History

The main reparations committee for Caribbean nations has called on the UK to return the British Virgin Islands

Got a few Arawaks, Caribs in mind? Or is this a demand to hand it over to colonial products like those of African descent?

Even after slavery ended, the dictator Salazar established an Auschwitz-style concentration camp in the mountainous city of Tarrafal on the other tip of Santiago. It was there that he shipped detained communists between 1936 and 1954 and from 1961-1974 – prisoners from the colonies.

Salazar was no pussycat and he wasn’t nice at all to those he thought threatened Portugal’s colonies. But Auschwitz? No.

Of the 20 million Africans forcefully transported across the Atlantic, about 30% were women, and 1.2 million experienced sexual violence, according to data in the Caricom plan.

So, 6 million women, of whom 20% suffered sexual violence. What was the prevalance of sexual violence at the time? In Africa?

Also, this, remarkably ahistorical:

During the transatlantic slave trade, a child took the legal status of the mother through partus sequitur ventrem (“that which is born follows the womb”), which was codified in 1662 in Virginia, then a British colony. “From that moment it meant that, as an enslaved woman, you were the property of the owner,” Otele says. “Women were currency, they could be bought, exchanged. They were a reproductive tool being impregnated to extract more enslaved people, more labour, more profit.”

Well, in fact, true perhaps of Virginia and other cotton based slavery. But simply not so of sugar based slaveryu. There are vast reports in fact, looking into the slave trade. People asking, well, why don;t you import more owmen then raise your own next generation of slaves? Why continue to buy in from Africa?

The answer, vile as it is, was that it was cheaper to import more men then work them to death than to raise a child or three.

Reproductive tools wasn’t how sugar slavery worked.

Russian cars stuck in three-mile queue for petrol after Ukraine strikes
Motorists wait up to 36 hours for fuel as long-range attacks on oil facilities create supply crisis

The Soviets are back!

Highlighting the update, Mottley said that “the compensation for gender-based violence and assault on family” is “no different from the compensation that has been awarded to other nationalities such as the Japanese”.

By the Japanese, perhaps.

The document, which is still to be rubber-stamped by Caribbean governments, makes it clear that Caricom is demanding monetary compensation, in addition to other forms of repair such as a full and formal apology, from Britain and other European countries, and education and training.

“Caricom demands monetary compensation as reparations from enslaving nations, monarchies, churches, institutions, corporations and families, for loss of life and uncompensated labour, loss of liberty, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence, for the victims of Indigenous genocide, the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement of Africans, which constitute grave crimes against humanity,” the document says.

And more generally, no, fuck off to this naked grift.

African American historians marked 2019 as the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave ship on US shores. In a special issue of the New York Times magazine that would become the bestselling 1619 Project, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones posited that 1619, not 1776, was the true birth of the nation, establishing slavery and anti-Black racism as pillars of its existence forevermore.

No, not like that, if we’re to correct then we have to be correct. Those on hte 1619 ship qwere indentured servants, not slaves. Treate just the same, black or white. There was no slavery because, just as with hte laws of England at the time, there was no slavery. Just didn’t exist in the legal system.

Actual slavery, lifetime chattel slavery, did arrive pretty quickly, yes. Anthony Johnson (haven’t looked that up, so hope I’ve got it right) was a from Angola, bought there as a slave, became an indentured servant on arrival in Virgnia in 1621? Did his 7 years indenture, got land, became a farmer with his own indetured servant(s). He went to law in the 1630s to keep the black one as a slave. Won too. But that’s the invention of slavery – a black former slave turned indentured servant insisting that an indentured servant not be able to serve his contract, but must be a slave.

Get the history right, by all means, but do get the history right.

Marie-Annick Gournet is an associate professor and associate pro vice-chancellor for reparative and civic futures at the University of Bristol

Her views on the subject of slavery are going to be?

The French government therefore does not need to invent a model from scratch. There are examples to draw upon. The Caribbean nations’ 10-point plan for reparatory justice offers a practical framework, combining historical acknowledgment with measures addressing public health, education, economic development and psychological rehabilitation.

Open your wallet, Frogs!

We are so surprised, eh?

These two amuse:

They remain visible in contaminated land, unequal economies

Lots of economies are unequal unrelated to slavery or not slavery. Therefore the inequality may not be anything to do with the slavery.

And:

Consumers in the overseas territories routinely pay substantially more for basic goods than in mainland France, despite lower average incomes.

Small populations on islands without much local production face higher living costs, do they? My word that is just such a surprise.

For hundreds of years, he was known only as “Jersey”, an enslaved boy of about 11 rendered in oil on canvas by the great 18th-century portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.

But now the life of the youngster, believed to be Reynolds’ earliest depiction of a person of colour, has begun to emerge, thanks to a research project.

Details found in admiralty records and other archives have unearthed information about Jersey’s identity, his military service and even hint he may eventually have found freedom.

Erm, no. At least, I think no.

He was discharged from another ship in the summer of 1753 and then vanished from the records, not appearing on the musters of other ships Ourry served on. One theory is that he was sold on to someone else, another that he was given his freedom and joined another vessel.

David Olusoga, a historian, broadcaster and National Trust ambassador, said the research had helped bring Boston Jersey out of the shadows.

He said: “This project asks us to look more closely at a familiar past, revealing a life long obscured and reminding us that history is shaped as much by those rendered invisible as by those remembered.

“To tell Jersey’s story is to confront the silences within our history, and to recognise the individuals whose lives have too often been hidden from view.”

NAM Rodgers – a real historian – strongly suggesats, at lesat, that the Navy didn’t recognise slavery when it came to those who served. Obviously it did recognise the institution, slave ships and all that. But in terms of anyone who served it just didn’t recognise it. You couldn’t be a slave and a seaman, the one precluded the other.

Now, whether this applied, wholly and completely, to boy servants is a detail I don’t know. But it’s one of those things that I think is certainly possible. Be interesting to know in fact.

Colonised nations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Oceania suffered harms including genocide, loss of ancestral lands, cultural destruction, the impoverishment and dispossession of populations, and ongoing racial, economic and ecological disparities within and between nations, including the neocolonial order that followed postwar independence movements.

Every single damn nation, everywhere, has suffered those things. And?

Now bugger off.

Or are we supposed to ensure that the Bantu are driven back to the Cameroon Highlands and everywhere south of that returned to hte Khoi San?

As the resolution went ahead in New York, the British MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy presented a petition to the House of Commons, pushing for a state apology by the UK for its key role in slavery and colonialism of Africans.

“So many of the intersecting global challenges we now face are rooted in the legacies of enslavement and empire: from geopolitical instability to racism, inequality, underdevelopment and climate breakdown,” the petition read. “To truly confront these issues, we must acknowledge where they come from.”

This simply is not true. Just isn’t. Issa good grift, but other than that….

For four centuries, seven European nations including the UK enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. The scale of the chattel slavery was such that 18th and 19th-century abolitionists coined the term “crime against humanity” to describe it. Historians have also linked wealth from enslavement to mass industrialisation in the west.

“When it’s framed as a trade, it distorts the reality,” said Jasmine Mickens, a postgraduate student of history and government at Harvard University. “It was not a consensual joint business enterprise.”

But there’s the thing. Between those selling the slaves and those buying them it was indeed consensual. So even if ew accept eve a part of the claim it’s both sides that are guilty….

Ghana, which has been at the forefront of an effort

And that is rich in irony. The Ashanti – in Ghana – were the first buyers of slaves off the Portuguese. There was a wild price difference in gold between West Africa and Europe. Straight Ricardo – things will be the same price minus transport costs across geography. The costs of those camel trains across the Sahara were high. Therefore the price of gold in Ghana was low. Thus, if you sail around to collect it you profit.

But the Ashanti didn’t want to buy much the Portuguese had for sale. So, the Ps went a bit further along the coast – Lagos sort of area – and bought slaves, brought them back and sold them to the Ashanti as mining slaves. For gold. This all pre-Columbus.

If anyone’s guilty it includes Ghana…..

At the heart of this effort is a commitment to partnership. The process we envision is one of engagement, bringing together states, institutions, scholars and communities to explore constructive and forward-looking approaches to reparatory justice. These may include investments in education, health, cultural restoration and economic opportunity, designed to close enduring gaps and build shared prosperity.

Gimmie Money.

It’s time for the UN to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity

Fuck off.

The human point of view is presented mostly on an aural level, through the use of voiceover. Laid over Ascension’s unique landscape, conversations with geological experts muse on the relationship between humans and nature. Unfortunately, many of these discussions lean towards the philosophical and speculative, offering little historical and practical insight into the pitfalls of terraforming. None of the interviewees are from the global south, which is also problematic, considering the primarily imperialist impulse behind the desire to reshape and conquer this so-called uncharted territory.

Ascension Island was terra nullius when Europeans discovered it. So what the Global South has to do with it?

Last month, the African Union adopted a motion put forward by Ghana to label slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity.

Issa mystery, eh?

This month, the motion will be tabled at the United Nations, with demands made for redress.

Oh, that’s why. Ho Hum.

The Crown’s Silence, a book by the historian Brooke Newman, follows the Guardian’s 2023 Cost of the crown report, which explored the British monarchy’s hidden ties to transatlantic slavery.

The book reveals that by 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade in its empire, the British crown had become the world’s largest buyer of enslaved people, buying 13,000 men for the army for £900,000.

Of course, we’ve the obvious difference between “The Crown” and “The Monarchy” to deal with here which an American doesn’t seem to get.

But there’s also this:

Prior to the abolition of the slave trade within the British Empire in 1807, there was much debate about the legal status of the West India Regiments’ soldiers, and whether they were subject to slave laws or not. But on discharge from the regiments the men were free and in some cases awarded pensions and other support.

In 1807, all serving black soldiers who had been recruited as slaves were freed under the Mutiny Act of that year. The act established that the black soldiers were freemen and should be treated like any other soldiers.

It’s probably more accurate to say they were “bought out of slavery” than that they were bought as slaves. Wonder if our American lassie has made that distinction…..

Still, we know what’s going to happen here. “Crown” “Monarch” slavery, soldiers, so pay reparations REEEEEE!

But today, they are facing a modern threat and a spectre of future Christmases that Mr Kuhmunen fears could spell the end of their cherished traditions: a new mine on their grazing lands.

The Swedish government and LKAB, the state-owned mining company, have announced plans for a rare earth minerals mine named Per Geijer which is set to cut off reindeer migration routes in the region.

I’ve had chats with people about that mine. It’s a real thing, a proper deposit.

But it’s this which interests:

The Sami, who are the only indigenous community in Europe

That seems an odd definition of indigenous. Presumably what is meant is the only people following a truly peasant, even pre-peasant, lifestyle. For there’s no other definition that really works that doesn’t also include, say, the Celts. Or the Faroese, Icelandics, both of whom are clearly the inhabitants of what was terra nullius before them. The Celts being the iron age folk who took over from the hunter-gatherers.

Anyone any ideas? What is this definition of indigenous that applies to Sami and not to others?

but also by a wider public in Germany, where interpretations of the GDR often differ.

Possibly even an understatement.

But Gill’s conviction raises questions about the ease with which western democracies can be infiltrated and influenced by hostile states. The prosecution estimates that Gill received around £40,000 over the period in question.

Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International, said: “That Gill is the first UK politician to be charged under the Bribery Act marks a significant moment in our understanding of foreign interference threats. This prosecution underscores the very real danger that hostile states and their proxies pose to our democratic processes, and the relatively small amounts of money it took to gain influence within our political system.”

Tom Driberg? The Morning Star subsidies? How far do we go?

But here’s my warning to Silicon Valley: you’re awakening a dragon. Public anger is stirring, and I believe it could grow into a movement as fierce and unstoppable as the temperance crusade a century ago. The movement to ban phones in schools is just the beginning. Poll after poll finds that people across the west think that AI will worsen almost everything they care about, from our health and relationships to our jobs and democracies. By a three-to-one margin, people want more regulation.

History shows how this movement could be ignited by a small group of citizens, and how powerful it could become. Just as we had mass protests against the nuclear arms race, we may soon see mass resistance to the AI arms race. A century ago, temperance activists even managed to push a constitutional amendment through the US Congress to ban alcohol altogether.

Would work about as well as Prohibition did too.

‘S’ lovely when historians refuse to take lessons from history, ain’t it?

Of course, if Franco had been genuinely popular, there would have been no need for his 1936 military insurrection against an elected leftwing government, or for the half a million dead of the ensuing Spanish civil war. Nor would he have shot 20,000 people afterwards.

Absolutely none of them are going to realise that this condemns every insurrection, every revolution, that leds to a civil war, to the execution of the losers. Mao, Castro, Lenin, they all fail this test, no?

A revanchist Catholic conservatism doesn’t appeal to me either but it does seem pretty weak tea as compared to varied of those communist revolutions, no?

This is significant, because openly and publicly telling the history of Francoism has been missing in Spain for far too long. More important than removing symbols is explaining them. Spain does not even have a museum of national history, and it lags behind Germany, Italy, Portugal and even younger democracies such as Slovenia, in confronting its past and putting it on display.

Politicians on the right are now resisting many of these efforts, with historical memory becoming yet another partisan issue. Even Spain’s transition to democracy, once idealised and long a source of pride, has come under question as political consensus has fractured.

Let’s remember by all means. But let’s remember it all.

The executions and the massacres were not, after all, just by the right now, were they?