Dear Editor,
The British, in the 1803 Articles of Capitulation adopted and enforced several treaties and laws from the Dutch which guaranteed protection and freedom from enslavement to the Indians (Amerindians) of the three counties which became British Guiana. Under these laws, an Arawak woman was indicted before the Supreme Court for “…feloniously enslaving the Macusi girl, Grace…”. She and her husband post holder John Spencer were summoned to answer charges and temporarily jailed for trafficking “…in Macusi Indians and detain[ing] them in slavery”. Lord Stanley deprecated “the practice of purchasing Indian slaves” which he thought “must necessarily stimulate warfare and kidnapping and can hardly be justified by circumstances.” If the British adopted Dutch rules, treaties and ordinances dating as far back as 23 August 1636 and forbade the enslavement, detention and trafficking of Indians, where then is the morality in the law [if any existed at all] of enslaving anyone Afrikan or otherwise? (See Mary N. Menezes’s “British Policy Towards the Amerindians in British Guiana 1803-1973, chapter 7 for more details).
The preceding paragraph invalidates the legal/moral basis which the author uses in the letter `Reparations claims would be thrown out by a court’ (SN October 15) to establish an argument for the court’s rejection of a Caribbean claim for reparations. I am still to find a law expressly ordaining the existential right of Europeans to enslave Afrikans. What I have found however is a preponderance of information creating the acceptability of the enslavement of Afrikans in the works of the likes of Montesquieu, Cartwright, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Gobineau, Galton, Hume and the eugenicists, I.Q. theorists, Herbert Spencer and a host of others. The Catholic Church which issued Dum Diversas which authorized Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery has apologized for its role in enslaving Afrikans. The morality of Afrikan enslavement then, is destroyed by both the Catholic and Anglican Churches apologies for their participation in this 400 year unprovoked military campaign.
Europe facilitated Afrikan cooperation in many instances by militarily deposing Afrikan Kings and Chiefs opposed to her designs, imposing puppet governments to facilitate her crime. Chattel slavery and the trade in Afrikans were crimes against humanity. If it was legal and moral for them it was illegal and immoral for us because of its attack on our sovereignty and humanity. This is the essence of emancipation from mental slavery and an important part of self-reparation; the capacity to convince oneself that we have the capability and responsibility to nurture our humanity which in part entails proving and establishing (in a court of law if necessary) the illegality and immorality for that illegal and unprovoked 400 year-long economic/military war which Europe named slavery and the slave trade. The CARICOM Reparative Justice Programme, the true emancipation, is as monumental as the ailment it attempts to cure. Much larger than a court case, it seeks a modus vivendi between “victims and beneficiaries”…healing, atoning and the restoration of “a higher moral order by removing the guilt and shame that persistently poison the relationship between descendants on all sides of the crime.”
Five things favour a successful Caribbean outcome: (a) a universal moral consciousness which informs humanity of what is “right”; (b) the bases upon which Europe proceeded to decimate Afrika have been weakened by precedents like the Maori and American Indian reparation, the Allies who received reparations from Germany by way of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), Japanese American Reparation, the 47 million pound settlement at Emancipation, reparation for Portuguese businessmen who suffered losses as a result of the Angel Gabriel and cent bread riots, and Amerindians and East Indians reparations here in British Guiana; (c) though individuals may have wavered the collective Afrikan consciousness never lost sight of our humanity ; (d) Europe’s own expressions of right and wrong enshrined in their legal and religious values; and (e) our own confidence that we are capable of successfully litigating this case either in a court of law, world opinion and if not in the temporal or spiritual halls of justice.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Adams
