Emancipation Day (2020) – BDN Editorial

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From Belize, Bahamas, and Jamaica in the north to southern Grenada, Trinidad, and Guyana, the Caribbean archipelago is abuzz with the sounds of freedom and the demand for justice. The month of August is ushered in with celebrations and revelry marking the end of slavery and increasing demands for centuries-long economic and social justice.

These advancing demands for reparations across the region and continued immigrant anxieties in North America and Britain provide new additionally layered demands on the emancipation agenda within present-day commemorations across the Caribbean.

According to the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) in its 10-point plan, over 10 million Africans were forcefully transported to the Caribbean and made chattel and property of European colonialists. This made the transatlantic slave trade the largest forced migration in human history. Accordingly, the CRC report reminds us that “the 400 years the trade and production policies of Europe could be summed up in the British slogan: “’ not a nail is to be made in the colonies’”. In addition to the physical and spiritual violence, this also meant casting the ‘emancipated’ workers as ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ setting the stage for our ‘persistent poverty’.

Forced labor and the extraction of resources led to incalculable wealth for Britain. This is evident by the fact that as early as 1625, Barbados had already become the richest British colony in the West Indies. Territories like Jamaica, St. Kitts, Antigua, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada were also made into rich and prosperous colonial ‘sweatshops’ of the Africans, and later the indentured.

A combination of African revolts throughout the region, anti-slavery agitation, as well as economic calculations, led to the eventual end of chattel slavery. Upon the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), which outlawed slavery in most parts of the empire, the British government granted some £20m, through loans and government funds, to the former slave owners. This is estimated to be 40 percent of the country’s GDP at that time (equivalent to £300bn today). It is also a tragic irony that up to 2015, the descendants of former enslaved were paying taxes to the descendants of enslavers to justify compensation legislated by the Slavery Abolition Act.

Randall Robinson wrote in 1999 that America’s history of race riots, lynching, and institutional discrimination have “resulted in $1.4 trillion in losses for African Americans.” Mr. Robinson adds that a fair reparation value can be estimated between $1.4 to $4.7 trillion (roughly $142,000 for every black American living today). While this does not include an actual estimate of the compensation for enslavement itself, it is a glance of the value of Caribbean reparation since the region has always been seen as more lucrative enterprises. Yet no compensation has ever been given to the Caribbean people or our North American erstwhile enslaved cousins.  

With reparation increasingly integral to the emancipation agenda, BDN is pleased to join our sisters and brothers across the region in celebrating emancipation as well as joining the growing chorus demanding reparations and restorative justice. Perhaps the entire Caribbean should take a cue from Barbados in extending the Emancipation Day commemoration beyond the month of August. This is especially important as the region continues to face challenges and the cry of reparation becomes louder.

In this issue, we feature two essays focusing on different aspects of emancipation. Kim Johnson presents a tracing of the historical path traveled towards Emancipation Day as a pan-regional event. We also revisit Merle Collins’ 2002 presentation at the Catholic church in St Paul’s, Grenada on the meaning and significance of emancipation.

Tag: #EmancipationDay #BlackHistory #CaribbeanHistory #GrenadianHistory #Reparations

— Martin Felix [for Big Drum Nation]