Front Burner - Bonus | Nothing is Foreign: Jamaica’s fight for slavery reparations

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

The demands are growing in Jamaica to get Britain to pay up and offer reparations for slavery. Anti-monarchy sentiments, protests and calls for reparations made for an uncomfortable visit for Prince William and Kate through the Caribbean last week. Jamaica's prime minister said the Commonwealth realm is looking to "move on" from the monarchy and become an independent republic. One of its most urgent demands — reparations for slavery — has been decades in the making but is now gaining momentum as more Jamaicans say the intergenerational trauma of slavery has shaped the nation in a way that must be rectified. This week, Nothing is Foreign takes a closer look at Jamaica's push for reparations, the long legacy of resistance against colonialism in the country, and the Royal Family's connection to the slave trade. Featuring: Matthew J. Smith, professor of history and director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Bert Samuels, lawyer and member of Jamaica's Reparations Council.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Sending a shout out to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the entire royal family that reparation time come now. So last week, Prince William and Kate Middleton visited Jamaica

as part of their royal tour of the Caribbean. And things did not go according to plan. For the royals, this was supposed to be a trip about strengthening the British Commonwealth, in a moment where anti-monarchy sentiment is on the rise in the region. This is after Barbados removed the queen as their head of state last year and became a republic. But in a very awkward meeting, Jamaica's prime minister basically told Will and Kate that the country is also saying goodbye to the monarchy. Amid celebrations, the couple was also met with anger, protests, and demands for an apology for slavery.

slavery. And most urgently, the call for reparations, which has been gaining momentum. Jamaicans have been calling on the British government to pay them for the intergenerational This week, we're unpacking all of that. Jamaica's case for reparations, and why the royal family's on the receiving end of so much of this fury. And we'll hear about the history of their involvement in the slave trade in a bit. But first, we're going to Jamaica to hear from someone who's leading the fight for reparations today. I'm Tamara Kandaker, and you're listening to Nothing is Foreign. Bert Samuels, you're an attorney and a member of the Reparations Council of Jamaica. It's great to talk to you. Thank you so much for doing this.

Yes, good. You've been working on this issue for a while, and I wanted to start by asking you, why do you think Jamaicans deserve reparations from the British government? And what are some of the ways that you see the legacy of slavery in Jamaica to this day? This was over three centuries of enslavement. The plantation was a virtual penal institution. So the scars of slavery has run very deep in our psyche. So the point where there are people who preferred light skin than to be dark skin and they will bleach their skin. They will risk their health by using chemicals to get a lighter skin. That's part of the legacy because during our enslavement, a mulatta person, that's a person who came from an African and a European,

were treated better. So there was a class stratification based on your color. We walked away from the plantation with 100% unemployment. We walked away with nothing in our pockets. You find that Jamaicans are landless. Mostly people have to capture lands to live on. We started nation building with nothing. So does it surprise anyone that after 187 years, we still can't fund health?

We can't fund our education? We had just enough high schools when slavery was abolished. And that was for the children of white people. It was not for black people in Jamaica until sometime after. There's such a huge unemployed male population that crime now has become a means of living and violence. Jamaica has a huge incident of diabetes, and that is directly related to the salted food that we had to eat during enslavement. So we have acquired this liking for salt, which has made the rate in diabetes in Jamaica and the region one of the highest in the world. So you've been working on this now for 10 years. And if you had to describe the mood during the Royals' visit this time around, when it comes to this conversation around reparations,

do you think that more people are rallying around this cause now than they have before? Most certainly. The call for reparation, the renewal, the re-education of the population. the re-education of the population. We felt that the time has come when the statues which celebrate the past of enslavement and slave traders no longer have been tolerated on English soil. The Black Lives Matter movement is really to say we matter. And we saw that as a catalyst in 2020-21 which has justified and given new blood to the struggle for reparation. One of the things that attracted us to the momentum of the struggle for reparation was

taking down for example Colson's statue in England. A statue of a 17th century slave trader was pulled down in the UK city Bristol on Sunday as protests against police brutality and racism continued for a second day. The statue of Edward Colson was dragged through the streets and thrown in a river as a part of demonstrations that have spread across the world... There's a huge West Indian population in England. We challenge them to lobby their respective members of parliament, to bring the matter to parliament. So we're hoping that the multifaceted approach will help

and bringing pressure from all corners will help. When Jamaica has asked for reparations in the past, what has been the response from the UK government? In 2015, letters of demand were written by the respective governments in the Caribbean to the French-owning countries, to the Dutch-owning territories, to the English-earning. French-owning countries to the Dutch-owning territories to the English earning. In 2015, both political parties gave bipartisan support to the fact that Jamaica should seek reparation from the British government. That was a great achievement because not often do the two political parties, main political

parties in Jamaica, come together on any issue. The common thread through all the responses was that it's something of the past. No, we will not look into it. What about we've been giving you aid and therefore that's as best we can do. There was not even entertainment to sit around a table and to mediate about it. The British Prime Minister Cameron was bold enough to come here in 2015 and said that in response to reparation that we should not look in the past, we should look forward. I acknowledge that these wounds run very deep indeed. But I do hope that as friends who have gone through so much together since those darkest of times, we can move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future. The only thing he came here in 2015 was to offer us a prison.

There have been strong reactions from Jamaicans, with some expressing objection to a decision by the British government to give Jamaica £25 million to build a new prison here. Too much suffering in our country for the government to build prisons for poor people. Youth want work. Youth in our streets are hustling and still fighting youth. And if we build more opportunities for youth, then youth can get something for them. Fooling the government with the country. So how do you decide on a number?

What is the number that you're asking for? So there are different approaches. There are some people say, listen, because it's difficult to measure pain and suffering, and it's a labor claim, along with a claim for damages, personal injury. They say, there's some people who say, listen, you paid 20 million pounds to the planters in 1838, pounds to the planters in 1838 matched the current value of that figure. That was at the time 40% of the budget of England in 1838. So just a quick pause to clarify. The number Burt mentions here that some people in Jamaica say reparations should be pegged to is today's equivalent of what was 20 million pounds back in 1838. This is the amount of money that the British government paid British slave owners

when they abolished slavery as compensation for lost property. And don't worry, we'll come back to this in a bit. So that's one approach, actual monies. The other approach is, listen, we want you to look at health. We want you to look at education. We would like to see every Jamaican entitled to free education to the tertiary level. We also would like to know that we could get, you know, twice the bed spaces in Jamaica. You need to come and build hospitals for us, not to give us a prison.

spaces in Jamaica. You need to come and build hospitals for us, not to give us a prison. We want you to forgive all the debt because we've had to be borrowing loans from European countries. We want debt forgiveness. It is funding education. It is funding health, along with an acceptance of that you did wrong. And at the top of that should be an apology. top of that should be an apology. So Prince William, when they were there, he gave a speech during his visit and he expressed sorrow about slavery. I want to express my profound sorrow. Slavery was abhorrent and it should never have happened. While the pain runs deep, never have happened. While the pain runs deep, Jamaica continues to forge its future with determination, courage, and fortitude. Stopped short of an actual apology, which is something that Jamaicans were calling for before they arrived, and he's been criticized for that. Why is an actual apology so important, do you think? An apology is an acceptance of wrong.

So all that is happening, he's gotten legal advice that if you go there and apologize, then you have opened the door that you have done something wrong. And for every wrong, there must be a remedy. So he's shying from that legal principle, that humane principle. And that's why they don't intend to apologize. So the English have always been careful not to create a precedent which would give us something to hang on to,

to make our claim. They say that the peoples who suffered are all dead and gone, and therefore there's no one to pay out to. So Bert thinks William was careful not to apologize because it would mean an acceptance of responsibility. But the royal family did play a crucial role in the slave trade. It's something that Matthew J. Smith has been studying.

He's a Jamaican-born professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Matthew, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. And it's good to be able to speak a bit about this context. I want to begin with Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade. Can you tell me about the role that Britain played, and then more specifically about how the royal family benefited from its involvement in the slave trade.

The British role in the transatlantic slave trade was quite significant. In fact, Britain became the major player in the transatlantic slave trade from around the last quarter of the 17th century, going into the period of the abolition of that trade in the 19th century. into the period of the abolition of that trade in the 19th century. The importance of the transatlantic slave trade to the development of modern Britain is very significant because not only is it involving the forced removal of people from Africa to parts of the Caribbean that were British territories, and the trading in Africans in those places once they arrived.

and the trading in Africans in those places once they arrived. That's around 3.1 million Africans who were forcibly removed from their homes to be taken on slave ships to British territories and the Americas and the Caribbean, although only 2.7 million survived the journey. But it also involves the profits that were made from both the trafficking, which was a major enterprise in Britain at the time, to the slavery of people enslaved in the Caribbean and British territories. So this is a major part of British history. The royal family's involvement in the slave trade started in the 1560s with Queen Elizabeth I. She's the one who approved a trip by a naval commander named John Hawkins.

He became the first known English person to include enslaved Africans in his cargo. And the story goes that she was so impressed by this that she ended up sponsoring his subsequent trips. But it was in the 1660s, around 100 years later, that the royal family started to get involved in the slave trade in a major way. By giving a charter that would eventually lead to the establishment of the Royal African Company, in many respects that became crucial in the development of the British transatlantic slave trade. The Royal African Company was established in 1660 by the Duke of York, who later became King James with the help of then King Charles. It extracted goods like gold and ivory from West Africa, and it made the slave trade extremely lucrative for the royal family.

Prior to that, the transportation of people from Africa forcibly removed to places in the Americas was done by Portuguese shippers, Dutch shippers as well. Then eventually the British came into the trade quite directly. What it meant for the British people involved with the slave trade was that it cut out the middlemen that they had relied upon. And that had the double consequence of increasing the numbers of people coming from Africa to British islands and territories,

but also in those places, the expansion of slavery as a system. Britain declared the end of slavery with its abolition decree in 1834. One of the things that stuck with me when I was reading about the history of Britain's involvement in the slave trade is that once enslaved people were freed, they weren't compensated or supported in any way. And instead, the UK government compensated British slave owners for their loss of property. Can you tell me a bit about that? It's really one of the most contradictory elements of the story of the ending of slavery. On the one hand, there was a recognition enshrined in the Abolition Act

that enslaved Africans and Creoles, that's people born in the Caribbean of African ancestry who were also enslaved, were human beings. And at the same time, there was a recognition that the planters, the owners of these human beings, should be compensated for their property. This other decree passed around the same time, which is the Compensation Act, recognized the same people as property, legal property owned by other people. And to compensate them, it was essentially a form of reparations paid to the slave owners of 20 million pounds. Nothing went to the enslaved or the formerly enslaved or their descendants. Not a cent.

Much of it was then reinvested in commercial financial enterprises, wills, property, homes, art. It stretched really, really far into British society. Yeah, that is a really, really stunning part of the story. And I understand that the British government borrowed the money that they needed to compensate these slave owners and that British taxpayers had actually been repaying that debt until 2015, right? So does that mean that people who are alive today,

including the descendants of slaves, had been paying for the compensation received by British slave owners? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I mean, the burden of that payment to bail out, essentially, the slave owners was carried on for generations, including by people who were descendants of the enslaved. So Jamaica gained its independence from Britain in 1962, but it's still part of the Commonwealth, which means that the queen is still its head of state. And last week, before the royals arrived,

Jamaicans were calling for her to be removed as the head of state. And when week, before the royals arrived, Jamaicans were calling for her to be removed as the head of state. And when they got there, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told them that the country would be leaving them behind. And we're moving on. And we intend to attain in short order our and fulfill our true ambitions as an independent, developed, prosperous culture. What's the significance of the Queen still being the head of state in Jamaica? What does that mean in a practical sense? It's really a figurehead role. Coming after the fact that we had Barbados very recently up to late last year becoming a republic saying that they no longer recognize the queen as the official head of state there has been a

a renewed clam I should say because it's always been present in Jamaica that Jamaica should follow suit In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. According to polling from 2020, the majority of Jamaicans want the queen removed as their head of state.

the majority of Jamaicans want the queen removed as their head of state. It's a message that Prince William and Kate Middleton heard loud and clear when they were on the island to mark the 70th year of the queen's coronation, as well as 60 years of Jamaican independence from Jamaican politicians and artists. Known as the king of dancehall music, singer Beanie Man says a lot of people's frustration is from Britain's role in the slave trade. When you're going to the court, it's all about the queen and the queen serve and the queen this and the queen that. But what they're doing for Jamaica, they're not doing nothing for us. As well as people in the streets. They shouldn't be

welcomed as leaders of the country, as representatives of the head of state. How are these two young white people now going to be here saying we are going to kowtow to them and we are going to bend and bow and kneel to them as if they are gods? Those days are done. The monarchy is a relic. We should leave it behind. It's time for us to move forward. An open letter to William and Kate, signed by a hundred Jamaican civic and cultural leaders, said they saw no reason to celebrate their grandmother's ascension to the throne because they believed, quote, her leadership and that of her predecessors have perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind.

perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind. So the question is very much alive in Jamaica now. It's renewed. It's always sort of been there. There's always been a strong sentiment among some, not all Jamaicans, but some Jamaicans that the attachment to the British monarchy through the figurehead of the Queen as head of state is not to the benefit of the island overall and hinders true development and progress of Jamaica. So you mentioned that there's a renewed sense of urgency to get rid of the Queen as the head of state, and that maybe not all Jamaicans want this. And I know that this is

something that's been talked about since the 1970s. So why do you think it's taken so long to get to this point? And how have Jamaicans felt about the monarchy historically? It has taken a long time because of one simple word, which is colonialism. Colonialism has had, as its most significant legacy, a psychological impact on the minds of people in former colonies. There are so much of the structures, and from political to social, to even questions of race and colour, that are inherited from colonialism. When the enslaved people were apprentices, as they were called then, were readying themselves for freedom, there was a campaign that was being

launched across the island in which they were being informed that they should not let the queen down by misabusing their own freedom. And that notion of an attachment of an obligation to the Queen and to the monarchy for freedom was reinforced throughout the 19th century with things like Empire Day, with things like Queen Victoria Day. When Britain was getting ready to fight in the First World War and started to consider conscription of people in British colonies to join. They wondered whether or not they had to do some form of enforcement to get people to join. In Jamaica, they didn't need to do that because as soon as they issued the call-up, there were long lines of people coming from deep rural parts

of the island to go fight for king and empire. That says a tremendous amount of that attachment and the lingering effects of that attachment, that sense of pride of being a British subject. Now that Jamaica's Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, has declared Jamaica's plans to become a republic, there's pressure on him to make this a reality. To make it happen, Jamaica will need to have a referendum, as per its constitution. As for reparations, Jamaica is part of a coalition of countries in the Caribbean working towards the same goal. If Jamaica succeeds, it'll be the first country ever to get reparations for slavery from a former colonial power.

The documents for their petition are currently being prepared with the help of international legal scholars and their own ministry. But while this feels like a watershed moment, resistance isn't new to Jamaica. It's always been there, since long before the abolition of slavery. The story of resistance is a parallel story to the unfurling of the history of Jamaica. It's always there. It's constant. And one can perhaps make a very valid argument that it was there from the arrival of the Africans who first came and who resisted slavery on the ship. like Sam Sharp, the slave of an English lawyer in Montego Bay who led the 1831 rebellion, paving the way to the end of slavery in Jamaica. Here's Bert again. So European historians would like us to believe that slavery ended because of the benevolence of white people and because the British anti-slavery movement finally caused the English plan to

surrender and say it is wrong. That's not so. We were freed because of people like Sam Sharp. People who put up resistance, who burned the cane fields, who ran away into the hills. We made sure that slavery would not work. We made sure that it was not a profitable business. Sam Sharpap was hanged in 1831, and in two years following that, the British wised up and said, this is not workable. So we gave ourselves the same freedom.

This spirit of resistance has been a through line in Jamaican culture. It continued beyond the abolishment of slavery through to this day. So there's a strong spirit in Jamaica of revolt. If you listen to the lyrics of Bob Marley, when he said, when I hear the crack of a whip, my blood runs cold. When I recall how they brutalized my very soul. That's Bob speaking on behalf of the Jamaican population

that we have never accepted oppression. We have always spoken against it. We have always pushed back for it and against it. That is why Marcus back for it and against it. That is why Marcus Garvey, who came from Jamaica, was seen internationally. Marcus Garvey was the Jamaican-born Black nationalist who created the Back to Africa movement in the United States, urging people of African descent around the world to return to Africa. There are 400 million Africans in the world who have Negro blood coursing through their veins.

And we believe that the time has come to unite these 400 million people for the one common purpose of bettering their conditions. Two of the most famous African Jamaicans are respectively Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. What are they famous about? Because of their resistance. Old pirates, oh they robbed I. Stole I from the merchant ship. Minutes after they threw. You know, that's Bob's speaking to his suffering. We've always seen that we should tell our story in song and a story of protest, a story of Black dignity. Let's move it! The bones of our ancestors have spoken to me and have demanded that I be here to get

up, stand up, stand up for our rights. Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights. I am yearning for liberation. Temptation, frustration, desolation. What a situation. Segregation, degradation, persecution. What a tribulation. All right, that's all for this week.

You've been listening to Nothing is Foreign. Our producer is Joyta Sengupta. Our sound designer is Graham McDonald. And our showrunner is Adrian Chung. Nothing is Foreign is a co-production of CBC News and CBC Podcasts. Willow Smith is our senior producer. And Nick McKay-Blocos is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Joseph Chavison. If you like this episode and you want to help new

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