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Should UK pay reparations to Jamaica for slavery?



glasfryn

cleaning up cat sick
Nov 29, 2005
20,261
somewhere in Eastbourne
Because now they'd just be grabbing all the legal aid the can lay their hands on and sending their legal team off to the European Court of Human Rights. If they're in the nice new shiny prison in Jamaica, when they come out they will have no recourse to either.

not if you deport them straight from court , back to the West Indies.
 


Mackenzie

Old Brightonian
Nov 7, 2003
33,508
East Wales
The tone of my opening posts suggests that I don't agree with this proposal at all but it doesn't stop the far-right numpties on this forum (the usual suspects) seething and foaming at the mouth whenever anything to do with race, migrants or travellers is mentioned.
You're having fun though?
 


symyjym

Banned
Nov 2, 2009
13,138
Brighton / Hove actually

Britain certainly needs to recognise its past and it is not healthy to be ignorant about it. Japan seems to feel the need to apoligise for their mistakes on a regular basis. I think acknowledgment can help countries to move forward, and makes them sound less hypocritical when dealing with the world today.

The last 5000 years has been a continuous wave of Empires rising and falling, with each one learning the strategy from the previous. It’s a case of monkey see monkey do.
 


alfredmizen

Banned
Mar 11, 2015
6,342
Britain certainly needs to recognise its past and it is not healthy to be ignorant about it. Japan seems to feel the need to apoligise for their mistakes on a regular basis. I think acknowledgment can help countries to move forward, and makes them sound less hypocritical when dealing with the world today.

The last 5000 years has been a continuous wave of Empires rising and falling, with each one learning the strategy from the previous. It’s a case of monkey see monkey do.
Cough, splutter , are you sure ??? Don't you mean Germany ??
 


scamander

New member
Aug 9, 2011
596
I get that....I was trying to make a point about how slavery has been around since the dawn of time and to pick one period in history as a base line for reparations, IE the removal of Africans to the new world, is fraught with danger.

This wasn't aimed at you specifically, apologies if you think it was. I've just heard this point a lot when the debate is aired and never quite considered it as analogous with, say, the British Empire and slavery.
 




GT49er

Well-known member
Feb 1, 2009
46,471
Gloucester
Dear Mr. Cameron,

It has come to my attention that at some time in the last eight or nine hundred years, it is highly probable that one of my ancestors, or one of their siblings or other close relatives, was hanged for theft. In all probability the theft was a fairly minor one, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the practice of hanging people for such offences is deplorable and completely unacceptable.

Mere words cannot describe the devastating and continuing effect this atrocity has had on my family, and I feel it is time for wrongs to be righted. Profuse apologies, much hand-wringing and an unconditional admission of guilt are of course de rigeur in these circumstances, but in themselves are meaningless gestures without the necessary compensation for our stress.

Not that I’m just after the money, you understand – no, no, far from it – but I do want justice for my fore-fathers. A sum of £2.5 million will, I think, be adequate to ease, if not totally eradicate, my trauma. I’m sure you’ll agree that is reasonable.

I trust that you will shortly be having a favourable discussion about this matter with your friend and colleague, Mr. Osborne. I look forward to receiving my cheque in the post in the not too distant future.

Yours sincerely……………..
 


Thousands of British individuals made a fortune out of the abolition of slavery, when they received astonishingly high compensation from the Slave Compensation Commission, which was active from 1833 to 1842. In some instances, those compensation payments formed the basis of tremendous windfalls of wealth that continue to benefit the families of slave-owners to the present day.

If anyone should be expected to pay compensation now, it is the families that made their fortunes out of the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, not the UK government.

There's a very interesting, searchable database here:-
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
 


Feb 23, 2009
22,839
Brighton factually.....
I get that....I was trying to make a point about how slavery has been around since the dawn of time and to pick one period in history as a base line for reparations, IF the removal of Africans to the new world, is fraught with danger.

Oh dear, how patronizing to the indigenous peoples of North and South America who lived there for thousands of years to be called the new world..... just because Europeans claimed it for themselves...

We all know they did not and Vikings, Chinese, even English adventurers found the "New World"

Was not having a go at you,


Just how far do we go back though....

Unfortunately what is done is done, I am not to blame and feel I should not feel guilty or my taxes should go towards any reparations to any country.

We should apologize, move on and make sure history does not repeat its self where we are concerned ... End of
 








Garry Nelson's Left Foot

Well-known member
Jul 7, 2003
13,054
tokyo
Britain certainly needs to recognise its past and it is not healthy to be ignorant about it. Japan seems to feel the need to apoligise for their mistakes on a regular basis. I think acknowledgment can help countries to move forward, and makes them sound less hypocritical when dealing with the world today.

The last 5000 years has been a continuous wave of Empires rising and falling, with each one learning the strategy from the previous. It’s a case of monkey see monkey do.

No, they don't.
 




symyjym

Banned
Nov 2, 2009
13,138
Brighton / Hove actually
The Hankey family of 10 Brunswick Square, Hove, received £50,000 compensation for freeing slaves in the 1830s. In today's money, that is worth almost £6 million.

There was a good BBC, 2 part documentary "Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners", you may have seen it, where it stated that £17billion was paid out to slave owners.

It's all documented with who had what and all the companies that were born from it, and if compensation is due it is probably their burden not the tax payer.
 










symyjym

Banned
Nov 2, 2009
13,138
Brighton / Hove actually
Last edited:


Publius Ovidius

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
45,919
at home
This wasn't aimed at you specifically, apologies if you think it was. I've just heard this point a lot when the debate is aired and never quite considered it as analogous with, say, the British Empire and slavery.

No apology necessary, I didn't take like that. I do agree that the British empire, as well as the French, Dutch and Portuguese and Spanish have a lot to answer for around that time and I suppose in these enlightened days of personal freedom as a " human right" then what appeared as normal in times of antiquity would appear an anathema to us now.
 



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