Apologies for past injustices - where do you stand?

Working in the mills, as the children of my ancestors did, alongside their parents was hard, 12 hour days in grim conditions. They were not slaves, torn from their homeland, transported in horrific conditions, then brutalised on plantations. My ancestors surely had tough lives but they were free.

I don't want anyone apologising to me because my gt, gt, grandmother was born in slavery but I would very much like to see something done about things like the Windrush scandal and the inequities suffered by many descendants of slaves

Yes, the generational inequalities do need to be addressed. I said so upthread, and I believe it to be true. I'm not sure what the best way of doing so is, though. Recognising that whole communities are not 'skivers', or 'lazy' or 'ineducable' would be a start, and making it easier for people to understand that they are as capable as anyone else to get 'good jobs' or degrees, or whatever their ambitions are would be useful too, so long as fine words are followed with measurable actions.

I know from experience how much time and money goes into things like bidding for funding in regeneration areas, and a lot of it would be far better spent on transport or safe playgrounds, or educational facilities that are accessible from housing estates. I wonder if building colleges or nurseries (or football fields/old people's centres) and calling them after abolitionists or philanthropists might go some way to redress the balance between the statues and street names that celebrate slave owners and exploiters of labour?

I'm still thinking aloud though - there are probably far better ways of doing it.

Fair enough if Italy apologises for the Roman Armies, Norway? for the Vikings and France to say sorry for King William. |The apology idea is ludicrous. Most countries seem to have invaded another at some time. Why cannot we all accept that some mistakes were made in some cases and do our best not to let it happen again!!??I don't think that Putin would agree, though.

The Romans (as were) and the Vikings no longer exist, though. It's not the same thing at all.

Slavery was more than 'a mistake', as were many of the things that blighted the lives of the working classes in the Industrial Revolution. Those things made some people obscenely rich, and others obscenely poor, and the consequences of that enrichment and impoverishment persist today. Those things could realistically be addressed - pillaging by Vikings can't.

I do see slavery as different than Viking raids. Huge fortunes were made on the backs of those slaves. The legacy lives with us. Our beautiful country houses, the wonderful buildings cities like Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, the wealth that continues to grow in the families where fortunes were made . I’ve only made one visit to America. The negative legacy of slavery is everywhere.
It seems superficial in light of that to mention the government’s levelling up agenda. But there we are, I did. Here in Lancashire/gtr Manchester, we created the wealth during the industrial revolution. Not asking for compensation but some investment would be welcome.

Agreed, Iam.

Also, I saw a documentary which was part of Netflix's Black Lives Matter season. It showed how, since the end of slavery, black American prisoners continue to make massive profits for others from their labour. They outnumber white prisoners by something like 13 to 1, and work in cotton fields, chain gangs and prison factories for pennies. There was a list at the end of the companies who profit from the system. I can't remember most of them, but one that stuck in my mind was Fruit of the Loom Tee shirts. Who knew, eh?

Yes, I am64, a vast amount of wealth was generated by exploiting slaves and to go against that status quo must have been very difficult but that's exactly what happened here in the North West.
I am so proud of the anti slavery stance of my forebears in the Lancashire and Manchester cotton trade who supported their brothers in humanity by boycotting the supply of raw cotton from the Southern States even though it meant penury and possible starvation.
It was action which lead directly to abolition.

Brothers AND Sisters in humanity.

Nannee49, I agree.
Lefty lot even back then, some would say

Difficult one this. Think I'm only prepared to apologise for my own mistakes (and perhaps those of my children when they were small).

Where there are still survivors of dreadful events - the Holocaust, Windrush - then they should be compensated in some way. But if the events really are historical - slavery, raping and pillaging by the Vikings - then surely it must be enough to say that these were dreadful events and ensure they don’t happen again. A hackneyed phrase I know, but until someone comes up with something different… also, memorials, statues etc., should have plaques attached stating how these people made their money.

I agree, Katie59, that increasing foreign aid is not currently a vote winner.
But what does that say about the sincerity of our collective feelings of 'guilt' over the misdeeds of our ancestors? Enough to lament and wring our hands over past injustices but not enough to put our wallets where our hearts are and vote for restorative justice now? Well, that's not very strong at all.

Sarnia

Let's move on for pity's sake. You can't put the clock back, history is just that, history. Draw a line under it and learn from it. We have more than enough in the here and now to be worrying ourselves over.

I agree Sarnia.

winterwhite

I agree, Katie59, that increasing foreign aid is not currently a vote winner.
But what does that say about the sincerity of our collective feelings of 'guilt' over the misdeeds of our ancestors? Enough to lament and wring our hands over past injustices but not enough to put our wallets where our hearts are and vote for restorative justice now? Well, that's not very strong at all.

To be fair, winterwhite, I think many who would pay out are worried about who the money would go to and what it would be used for.
Currently, money I raise via sponsorship goes to an area in North Africa, into the hands of someone with whom the purpose of the funds has been discussed in person (difficult since Covid), e.g. new building, computer equipment. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can see the building going up and the computers being used. It’s much easier than paying into a large organisation.

That's another very fair point, Molly. But I was thinking of things that the govt could do in a big way, and could be forced to do if strength of feeling among the electorate was strong enough and united enough.

Significantly sharing back with developing countries the wealth here that their ancestors helped to create seems to me the only meaningful solution. We just have to make sure it happens.

winterwhite

I agree, Katie59, that increasing foreign aid is not currently a vote winner.
But what does that say about the sincerity of our collective feelings of 'guilt' over the misdeeds of our ancestors? Enough to lament and wring our hands over past injustices but not enough to put our wallets where our hearts are and vote for restorative justice now? Well, that's not very strong at all.

I’m lucky enough to have travelled in a couple of developing countries and have friends there who have direct involvement in aid projects involving women and children. I sponsor them directly regularly and I know exactly where the money is spent, sometimes medical, occasionally building, once a village well with a proper pump.

What bothers me is that many countries are to this day living off the riches of lands that were previously stolen and plundered. Who owns the diamond mines ? Many of these countries are rich, first world countries and why? It is because of past theft and subjugation of those in the countries they invaded. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as they say.

It's not their fault that any Windsor is a not very well educated aristocrat. I would dearly like it if the Queen gave to the Jamaican poor people most of such inherited wealth she does not really need, such as the silver food dishes mentioned in the article below.

heguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/25/slavery-royal-family-jamaica-ducke-duchess-cambridge-caribbean-slave-trade

Here's the link Caleo

You missed out the t in the guardian

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/25/slavery-royal-family-jamaica-ducke-duchess-cambridge-caribbean-slave-trade

I think queen or a member of RF she give a proper heartfelt apology and give away the inherited stuff that passed on from slave trade The royal family benefitted enormously from slavery and still do.

Thanks Grany

I'm trying to think about how reparations might be paid and by whom.

There is a focus on this thread on the Royal Family, but this was not the only family which benefitted from slavery. Some 3,000 persons were paid compensation for the slaves (i.e 'property') they 'lost' at abolition in 1834. Do we have to trace their descendants and demand reparation money from them? How about the descendants of those who made huge fortunes in the 17th & 18th C from slave owning, but who may have given up their plantations before 1834? Or those who dissipated the fortunes made by their forebears, such as William Beckford in the early 19th C who managed to run through a massive fortune derived from plantations in Jamaica.

There is a school of historical thought which claims that the sugar trade was in decline in the late 18th, early 19th C, and indeed, some of the compensation money was never 'enjoyed' by its recipients, but went straight away to pay off the debts they had incurred while struggling to keep their plantations going; would we have to trace those creditors and demand money from them? It seems to me to be a tremendously complex area which requires more than just a simplistic 'The Queen should give them some of her money' solution.

This wiki page might be of interest. It details known slave traders, slave owners and owners who received compensation, with links to individuals:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_slave_owners

Or, do we just say that, as the money been dispersed widely throughout Britain over the past 3/400 years, it is the responsibility of the nation as a whole to make proper reparation?

My parents and grandmother were bombed by the Germans in WW2 and lost everything. Am I going to get compensation and an apology?

Slavery was wrong but I don’t believe in monetary reparation. That smacks of a way of getting money and I don’t like it.

Rosalyn69

Slavery was wrong but I don’t believe in monetary reparation. That smacks of a way of getting money and I don’t like it.

What way of getting money would you like, Rosalyn?

David Olusoga made a TV programme about slavery, and showed that it wasn't just plantation owners who benefited from it. People in the UK with relatively modest incomes sometimes owned three or four enslaved people who lived on the plantations - a bit like small investments that could be sold, and whose value would rise if they had children, who would also belong to the owner. The owners and slaves would never meet, and to a degree the owners wouldn't see themselves as such - the human aspect of the transaction was completely hidden from them.

A lot of the small owners were women who had inherited the enslaved people, or who had put their affairs in the hands of what would now be financial advisors, so might not have even realised that some of their income was based on slavery until they received compensation when it was abolished. The compensation was 'a way of getting money', and I doubt that many modern people would like it, but we were all paying for the compensation given to slave owners (large and small) until 2015. Believe it or not, a proportion of our taxes went towards that bill until as recently as that, (including the taxes of the descendants of the enslaved people themselves). Talk about rubbing people's noses in it.