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Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide
Since the mid-nineteenth-century abolition of slavery, the call for reparations for the crime of African enslavement and native genocide has been growing. In the Caribbean, grassroots and official voices now constitute a regional reparations movement. While it remains a fractured, contentious and divisive call, it generates considerable public interest, especially within sections of the community that are concerned with issues of social justice, equity, civil and human rights, education, and cultural identity. The reparations discourse has been shaped by the voices from these fields as they seek to build a future upon the settlement of historical crimes. This is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the reparations discussion in the Caribbean. Written by a leading economic historian of the region, a seasoned activist in the wider movement for social justice and advocacy of historical truth, Britain’s Black Debt looks at the origins and development of reparations as a regional and international process. Weaving detailed historical data on Caribbean slavery and the transatlantic slave trade together with legal principles and the politics of postcolonialism, Beckles sets out a solid academic analysis of the evidence. He concludes that Britain has a case of reparations to answer which the Caribbean should litigate. International law provides that chattel slavery as practised by Britain was a crime against humanity. Slavery was invested in by the royal family, the government, the established church, most elite families, and large public institutions in the private and public sector. Citing the legal principles of unjust and criminal enrichment, the author presents a compelling argument for Britain’s payment of its black debt, a debt that it continues to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is at once an exciting narration of Britain’s dominance of the slave markets that enriched the economy and a seminal conceptual journey into the hidden politics and public posturing of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. No work of this kind has ever been attempted. No author has had the diversity of historical research skills, national and international political involvement, and personal engagement as an activist to present such a complex yet accessible work of scholarship.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionRace
248 pages, Paperback
First published December 17, 2012
28 people are currently reading
312 people want to read
About the author
Hilary McD. Beckles
38 books26 followersSir Hilary McDonald Beckles KA (born 11 August 1955) is a Barbadian historian, he is the current vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Committee.
Educated at the University of Hull in England, Beckles began his academic career at UWI, and was granted a personal professorship at the age of 37, becoming the youngest in the university's history. He was named pro-vice-chancellor and chairman of UWI's Board for Undergraduate Studies in 1998, and in 2002 was named principal of the university's Cave Hill campus. Although his focus has mainly been on Afro-Caribbean history, especially the economic and social impacts of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade, Beckles has also had a longstanding involvement with West Indian cricket, and has previously served on the board of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
Educated at the University of Hull in England, Beckles began his academic career at UWI, and was granted a personal professorship at the age of 37, becoming the youngest in the university's history. He was named pro-vice-chancellor and chairman of UWI's Board for Undergraduate Studies in 1998, and in 2002 was named principal of the university's Cave Hill campus. Although his focus has mainly been on Afro-Caribbean history, especially the economic and social impacts of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade, Beckles has also had a longstanding involvement with West Indian cricket, and has previously served on the board of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 13, 2022
Prof. Sir Hilary Mc.D. Beckles’ work should be required reading for every secondary school student of History in the Caribbean. Also, I give this book my most emphatic recommendation of any book I have read in the past 10 years.
Prof. Beckles’ work was stylistically and structurally well written. As an academic writer, the author does an exceptional job of making this work accessible to the average reader. He writes in an interesting and honest style. The author’s structure comes out in layers. Expectations are set and met for both the book as a whole and within each chapter, aiding the general readability of this book.
The highest praise, however, I reserve for the content of Prof. Beckles’ work. He carefully, and with irrefutable detail, sets forth the evidence of crimes committed against indigenous people of the Caribbean and against African people and their descendants. Although he focuses a lot of attention on evidence related to the plantation economy of Barbados, this benefits the reader because it allows one to imagine, by extension, the actual magnitude of the crimes in the entire British colonial realm as well as the rest of Europe’s colonies in general.
Prof. Beckles outlines the atrocities of the trade in enslaved people. He lays out aspects of the now extensive record of kidnapping, torture, separation of families, starvation, rape and murder that occurred even before the enslaved people were exposed to the horrors of the ship used to transport them. He represents the terror of the Atlantic transit in grave and distressing detail, including the case of mass murder on the ship Zong. He presents clear evidence that, at the time, the British state and persons engaged in the trafficking knew their conduct was criminal.
What of the retroactive finger pointing, accusing Africans of their complicity in the trade? Prof. Beckles demonstrates how sovereignties in Africa resisted the slave trade and the always fatal consequences of that resistance. The chiefs and kings of Africa were not willing participants in the trade of enslaved persons. The author shows how European powers in general, and Britain specifically, engaged in treachery, intimidation and assassinations to force the capitulation to and participation in trading in enslaved persons all along the coast of Africa. To deny it is to deny concrete evidence.
Once the captives were transported to the colonies, the “hell on Earth” continued unabated until death. Prof. Beckles provides proof of the atrocities as well as proof that the perpetrators were aware of their criminality. But what Prof. Beckles also did, which extended beyond the well-known evidence of inhumane criminality, was to demonstrate the concerted and unrelenting propaganda aimed at dehumanizing Africans to justify the mountains of wealth generated by the horrific lives and early deaths of enslaved people.
Then, Prof. Beckles starts to name the criminals and to lay out proof beyond a reasonable doubt that every institution in Britain bent the arc of history to profit from the lives and work of enslaved Africans. He begins with the royal family and the royal establishment of slave trading and colonial grants of land for cultivation by enslaved people. This ensured that the royal family would reap profits from their serial and numerous crimes. In addition, from the outset, the laws of Parliament actively set forth the means by which the national treasuries would be filled as a result of the slave trade and importation of goods produced on the plantations.
Next, the Church of England faces indictment for compounding the crimes of trading in, owning and profiting from enslaved people by going to great lengths to use the Bible to justify, support and endorse human trafficking, torture and death. Each of these groups of criminals had entire chapters dedicated to the exposure of their crimes. Other chapters were devoted to outlining the way in which vast numbers of individuals and institutions made fortunes never before imagined from participating in trafficking enslaved Africans and working them to death in numbers never before seen or even imagined in the course of human history.
Modern apologists like to argue that what we call crimes now were not recognized as crimes at the time. They also like to argue that the crimes committed ended with emancipation. But the author provides evidence that not only did the participants know what they were doing was criminal but that they extended their inhumane criminality beyond emancipation and well into the 20th century.
When owners of enslaved people were compensated for their loss of property rights, people in Britain and in the British Parliament spoke out about the injustice compounded by such compensation: rewarding criminals for their crime and making no compensation for the enslaved Africans or their descendants. And the crimes continued after emancipation in the forms of racial apartheid, labor exploitation, lack of franchise and general oppression. Prof. Beckles puts the mirror up to them all - for everyone to see the face of terror.
After outlining the evidence, laying the indictment of the infamous society whose subsequent material prosperity depended on those crimes; Prof. Beckles summarizes and makes a clear outline of the case for reparations. But before the closing arguments of this book, the modern day legacy of those crimes is exposed.
One would assume that fundamental democratic principles would include being allowed to speak freely about historical evidence and the ability to seek redress of grievances before an impartial and representative body. Well, if so, you can remove the so-called “great democracies” from the list of countries who uphold democratic principles.
Prof. Beckles demonstrates how the same tactics used to force Africans into engaging in the trafficking of enslaved people are used in the 21st century to deter, intimidate and eliminate even the possibility of merely being heard on the matter of reparations. He outlines, in detail the extent Britain, France and the United States will go to engage in such grossly anti-democratic conduct.
First, there is the political striving of the British Labour Party politicians in their cowardly efforts to deny even an apology for trafficking and exploitation of enslaved people. Second, the author documents the efforts of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to snuff out (figuratively and literally) even a mere discussion of reparations. Third, the participation of the United States and France in the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, democratically elected President of Haiti for having the audacity to demand France repay the billions of francs extorted from Haiti at gunpoint. Aristide was replaced with a puppet regime which denounced reparations of any sort. All of this was laid out by the author in incontrovertible detail. And then Prof. Beckles moved on to the matter of Chief Abiola of Nigeria.
Chief Abiola was democratically elected and a vociferous proponent of the case for reparations. He too was ousted by a coup and imprisoned by a military leader who was smiled upon by the United States. This general was openly hostile to the case for reparations, in line with the United States position on the matter. Given the clear demonstration of its true anti-democratic nature combined with its undeniable history of economic hitmen and CIA assassinations in Africa (and the rest of the world) it would come as no surprise to the casual and honest observer as to who was behind the demise of the proponents of reparations like Chief Abiola. So the crime, as well as the wealth, has passed on to this generation.
The main thrust, but not the entirety, of Prof. Beckles work concentrated on evidence based out of Barbados: the plantation economy, the Church of England, the British royal family, British financial institutions, the British Empire, the financing of the industrial revolution in Britain. If one extends and extrapolates the lessons here to the rest of the European powers, colonial and later independent nations in America, then the expectation of more evidence of criminality is clear.
I urge everyone concerned about the topic of reparations to read this book. I urge history teachers everywhere to assign this work and have it studied. It encompasses all the critical aspects of the history of the Caribbean and so makes an excellent text for the study of history in the region. Finally, Prof. Beckles book, without necessarily intending to do so, is an expose’ of how the gross pursuit of material prosperity shines a light on spiritual depravity.
Prof. Beckles’ work was stylistically and structurally well written. As an academic writer, the author does an exceptional job of making this work accessible to the average reader. He writes in an interesting and honest style. The author’s structure comes out in layers. Expectations are set and met for both the book as a whole and within each chapter, aiding the general readability of this book.
The highest praise, however, I reserve for the content of Prof. Beckles’ work. He carefully, and with irrefutable detail, sets forth the evidence of crimes committed against indigenous people of the Caribbean and against African people and their descendants. Although he focuses a lot of attention on evidence related to the plantation economy of Barbados, this benefits the reader because it allows one to imagine, by extension, the actual magnitude of the crimes in the entire British colonial realm as well as the rest of Europe’s colonies in general.
Prof. Beckles outlines the atrocities of the trade in enslaved people. He lays out aspects of the now extensive record of kidnapping, torture, separation of families, starvation, rape and murder that occurred even before the enslaved people were exposed to the horrors of the ship used to transport them. He represents the terror of the Atlantic transit in grave and distressing detail, including the case of mass murder on the ship Zong. He presents clear evidence that, at the time, the British state and persons engaged in the trafficking knew their conduct was criminal.
What of the retroactive finger pointing, accusing Africans of their complicity in the trade? Prof. Beckles demonstrates how sovereignties in Africa resisted the slave trade and the always fatal consequences of that resistance. The chiefs and kings of Africa were not willing participants in the trade of enslaved persons. The author shows how European powers in general, and Britain specifically, engaged in treachery, intimidation and assassinations to force the capitulation to and participation in trading in enslaved persons all along the coast of Africa. To deny it is to deny concrete evidence.
Once the captives were transported to the colonies, the “hell on Earth” continued unabated until death. Prof. Beckles provides proof of the atrocities as well as proof that the perpetrators were aware of their criminality. But what Prof. Beckles also did, which extended beyond the well-known evidence of inhumane criminality, was to demonstrate the concerted and unrelenting propaganda aimed at dehumanizing Africans to justify the mountains of wealth generated by the horrific lives and early deaths of enslaved people.
Then, Prof. Beckles starts to name the criminals and to lay out proof beyond a reasonable doubt that every institution in Britain bent the arc of history to profit from the lives and work of enslaved Africans. He begins with the royal family and the royal establishment of slave trading and colonial grants of land for cultivation by enslaved people. This ensured that the royal family would reap profits from their serial and numerous crimes. In addition, from the outset, the laws of Parliament actively set forth the means by which the national treasuries would be filled as a result of the slave trade and importation of goods produced on the plantations.
Next, the Church of England faces indictment for compounding the crimes of trading in, owning and profiting from enslaved people by going to great lengths to use the Bible to justify, support and endorse human trafficking, torture and death. Each of these groups of criminals had entire chapters dedicated to the exposure of their crimes. Other chapters were devoted to outlining the way in which vast numbers of individuals and institutions made fortunes never before imagined from participating in trafficking enslaved Africans and working them to death in numbers never before seen or even imagined in the course of human history.
Modern apologists like to argue that what we call crimes now were not recognized as crimes at the time. They also like to argue that the crimes committed ended with emancipation. But the author provides evidence that not only did the participants know what they were doing was criminal but that they extended their inhumane criminality beyond emancipation and well into the 20th century.
When owners of enslaved people were compensated for their loss of property rights, people in Britain and in the British Parliament spoke out about the injustice compounded by such compensation: rewarding criminals for their crime and making no compensation for the enslaved Africans or their descendants. And the crimes continued after emancipation in the forms of racial apartheid, labor exploitation, lack of franchise and general oppression. Prof. Beckles puts the mirror up to them all - for everyone to see the face of terror.
After outlining the evidence, laying the indictment of the infamous society whose subsequent material prosperity depended on those crimes; Prof. Beckles summarizes and makes a clear outline of the case for reparations. But before the closing arguments of this book, the modern day legacy of those crimes is exposed.
One would assume that fundamental democratic principles would include being allowed to speak freely about historical evidence and the ability to seek redress of grievances before an impartial and representative body. Well, if so, you can remove the so-called “great democracies” from the list of countries who uphold democratic principles.
Prof. Beckles demonstrates how the same tactics used to force Africans into engaging in the trafficking of enslaved people are used in the 21st century to deter, intimidate and eliminate even the possibility of merely being heard on the matter of reparations. He outlines, in detail the extent Britain, France and the United States will go to engage in such grossly anti-democratic conduct.
First, there is the political striving of the British Labour Party politicians in their cowardly efforts to deny even an apology for trafficking and exploitation of enslaved people. Second, the author documents the efforts of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to snuff out (figuratively and literally) even a mere discussion of reparations. Third, the participation of the United States and France in the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, democratically elected President of Haiti for having the audacity to demand France repay the billions of francs extorted from Haiti at gunpoint. Aristide was replaced with a puppet regime which denounced reparations of any sort. All of this was laid out by the author in incontrovertible detail. And then Prof. Beckles moved on to the matter of Chief Abiola of Nigeria.
Chief Abiola was democratically elected and a vociferous proponent of the case for reparations. He too was ousted by a coup and imprisoned by a military leader who was smiled upon by the United States. This general was openly hostile to the case for reparations, in line with the United States position on the matter. Given the clear demonstration of its true anti-democratic nature combined with its undeniable history of economic hitmen and CIA assassinations in Africa (and the rest of the world) it would come as no surprise to the casual and honest observer as to who was behind the demise of the proponents of reparations like Chief Abiola. So the crime, as well as the wealth, has passed on to this generation.
The main thrust, but not the entirety, of Prof. Beckles work concentrated on evidence based out of Barbados: the plantation economy, the Church of England, the British royal family, British financial institutions, the British Empire, the financing of the industrial revolution in Britain. If one extends and extrapolates the lessons here to the rest of the European powers, colonial and later independent nations in America, then the expectation of more evidence of criminality is clear.
I urge everyone concerned about the topic of reparations to read this book. I urge history teachers everywhere to assign this work and have it studied. It encompasses all the critical aspects of the history of the Caribbean and so makes an excellent text for the study of history in the region. Finally, Prof. Beckles book, without necessarily intending to do so, is an expose’ of how the gross pursuit of material prosperity shines a light on spiritual depravity.
March 3, 2025
Outstanding work of activist historical scholarship. As a person who became versed in the Reparations movement through listening to Sir Hilary this book was a pleasure to read finally. I began the book way back in 2016 after hearing a speech by Dr. Beckles in Barbados. To make myself read the book in its entirety I decided to teach it in my Caribbean history course. This is a well-researched book that draws upon years of Beckles' own scholarship, but he quotes from the best scholarship on the economics of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in the British Caribbean. He makes the case for reparation. Part 2 of the book is great! It's an insider's view of the movement for Reparations by Caribbean people. It's so insightful. It's so stirring. It moves one to action. Reparations Now!
October 14, 2016
This is an excellent book which poignantly makes the case for reparations based on:
1) The resistance from the outset of the native Caribbean peoples and the enchained Africans who were utilized as coerced laborers in their place after their numbers were severely emaciated;
2) the criminal nature of the African's enslavement - they were kidnapped and stolen from their homeland;
3) the sheer brutality associated with the transportation of the African from Africa to the "New World" in the belly of slave ships;
4) the savagery of the plantation based slave system in British Caribbean colonies which reduced the African to the status of chattel property owned by colonialist and absentee plantation holders; and
5) the persistent damaging psychological, physical and economic effects of the apartheid type socio-political systems which lasted way beyond the abolition of slavery in the first half of the 19th century. Significant traces of the awful legacy of this apartheid system is still evident in British West Indian societies even to this day, decades after many of the colonies were granted so-called "independence".
These horrors represent crimes against humanity - make no mistake about it. The injustice of it all is acerbated by the fact that the British West Indian planters were paid compensation at the time of emancipation (around 20 million pounds which was a huge chunk of Britain's annual budget) - their former slaves got nothing! In fact, leading up to emancipation there were loud voices in the British parliament which argued that the enslaved should pay the claim for compensation that was submitted by the plantocracy! Thankfully better sense prevailed... but still the former slaves - who were the ones who really deserved compensation - got nothing. To deny their progeny reparatory justice is therefore an additional crime.
Prof. Beckles' book succinctly and cogently rebuff's all the arguments against reparation and puts to shame all those who espouse those views despite the obvious rightness of, and the just principles underpinning, the call for reparations. One hopes that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic will read this work and do the right thing.
1) The resistance from the outset of the native Caribbean peoples and the enchained Africans who were utilized as coerced laborers in their place after their numbers were severely emaciated;
2) the criminal nature of the African's enslavement - they were kidnapped and stolen from their homeland;
3) the sheer brutality associated with the transportation of the African from Africa to the "New World" in the belly of slave ships;
4) the savagery of the plantation based slave system in British Caribbean colonies which reduced the African to the status of chattel property owned by colonialist and absentee plantation holders; and
5) the persistent damaging psychological, physical and economic effects of the apartheid type socio-political systems which lasted way beyond the abolition of slavery in the first half of the 19th century. Significant traces of the awful legacy of this apartheid system is still evident in British West Indian societies even to this day, decades after many of the colonies were granted so-called "independence".
These horrors represent crimes against humanity - make no mistake about it. The injustice of it all is acerbated by the fact that the British West Indian planters were paid compensation at the time of emancipation (around 20 million pounds which was a huge chunk of Britain's annual budget) - their former slaves got nothing! In fact, leading up to emancipation there were loud voices in the British parliament which argued that the enslaved should pay the claim for compensation that was submitted by the plantocracy! Thankfully better sense prevailed... but still the former slaves - who were the ones who really deserved compensation - got nothing. To deny their progeny reparatory justice is therefore an additional crime.
Prof. Beckles' book succinctly and cogently rebuff's all the arguments against reparation and puts to shame all those who espouse those views despite the obvious rightness of, and the just principles underpinning, the call for reparations. One hopes that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic will read this work and do the right thing.
Read
June 10, 2020What can I say apart from the fact that this should be compulsory, not just required, reading for all young adult and adult Brits. It completely shatters the the myths we were taught, at least I was, in grammar school. British development, both at home and in the other colonies, was based on the systematic exploitation of Africans in the Caribbean. Our international role-model status for "fair play" and "democracy" was financed and made possible by these crimes. It was not until I spent some time in the Barbados and visited the university bookshop that I realised the scale of these horrors and the importance of that island which now verges on poverty.
December 8, 2022
A really important book to help with understanding the meaning of reparations. The depth of the crimes against people of African descent in the Caribbean in the past and their legacy in the present must not go on unnoticed in the historical and political record. From Beckles’work I could understand how reparations is everybody’s business not just governments and corporations but it is a movement that we can all contribute to by demanding justice and all doing our own little bit beginning with becoming educated and truly decolonising our understandings, attitudes and values.
Want to read
June 2, 2023A review of the review, not of the book which I haven’t read yet.
Doesn’t anyone else have a problem with this review: “It is at once an EXCITING [emphasis added] narration of Britain’s dominance of the slave markets that enriched the economy and a seminal conceptual journey into the hidden politics and public posturing of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.”
This was a cruel and horrific period of human history. I simply cannot see that the word exciting can be used to describe it.
Doesn’t anyone else have a problem with this review: “It is at once an EXCITING [emphasis added] narration of Britain’s dominance of the slave markets that enriched the economy and a seminal conceptual journey into the hidden politics and public posturing of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.”
This was a cruel and horrific period of human history. I simply cannot see that the word exciting can be used to describe it.
Want to read
May 12, 2024On the reading list from the excellent Heirs of Enslavement podcast series.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews