Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Dollar value of freedom

Dear Lizzie
The value of #life, the value of #freedom -what dollar value could be put on that ... trillions? The skewing of our sense of value to dollars and cents based on the value on the labour market is itself demeaning and dimunitive as replicated in the calculations for #reparations. How damaged have become our sense of values and those who lead us to warped space when the real calculations shoe... more in #LettersToLizzie @krisramp @lolleaves

http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/news/-7-5-trillion-for-slavery

Sunday, February 24, 2013

ShameofSlaveryLettersToLizzie

Dear Lizzie,
Yeah, the shame runs deep and so too the damage done, so how do u begin to repair? more in Letters To Lizzie see https://sites.google.com/site/krisrampersadglobal

See also:

Britain's colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html


The true scale of Britain's involvement in the slave trade has been laid bare in documents revealing how the country's wealthiest families received the modern equivalent of billions of pounds in compensation after slavery was abolished.
The previously unseen records show exactly who received what in payouts from the Government when slave ownership was abolished by Britain – much to the potential embarrassment of their descendants. Dr Nick Draper from University College London, who has studied the compensation papers, says as many as one-fifth of wealthy Victorian Britons derived all or part of their fortunes from the slave economy.
As a result, there are now wealthy families all around the UK still indirectly enjoying the proceeds of slavery where it has been passed on to them. Dr Draper said: "There was a feeding frenzy around the compensation." A John Austin, for instance, owned 415 slaves, and got compensation of £20,511, a sum worth nearly £17m today. And there were many who received far more.
Academics from UCL, led by Dr Draper, spent three years drawing together 46,000 records of compensation given to British slave-owners into an internet database to be launched for public use on Wednesday. But he emphasised that the claims set to be unveiled were not just from rich families but included many "very ordinary men and women" and covered the entire spectrum of society.
Dr Draper added that the database's findings may have implications for the "reparations debate". Barbados is currently leading the way in calling for reparations from former colonial powers for the injustices suffered by slaves and their families.
Among those revealed to have benefited from slavery are ancestors of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, former minister Douglas Hogg, authors Graham Greene and George Orwell, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the new chairman of the Arts Council, Peter Bazalgette. Other prominent names which feature in the records include scions of one of the nation's oldest banking families, the Barings, and the second Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, an ancestor of the Queen's cousin. Some families used the money to invest in the railways and other aspects of the industrial revolution; others bought or maintained their country houses, and some used the money for philanthropy. George Orwell's great-grandfather, Charles Blair, received £4,442, equal to £3m today, for the 218 slaves he owned.
The British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their "property" when slave-ownership was abolished in Britain's colonies in 1833. This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent of the Treasury's annual spending budget and, in today's terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around £16.5bn.
A total of £10m went to slave-owning families in the Caribbean and Africa, while the other half went to absentee owners living in Britain. The biggest single payout went to James Blair (no relation to Orwell), an MP who had homes in Marylebone, central London, and Scotland. He was awarded £83,530, the equivalent of £65m today, for 1,598 slaves he owned on the plantation he had inherited in British Guyana.
But this amount was dwarfed by the amount paid to John Gladstone, the father of 19th-century prime minister William Gladstone. He received £106,769 (modern equivalent £83m) for the 2,508 slaves he owned across nine plantations. His son, who served as prime minister four times during his 60-year career, was heavily involved in his father's claim.
Mr Cameron, too, is revealed to have slave owners in his family background on his father's side. The compensation records show that General Sir James Duff, an army officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland during the late 1700s, was Mr Cameron's first cousin six times removed. Sir James, who was the son of one of Mr Cameron's great-grand-uncle's, the second Earl of Fife, was awarded £4,101, equal to more than £3m today, to compensate him for the 202 slaves he forfeited on the Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica.
Another illustrious political family that it appears still carries the name of a major slave owner is the Hogg dynasty, which includes the former cabinet minister Douglas Hogg. They are the descendants of Charles McGarel, a merchant who made a fortune from slave ownership. Between 1835 and 1837 he received £129,464, about £101m in today's terms, for the 2,489 slaves he owned. McGarel later went on to bring his younger brother-in-law Quintin Hogg into his hugely successful sugar firm, which still used indentured labour on plantations in British Guyana established under slavery. And it was Quintin's descendants that continued to keep the family name in the limelight, with both his son, Douglas McGarel Hogg, and his grandson, Quintin McGarel Hogg, becoming Lord Chancellor.
Dr Draper said: "Seeing the names of the slave-owners repeated in 20th‑century family naming practices is a very stark reminder about where those families saw their origins being from. In this case I'm thinking about the Hogg family. To have two Lord Chancellors in Britain in the 20th century bearing the name of a slave-owner from British Guyana, who went penniless to British Guyana, came back a very wealthy man and contributed to the formation of this political dynasty, which incorporated his name into their children in recognition – it seems to me to be an illuminating story and a potent example."
Mr Hogg refused to comment yesterday, saying he "didn't know anything about it". Mr Cameron declined to comment after a request was made to the No 10 press office.
Another demonstration of the extent to which slavery links stretch into modern Britain is Evelyn Bazalgette, the uncle of one of the giants of Victorian engineering, Sir Joseph Bazalgette and ancestor of Arts Council boss Sir Peter Bazalgette. He was paid £7,352 (£5.7m in today's money) for 420 slaves from two estates in Jamaica. Sir Peter said yesterday: "It had always been rumoured that his father had some interests in the Caribbean and I suspect Evelyn inherited that. So I heard rumours but this confirms it, and guess it's the sort of thing wealthy people on the make did in the 1800s. He could have put his money elsewhere but regrettably he put it in the Caribbean."
The TV chef Ainsley Harriott, who had slave-owners in his family on his grandfather's side, said yesterday he was shocked by the amount paid out by the government to the slave-owners. "You would think the government would have given at least some money to the freed slaves who need to find homes and start new lives," he said. "It seems a bit barbaric. It's like the rich protecting the rich."
The database is available from Wednesday at: ucl.ac.uk/lbs.
Cruel trade
Slavery on an industrial scale was a major source of the wealth of the British empire, being the exploitation upon which the West Indies sugar trade and cotton crop in North America was based. Those who made money from it were not only the slave-owners, but also the investors in those who transported Africans to enslavement. In the century to 1810, British ships carried about three million to a life of forced labour.
Campaigning against slavery began in the late 18th century as revulsion against the trade spread. This led, first, to the abolition of the trade in slaves, which came into law in 1808, and then, some 26 years later, to the Act of Parliament that would emancipate slaves. This legislation made provision for the staggering levels of compensation for slave-owners, but gave the former slaves not a penny in reparation.
More than that, it said that only children under six would be immediately free; the rest being regarded as "apprentices" who would, in exchange for free board and lodging, have to work for their "owners" 40 and a half hours for nothing until 1840. Several large disturbances meant that the deadline was brought forward and so, in 1838, 700,000 slaves in the West Indies, 40,000 in South Africa and 20,000 in Mauritius were finally liberated.
David Randall



http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-must-be-honest-about-our-role-in-slavery-8508357.html

DR NICK DRAPER Sunday 24 February 2013
We must be honest about our role in slavery
Britain's view of its involvement in slavery is that we abolished the slave trade and we abolished slavery, and that we were the first nation to do either of these things.If you ask almost anybody for free association around the words Britain and slavery, they'll tell you: "Wilberforce", "abolition" and then perhaps something about the Caribbean or Africa, and it will be in that order because that's what we've been brought up to think about. So what our work is doing is trying to re-inscribe slavery into Britain's history, rather than leaving the only connection between the two as abolition.We're not saying that Britain as a whole was created by slavery – that is not tenable as an argument. But we are saying that slavery had a material part to play in the formation of modern Britain.We are arguing that a significant minority of the aristocracy and business drew its wealth reasonably directly from slavery and slave ownership, but the objective of this work is not to point fingers at families or firms. It is instead to establish an empirical basis of knowledge common to all. Public perceptions will change only if pieces of work such as ours are done and then injected into the public domain.We're not going to transform people's view of British history, but we might contribute to a transformation that could take place over 10 or 15 years. It would be to move to a new consensus, which is that Britain was a major slave-trading and slave-owning power for more than 200 years and that that period significantly contributed, through industrialisation driven in part by the transfer of wealth from expropriation of enslaved people's labour, to the emergence of modern Britain.
Dr Nick Draper is research associate on the 'Legacies of British Slavery Ownership Project' at University College London

Friday, February 8, 2013

State of Heritage measured in $

Revolution through reading /saving the magnificent seven We as citizens who pass by the Magnificent Seven everyday; we have even have stopped noticing them, or their magnificence, because they conjure up only a lament – not just the painful past of colonialism, but the sad testimony of the state – or lack thereof, of our development; to disguise our pain that we have allowed them to deteriorate into oblivion. But are we not all responsible in some way for this – it’s not just someone elses’ fault. It has to start with what am I not doing?  Excerpt from speech at launch of LiTTscapes:
So ... giving us a chance to show what can be done if we open up these buildings to the public to capture the creative synergies they can exude, so our people can appreciate them as part of the public patrimony; as part of the inheritance of the blood, sweat and tears of history, and of our spirit of survivalism that neither slavery nor indentureship nor alien rule could defeat....

Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday : newsday.co.tt :

Millions to fix ‘Magnificent Nine’
By Miranda La Rose Thursday, February 7 2013
click on pic to zoom in
HUNDREDS of millions of dollars are needed to preserve the historical “Magnificent Nine” and other architectural heritage in Port-of-Spain, and a sustainable way has to be found for their restoration and maintenance.
Of particular interest, following Monday’s announcement by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Justice Anthony Carmona as the Government’s nominee to be this country’s fifth President, will be the repairs which need to be done on President’s House in St Ann’s.

Incumbent President George Maxwell Richards, who demits office on March 17, has lived in the nearby Presidential Cottage and not President’s House. Shortly after the People’s Partnership Government assumed office in May 2010, then Works and Transport (now National Security) Minister Jack Warner promised to repair President’s House so Richards might reside there before his term expired this year. Persad-Bissessar even offered the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s as a possible residence for Richards but the President declined that offer.

“This will have to involve Government, and private partnerships including the churches. The State alone, will not be able to bear the costs,” Minister of Tourism Stephen Cadiz said during a tour of the century-old Magnificent Nine buildings that faces the Queen’s Park Savannah (QPS) on last Wednesday.

“Restoration is not just only about tourism. It is about the country’s history and heritage. For too long we have overlooked that. We have allowed a number of heritage buildings - whether it was old residences, or, Government buildings like the Red House to go into a serious state of disrepair.” When the buildings are restored, Cadiz said, “they must be part of a museum infrastructure.”

Initially only seven of the buildings Stollmeyer’s House also known as “Killarney”, Whitehall, Archbishop’s House, Ambard’s House also called “Roomer”, Mille Fleurs also known as “Prada House”, Hayes Court and Queen’s Royal College were referred to as the “Magnificent Seven” of Port-of-Spain. In recent years the National Trust added the President’s House also found in the vicinity of the QPS and Red House — the official seat of Government in downtown Port–of-Spain to the list of magnificent buildings referring to the nine as the “Magnificent Nine of Port-of-Spain.”

With the exception of President’s House, originally known as Government House built in 1844, and Red House - the foundation of which was laid in 1844, the others were built in or around 1904. They are all European-designed with distinct works of art that include stained windows, imported materials including limestone, marble and wood from Barbados, Europe and Guyana blended with local materials that have braved the elements over the years.

While Knowsley Building, and Boissierre House (also called the Gingerbread House) are found in close proximity to the Magnificent Seven, and are not listed among the Magnificent Buildings, the National Trust has listed them as important architectural heritage. Knowsley building is State-owned and is one of the better kept buildings, however, Boissiere is privately-owned and is currently in a state of disrepair. According to the National Trust the first Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams’ grandmother, worked with the Boissiere family. The National Trust has identified a total of 341 heritage buildings countrywide for preservation.

Of the Magnificent Buildings, Cadiz said, “These are high maintenance buildings, designed and built since 1904. There is going to be constant work and funds required in keeping them up.”

At Queen’s Royal College, Principal Lennard Hinkson said that a unique way has been found to assist in the preservation of the oldest part of the school complex..

“The first formers were placed on the ground floor of this building deliberately,” he said, “because they are the most innocent and they will take care of it. The sixth formers are the most matured and they too will take care of it.” The forms in between are placed in newer parts of the school buildings.

Though the oldest block looks well kept, Hinkson said that it was in need of repairs.

“Sadly, my many letters and phone calls to the Ministry of Works,” he said have not been responded to.

Hayes Court is owned by the Anglican Church. It is the official residence of the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of TT, but Bishop Claude Berkeley does not live there because it is in a state of disrepair.

During the tour Berkeley appealed to the touring team (that included representatives from the Ministries of Tourism, Works, Arts and Multiculturalism, and the National Trust) to make representation on his behalf for assistance from the State to have Hayes Court restored to its former glory. In 2009, a structural survey revealed that some $25 million was needed for its restoration.

In the past, he said the church had been told that it was private property.

At present, Berkeley said that a dilapidation survey was being done to determine the priority needs, and a committee was in place seeking funds to begin restoration works. Berkeley has a home in Tobago and has to commute regularly to Trinidad. “We hope to correct that in the not too distant future to continue the work begun here over 200 hundred years ago,” he said.

Mille Fleurs is among the most dilapidated of the buildings around the QPS. “It has been left without repairs for too long,” Cadiz said noting that “Udecott (Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago) will conduct a structural survey of Mille Fleurs, then we will know what to do. It can be salvaged and in the short space of time we will see Mille Fleurs return to its original magnificence.”

Ambard’s House is privately-owned by the Roodals family and is also in dire need of repairs.

Stollmeyers Castle, now owned by the State is under repairs. Work began in March 2010 and is due for completion in March this year once funding is released on time Udecott officials on site told Newsday. Once restoration is complete it will be handed over to the Ministry of Works.

Tenders to contractors for the restoration of the nearby Whitehall, first official office of Prime Minister Eric Williams are due for advertising during the first quarter of this year. Some work had been done on it in recent years, but according to a Udecott official that work “was compromised.”

The Archbishop’s House, residence of the Head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of TT, is fairly well kept. In 1968, $147,000 was raised to carry out major repairs on the buildings. It is currently the home of Archbishop Joseph Harris.

The President’s House is also due for restorative works. In May 2010 a section of the roof of the President’s House caved in 2010. During this fiscal year’s budget debate in October 2012, Works Minister Emmanuel George announced that funding was allocated for the repairs to the President’s residence. Construction is yet to begin.

Applauding the tour, Michelle Celestine, spokesperson of Save the Magnificent Seven, a sub-group of the Citizens for Conservation (CC) told Newsday it was time that Government pay some interest in the buildings. “Government after government have sat by and let them fall into disrepair. It is a disgrace that in (TT) we have tourists seeing the buildings - works of art and beauty, constructed by skilled nationals, falling apart.”

Once restored, she said, “they could be put to meaningful purposes, as art galleries, and museums. They will create jobs and places of interest in our capital city.” 

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