Dear Editor,
On April 27, 1993, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) held a conference on reparations in Abuja, Nigeria. This conference was attended by hundreds of guests and 37 heads of African states. It lasted three days. The delegation drafted a declaration which was adopted, and here is one paragraph:
“We are fully persuaded that the damage sustained by the African people was not a theory of the past, but is painfully manifested from Harare to Harlem and in the damaged economies of Africa and the black world from Guinea to Guyana, from Somalia to Suriname.”
Mr Dudley Thompson, a Jamaican human rights lawyer who served as rapporteur for the conference said; “Not only is there a moral debt but there is clearly established precedence in law based on the principle of unjust enrichment.”
The conference and declaration were ignored by the American mainstream media. In the year 2000 a young African American law student tracing her genealogy got quite a surprise. In her research she found out that Aetna, the insurance magnate, insured slaves from 1854 up through 1858 in the two cities of New Orleans and St Louis. The young lady contacted Aetna by phone, and Aetna invited her to talk with them. Their discussion resulted initially in Aetna agreeing to make an apology. As a form of restitution they said that they would help African American students with scholarships to colleges and universities. However, a week later Aetna reneged on their initial offer. They did make the apology, but refused the scholarships.
Their spokesperson said that indiscretion in the past by Aetna, had been far outweighed by what they had done since and what they had been commended for publicly. Aetna, he said, could boast of their diverse workplace and their commitment to fairness and equality. He saw no moral obligation on the part of Aetna, because he saw no parallel with any other tragedy. Even though Aetna is not happy about that dreadful past, the matter was not unique to Aetna.
Of course Aetna was not the only multinational corporation that made millions off the slave business. Sam Anderson in his book Black Holocaust for Beginners, pointed to the development of capitalism on the hard work of the slaves in the steel industry. Anderson went on to name a number of corporations that benefited financially: Lloyds of London insurance company, New York Life Insurance Company, Barclays Bank, Colgate Palmolive. He also showed how Madison Avenue, the Mecca of advertising, grew on the publicity it gave slave ships’ arrival, slave auctions, escapes and rebellions.
In the West Indies, colonial governments had succeeded in establishing dependence on imported foodstuffs. Therefore around 1770 they were importing fish, grain, beans, and vegetables from the continental colonies to feed the slaves. These food exports were interrupted when the 13 colonies gained their independence and became America. With no plan to fall back on, 15,000 plantation workers died from famine between 1780-87 in Jamaica alone. How many in the other islands no one knows.
In his book Sugar without Slaves, Alan Adamson tells us quite vividly how the colonial government in British Guiana behaved towards the freed slaves after emancipation. “Colonial Administrations devised a variety of tactics all to undercut self provisioning agriculture.” The general idea of the colonizer was to make the emancipated free man return to the plantation and work for wages, relinquishing his independence.
“Those who persisted were taxed heavily, on their homes, cattle, agriculture produce, even they themselves were taxed. This money was used to subsidize the immigration of labourers from India and Malaysia [sic] to replace the slaves.”
According to Adamson the most insidious tactics were used, such as, “the conspiracy between the Governor of British Guiana and the Secretary of State for the Colonies Earl Grey who favoured low duties on imports in order to erode the local food production; the neglect by the government to manage the infrastructure for subsistence agriculture; and the denying of credit to small black farmers.”
Those who think that reparations are a gift, do not fully grasp the magnitude of what transpired during what is called the Middle Passage, the effects of which are felt even today. It must be understood that this claim for reparations is not a unique call.
Randall Robinson in his book The Debt that America owes to Blacks, lists litigants who were successfully compensated for wrongs committed against them.
“The Allies against the Germans after WW One, the Jews after WW Two, the Poles against the Germans for making them do slave labour during WW Two, Japanese Americans against America for being interned. The Inuit tribe collected compensation from the Canadian Government. Aborigines were compensated by the Australian Government. Korean Women forced into prostitution in WW Two by Japan were compensated.”
Your faithfully,
Milton Bruce
