care and treatment that they need on a regular basis.  This may also mean that there is a lack of prenatal and postnatal care, as this tends to be a place where the ravages of poverty historically have been the most obvious.  Fortunately, however, the maternal mortality rate is on par with states in the US with lower rates, which is good news.  Many indicators point to positive changes, including an increase in households in Grenada with access to the internet, for example, which has increased from just 4% in 2000 to over 77% in 2021.  These statistics are from the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization. 

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The endowment mentioned by Laura, from the Church of England, has yet to be disbursed.  A group of experts has also advised that the fund be increased from 100 million pounds to a billion pounds.  Considering that this endowment is meant to cover the damages resulting from the slave trade, from which the Church of England directly benefited monetarily, in all of the places in which the slave trade existed, this advisement makes sense.  Not only will they need to invest in African countries, from which slaves were exported, but also to places like the Caribbean, to which these slaves were imported.  In both cases, long lasting detrimental effects have been observed.  

Reparations Are Unfair, Many In Government Have Declared

There are some in the British government and elsewhere who have declared that reparations for slavery are unfair.  That the descendants of the slave owners who are subjects of the British government and pay taxes should not have to pay for reparations.  However, as Laura points out, the original reparations are what was actually unfair. 

In  order to get abolition through Parliament, it was necessary for the government to concede that they would pay reparations to those who owned slaves.  This was not to the slaves themselves, to their descendants, or to the islands on which they found themselves.  This was purely as compensation for the human property that was being taken away.  These reparations cost the British government 20 million pounds, equivalent to about 17 billion pounds today, which was a great deal of money in the 1800s.  This amounted to 40% of the Treasury’s income, or 5% of the GDP at the time.  

According to a comment on the above site, “The government borrowed £20 million in 1835 as a 3% perpetual bond. This meant the government had to pay £600,000 per year on that debt. Inflation was then more-or-less zero, and public spending £50 million more-or-less, so this was around 1.2% of public spending.

In subsequent years GDP and public spending grew, by 1900 it was £144 million, for example.

The 1835 bond was not refinanced in 1957 as you write, but in 1927, to be repaid no earlier than 1957. The rate was 4%, forever.”

Naturally, the government did not have these kinds of funds laying around, and so they took out a loan, presumably with interest, in order to make the payments.  This loan was just paid off in 2015.  Of course, the guarantee of this loan was the work and gross national product of the British people. So, the hard-working people of Britain, who generate the revenue for the government’s taxes, have already paid reparations…with interest…to the slave owners.  Perhaps they might agree that it is time to start paying the descendants of the slaves whose potential was stolen from them when they were kidnapped from Africa.  

One thing that is very important that should be pointed out is that the Grenadians and other Caribbean residents are not asking for cash for themselves, to be given out individually.  That idea is an American one, and is causing a great deal of push-back.  Instead, the funds are to be used for education and healthcare, which are both things that will benefit the people of Grenada in the present and into the future.  Unlike giving it to individuals, where the benefit of this investment will be limited by the financial ability of those to whom it is given, in the Caribbean, it will benefit future generations who decide to pursue an education which is now available to them.  

Just A Drop In The Ocean: All We Can Do Is Set An Example

As Laura points out, she understands that her contribution, no matter how large, is only a drop in the ocean.  One of her colleagues in the group she formed, Heirs of Slavery, described how even if he sold everything that he owned and gave it to the people of Grenada, it would not make up for the lives lost, for the possibilities that were stolen.  And as Laura mentions, all that she and her family can do is set an example.  This is an example that other families coming to grips with their shared history can follow.  

The hope is that when someone else in a prominent slave owning family finds out about their history, their response is to see what they can do.  Selling everything that she and her family owns would do little to really solve the problems of the Grenadian people, and would in fact be counterproductive, as they would then have less ability to do anything else.  What would they do then?  If they sold everything they owned and gave every last pound that they had, all that would serve to do is impoverish them.  

While family donations are extremely important, and in some cases are all that is forthcoming for the time being, the greater goal is to get governments involved.  In particular, the British government, which is at this time a Conservative-led government which is not interested in even discussing their slave owning and slavery-benefiting history, much less make any reparations or even an apology. Instead, they make excuses, saying we cannot run from our history.  But neither are they running toward it, seeking to make some sort of amends and repair for the damage their ancestors inflicted on the people of the Caribbean.  

Transatlantic Slave Trade: Not The Most Brutal or Longest-Running, But Freshest In Memory

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was not the longest-running slave trade, at 400 years, nor was it the most brutal, but it did serve to catalyze a change in attitude that led to its abolition in Britain, followed by the Civil War and eventual abolition in the US.  Most people may not know this, but Britain was not the most prolific slave-trading nation, either.  That honor belongs to Portugal, which is first on the list.  The United States and Denmark are at the end of the list in terms of trade volume.  

The most brutal slave trade was that detailed in the book The Forgotten Slave Trade, reviewed by the Staten Islander News.  The Barbary Coast slave trade ran for a much longer time – over a hundred years, from 800 to the early 1800s – ended, in fact, by then-US president Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson set the road-map for the United States’ long-standing refusal to pay tribute for protection, or to pay ransom for people kidnapped.  

The US will always try to rescue hostages and kidnap victims, but they don’t pay ransom.  The reason fro this is obvious, and played out in the Barbary Slave Trade, the kidnappings of Italian-American immigrant children in the early 1900s, as well as elsewhere: once you pay tribute or ransom, you open yourself up to others seeing the benefit to kidnapping or enslaving your people to enrich themselves.  For centuries, the British government would pay tribute to certain African nations in exchange for their ships’ unmolested passage past the Barbary Coast.  But over time, the number of nations to whom they had to pay tribute multiplied exponentially.  But it was America who finally broke the cycle.  

The Transatlantic slave trade was also not the most brutal.  The Barbary Coast wins that one as well.  Due to the sultans’ penchant for taking concubine woman slaves into their dungeons, they required guards who would not molest them.  Enter the eunuchs.  Surgical eunuchs, who could neither have penises nor testicles intact.  In the year 1000.  No anesthetics, no antibiotics, and the surgery could only be performed on prepubescent boys.  Adult males would die from shock after the surgery.  So they would kidnap vast numbers of prepubescent boys, most from Yugoslavia, modern-day Ukraine, and modern-day Russia, bring them to towns in Italy, cut off their penis and testicles, and plug their urethra with a metal plug. After two days of no food or drink, to prevent their bladders from exploding, the plug was removed, and they were delivered to the sultan who had paid for their brutal surgery.  

The success rate was not high (most of the slaves thus mutilated died shortly after the surgery), and those that did survive had a dramatically shortened lifespan (and lifelong urinary incontinence).  This led to the demand for more and more of these boys to serve as eunuchs in the dungeons guarding the concubines for the sultan to use as they pleased.  Many of the women were kidnapped from the countries that are around the Barbary Coast, by armadas of ships who would invade the coastal towns, kidnap everyone in sight, take them on their ships, and sail away.  This was far from being piracy.  The “Barbary Pirates,” as they are colloquially known, were the navies of the sultans, whose payment came from the number of slaves they were able to kidnap and deliver.  

Similarities and Critical Differences Between Enslavers In America vs. the Caribbean

One similarity between Britain and America, however, was in what happened after abolition.   In Britain, as in the US, slaves became something else.  They were not just shipped back to Africa or wherever they came from.  In the Caribbean and other British colonies, they became “apprenticed,” presumably learning some sort of trade, and were unpaid for another four years.  In reality, there was no trade they were learning, and it was just another name for forced labor.  

After that four years, they became sharecroppers, where they could live on and work the land, giving the produce to the landowners, who would then pay them very little. This created a legacy of generational poverty.  It was similar in the US, according to  Digital History, with a legacy of involuntary or forced labor, such as peonage, debt bondage, apprenticeship, contract laborers, indentured laborers, tenant farming, and sharecropping.  All of these types of labor led to generational poverty, the results of which can still be seen today.  

Unlike in Britain, however, the slaves and, later, apprentices and sharecroppers, did not live near those who owned them.  The vast majority of slave owners in Britain were absentee landlords, who farmed out all of the tasks necessary to run the plantation, including the brutal treatment of the slaves themselves.  

In America, the slaves and slave-owners lived “Cheek by Jowl,” as Laura said, which made it much more difficult for the brutality to be hidden from them.  However, even though they knew about it, none of them acted any differently.  Their superiority and judgmental attitudes kept them from seeing anything wrong with the whole system.  The system of sharecropping and apprenticeship had the same effect on the formerly enslaved and their descendants: it served to keep them in poverty and poor conditions gene rationally.  

In the US today, depending on the state in which you live, it can be easy to see these legacies. We discussed some of the reasons for the poverty which is seen in higher proportions in Black communities across the US, particularly in rural areas, with Professor Edelman, author of Not A Crime To Be Poor.  

However, it should be noted that nationally, there is not such a wide difference between White and Black people who fall under the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) definition of poverty, which seeks a location-based approach to defining poverty.  Whites have an overall poverty rate of 30%, while Blacks have an overall rate of 45%.  It is, in fact, the Native Americans across the country whose legacy of generational poverty still persists to an extreme degree, with 82% of them living below the ALICE numbers. In many states where reservations exist, discrimination against tribal people is extremely high, and it is very hard for them to find work.  

This discrimination is frowned upon but not addressed, and continues to the present day.  In these areas, there were serious problems between Whites and Native Americans, mainly because when then-President Lincoln declared that anyone who wanted to buy property in the Midwest and Western states could pay $5 in that day’s money and receive a certain amount of land, he forgot to mention that no treaty had been signed, and the settlers were purchasing land from the government that it did not own.  Essentially, it was wholesale land theft.  

Naturally, this caused troubles between the Native Americans and the settlers, because they literally were stealing their land from them in real time, and using guns and other weapons to enforce this theft.  Since many of them were subsequently killed for stealing the land, and many of the wagon trains began to be attacked due to their activities, a feeling of hatred developed in the settlers toward the Indians.  This hatred has persisted to the present day, and most people, including myself, have no idea that this is what occurred.  We are taught in history class that the treaty was signed first, and that the Native Americans started attacking setters for no reason, but history is rarely so clear.

Groups Doing Good Work Around The World

When asked about charities who are doing good work on these issues, Ms. Trevelyan mentioned the Coming to the Table group.  The group is named after Martin Luther King Jr.’s words about his hopes for the future generations coming to the table to discuss the shared legacies of slavery and responsibility.  This group talks about four steps to achieving healing from the legacies of slavery and the many forms of racism that it spawned.  They seek this healing through four interrelated practices: Uncovering history, making connections, working towards healing, and taking action. 

This group believes that individual reparations are necessary.  However, critics of individual reparations have several issues with it.  The first is that giving millions of dollars directly to people based on their race, rather than on whether they are actually slave descendants, is racist in itself.  Even if the money was to be given only to descendants of slavery that can prove their history, this would simply take the disparity that is presently seen and just reverse it.  It would make Black people wealthy while Whites and other groups remain as they are.  

Many people feel that giving money directly to individuals who may or may not be suffering from generational poverty is fiscally irresponsible, and that they will waste the money rather than save it or use it to free themselves from poverty.  

The question can be asked, though, if people would be more amenable to reparations in the US if it was presented as being used in the larger community.  In other states (not so much in New York City), the quality of education a child receives is based on their zip code.  In most states, the community that a school serves is directly funded by the community itself, rather than pooling all of the funds centrally and distributing them equally.  The funding that these schools receive is based on the contributions of the tax base.  

Put simply, those schools located in majority-White neighborhoods, where the residents are affluent, will have more money.  Better paid teachers, more up-to-date books, more computer and tech-related supplies for the students.  For those schools in majority-Black neighborhoods where the income level is lower (this is not always the case, as some majority-Black neighborhoods have a higher income level), the schools will receive less funding.  Older textbooks, torn books in need of replacement, no computer room or personal computers, no tablets or other IT devices, etc.  This is a well-known and heavily researched issue, but thus far a solution has not been found.  Outside of NYC and some other large cities, the residents of the affluent areas are happy with this system.  Their kids get to go to a better school, and they feel that this is right. However, it is the children in the lower income areas that suffer.  Without education, the opportunities to better oneself and one’s life circumstances are substantially reduced.  

The Ultimate Goal

As far as Grenada and the other Caribbean islands, Laura’s hope is that other families will come forward to apologize for their family’s legacies of slavery, and that they, too, will provide their own reparations.  Ultimately, it must be governments who step in to redress the issues caused by their own imperialism.  Until this happens, the amounts of money are too small to really make a large difference.  When the governments do step in, however, the sums will be much greater, and it will be much more than a drop in the ocean.  

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Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer

This byline indicates that this article was penned by a member/members of the Staten Islander News Organization office team. Our staff writers are the backbone of our newspaper, performing all sorts of important tasks like conducting interviews, investigating leads, besides writing the news stories you see.