Reparations for slavery

Reparations for slavery are financial compensation, legal remedy of damages, public apology and guarantees of non-repetition of enslavement. Victims of slavery can refer to historical slavery or ongoing slavery in the 21st century. Some reparations for slavery date back to the 18th century.

United Nations resolution

refers to measures to repair violations of human rights including restitution and compensation.

Types

Reparations can take numerous forms, including practical measures such as individual monetary payments; settlements; scholarships and other educational schemes; systemic initiatives to offset injustices; or land-based or housing-based compensation related to independence. Other types of reparations include apologies and acknowledgements of the injustices; the removal of monuments and renaming of streets that honour enslavers and defenders of slavery; or naming a building after an enslaved person or someone connected with abolition. Development aid is generally not counted as reparations. Some view financial reparations are insufficient, and demand as reparations for slavery opportunity to repatriate to country of origin before slavery and "bringing an end to the current political and economic system".

By region of perpetration

Netherlands

In December 2022, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, apologised on behalf of the Dutch Government for its role in slavery at an event at the National Archives in The Hague, which included representatives of various advocacy organisations. It also pledged to give €200 million towards "raising awareness, fostering engagement and addressing the present-day effects of slavery", and is planning a commemoration of the history of slavery on 1 July 2023, along with Dutch Caribbean nations, Suriname, and other countries.

United Kingdom

By the 2010s examples of international reparations for slavery consisted of recognition of the injustice of slavery and apologies for involvement but no material compensation. In June 2023, the Brattle Group presented a report at an event at the University of the West Indies in which reparations were estimated, for harms both during and after the period of transatlantic chattel slavery at more than 100 trillion dollars. In October 2023, the UK Reparations Conference was held and a joint declaration issued to the effect that full reparatory justice must be "pursued and achieved".

Slave owners' compensation (1837)

The Slave Compensation Act 1837 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, signed into law on 23 December 1837, to bring about compensated emancipation. Enslavers were paid approximately £20 million in compensation in over 40,000 awards for enslaved people freed in the colonies of the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. This represented around 40 percent of the British Treasury's annual spending budget and has been calculated as equivalent to about £16.5bn in today's terms. Some of the payments were converted into 3.5% government annuities, which caused a drawn-out process.
The Act, formally 1 and 2 Vict. 3, was the world's major statute of "compensated emancipation". It empowered the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Dept to raise the £20 million by issuing government stocks, effective borrowing against future tax revenues to pay former enslaves for the "loss of their property."

Abuja Proclamation and ARM (1993)

The Africa Reparations Movement, also known as ARM, was formed in 1993 following the Abuja Proclamation declared at the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations in Abuja, Nigeria, in the same year. The conference was convened by the Organisation of African Unity and the Nigerian government.
In early 1993, British MP Bernie Grant toured the country speaking about the need for reparations for slavery. On 10 May 1993 he tabled a motion in the House of Commons that, the House welcomes the proclamation and recognised that the proclamation "calls upon the international community to recognise that the unprecedented moral debt owed to African people has yet to be paid, and urges all those countries who were enriched by enslavement and colonisation to review the case for reparations to be paid to Africa and to Africans in the Diaspora; acknowledges the continuing painful economic and personal consequences of the exploitation of Africa and Africans in the Diaspora and the racism it has generated; and supports the OAU as it intensifies its efforts to pursue the cause of reparations". The motion was sponsored by Bernie Grant, Tony Benn, Tony Banks, John Austin-Walker, Harry Barnes, and Gerry Bermingham. An additional 46 Labour Party MPs signed to support the motion, including future leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn.
The Abuja Proclamation called for national reparations committees to be set up throughout Africa and the diaspora. Bernie Grant formed ARM UK in December 1993 as the co-founder and chairperson, with a core group including: secretary Sam Walker; treasurer Linda Bellos and trustees Patrick Wilmott, Stephen A. Small, and Hugh Oxley.
ARM aimed:

to use all lawful means to obtain reparations for the enslavement and colonisation of African people in Africa and in the African diaspora
to use all lawful means to secure the return of African artefacts from whichever place they are currently held
to seek an apology from western governments for the enslavement and colonisation of African people
to campaign for an acknowledgement of the contribution of African people to world history and civilisation
to campaign for an accurate portrayal of African history and thus restore dignity and self-respect to African people
to educate and inform African youth, on the continent and in the diaspora, about the great African cultures, languages and civilisations

Following the death of Bernie Grant in 2000, ARM UK became inactive.

Class action (2004)

In 2004, controversial reparations lawyer Ed Fagan launched a class action lawsuit against insurance market Lloyd's of London for their role in insuring slave ships involved in the transatlantic slave trade. The case was unsuccessful.

Apologies

On 27 November 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement expressing "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade, saying it had been "profoundly shameful". The statement was criticised by reparations activists in Britain, with Esther Stanford stating that Blair should have issued "an apology of substance", which would then be followed by "various reparative measures including financial compensation". Blair issued another apology in 2007 after meeting with Ghanaian President John Kufuor.
On 24 August 2007, then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone publicly apologised for London's role in the transatlantic slave trade during a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the passing of the 1807 Slave Trade Act. In the speech, Livingston called on the British Government to pass legislation to create a UK-wide Annual Slavery Memorial Day, which would commemorate slavery.
Blair issued another apology in 2007 after meeting with Ghanaian President John Kufuor during Ghana’s 50th independence anniversary celebrations. While his remarks again expressed sorrow and described the transatlantic slave trade as a “stain on history,” they were still viewed by critics as falling short of acknowledging Britain’s systemic role and legal responsibility. Advocates for reparations contended that such language, while symbolic, failed to meet the standards of restorative justice or to lead to any binding policy change.

Heirs of Slavery

In February 2023, former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, whose family had owned plantations in Grenada, travelled to Grenada to make an apology for harm caused and to give reparations. Her family has also apologised to the island nation for harm caused by slavery, and the group has called on the British Prime Minister and King Charles to make a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom.
In April 2023, she co-founded Heirs of Slavery, a group of descendants of people who had profited from British transatlantic slavery and want to make amends. Trevelyan's family has donated money towards education schemes in Grenada via CARICOM, and hopes that Heirs of Slavery will bring similar actions on a greater scale., the other members of the group are David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood; Charles Gladstone, who is descended from prime minister William Gladstone; journalist Alex Renton; Richard Atkinson; John Dower ; Rosemary Harrison; and Robin Wedderburn.

United States

Slavery ended in the United States in 1865 with the end of the American Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". At that time, an estimated four million African Americans were set free.
There are instances of reparations for slavery, relating to the Atlantic slave trade, dating back to at least 1783 in North America, with a growing list of modern-day examples of reparations for slavery in the United States in 2020 as the call for reparations in the US has been bolstered by protests around police brutality and other cases of systemic racism in the US. The call for reparations for racism has also been made alongside calls for reparations for slavery.

Support and opposition

Within the political sphere, a bill demanding slavery reparations has been proposed at the national level, the "Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act", which former Rep. John Conyers Jr. reintroduced to the United States Congress every year from 1989 until his resignation in 2017. As its name suggests, the bill recommended the creation of a commission to study the "impact of slavery on the social, political and economic life of our nation"; however, there are cities and institutions that have initiated reparations in the US.
In 1999, African-American lawyer and activist Randall Robinson, founder of the TransAfrica advocacy organization, wrote that America's history of race riots, lynching, and institutional discrimination have "resulted in $1.4 trillion in losses for African Americans". Economist Robert Browne stated that, the ultimate goal of reparations should be to "restore the black community to the economic position it would have if it had not been subjected to slavery and discrimination". He estimates a fair reparation value anywhere between $1.4 to $4.7 trillion, or roughly $142,000 for every black American living today. Other estimates range from $5.7 to $14.2 and $17.1 trillion.
Opposition to slavery reparations is reflected in the general population. In a study conducted by YouGov in 2014, only 37% of Americans believed that enslaved people should have been provided compensation in the form of cash after being freed. Furthermore, only 15% believed that descendants of enslaved people should receive cash payments. The findings indicated a clear divide between black and white Americans. The study summarized its findings: "Only 6% of white Americans support cash payments to the descendants of slaves, compared to 59% of black Americans. Similarly, only 19% of whites – and 63% of blacks – support special education and job training programs for the descendants of slaves."
In 2014, American journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates published an article titled "The Case for Reparations", which discussed the continued effects of slavery and Jim Crow laws and made renewed demands for reparations. Coates refers to Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s H.R.40 Bill, pointing out that Congress's failure to pass this bill expresses a lack of willingness to right their past wrongs. In response to the article, conservative journalist Kevin D. Williamson published an article titled "The Case Against Reparations". In it, Williamson argues: "The people to whom reparations are owed are long dead."
In September 2016, the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent encouraged Congress to pass H.R.40 to study reparations proposals. Still, the Working Group did not directly endorse any specific reparations proposal. The report noted that there exists a legacy of racial inequality in the United States, and explained that "Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today." The report notes that, a "dangerous ideology of systemic racism inhibits social cohesion among the US population".
The topic of reparations gained renewed attention in 2020 as the Black Lives Matter movement named reparations as one of their policy goals in the United States.
In 2020, rapper T.I. supported reparations that would give every African American million and asserted that slavery caused mass incarcerations, poverty, and other ills.