As Quiet as It’s Kept, the U.K. Also Has a Reparations Problem
Why the abominations of slavery should be addressed beyond the United States
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The issue of slavery reparations recently took center stage in the United States as the country commemorated Juneteenth. The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary decided to open talks on reparations and held a hearing on a bill, H.R. 40, that could potentially open further dialogue on the subject. This hearing came five years after author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates breathed new life into the debate on reparations in his article for the Atlantic entitled “The Case for Reparations.”
The United States, however, is not the only country to question the need for reparations. The United Kingdom has also been petitioning on the issue. The U.K.’s connection to slavery has often been overshadowed by the transatlantic slave trade that existed between Africa and North America. While men, women, and children picked cotton in the United States, slaves in the Caribbean were made to harvest sugarcane, which the Europeans sold around the world.
How deep do the roots of slavery run in the U.K.?
The U.K., which consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, indulged in the trade of sugar from the sunshine islands of the Caribbean.
Sugar was a hot commodity for Europeans during the 18th century. It was considered a pleasant and expensive luxury item reserved for the wealthy and was doled out only on special occasions. It was given to kings, queens, and others in the high echelons of society. By the end of the 18th century, British and French colonies in the West Indies produced 80% of the world’s sugar.
It was this very sugar production, however, that sparked the rise of slavery in various parts of the world. The use of slaves dates back to the early 1440s in Madeira, Portugal. Thereafter, the sugar plant was taken to Brazil and the Caribbean. This resulted in millions of people from Africa being kidnapped to work as slaves in these countries. The work was harsh, and the average slave worker’s life expectancy was seven years.
Slave ships traveled across the Atlantic in a triangle between Britain, West Africa, and sugar plantations in the…
