All posts tagged: Slavery

Portugal Must ‘Pay Costs’ of Slavery and Colonial Crimes, President Says

Portugal Must ‘Pay Costs’ of Slavery and Colonial Crimes, President Says

Published by skeptic

LISBON (Reuters) – President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said late on Tuesday that Portugal was responsible for crimes committed during transatlantic slavery and the colonial era, and suggested there was a need for reparations. For over four centuries, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported long distances by mainly European ships and merchants, and sold into slavery. Those who survived the voyage ended up toiling on plantations in the Americas, mostly in Brazil and the Caribbean, while others profited from their labour. Portugal trafficked nearly 6 million Africans, more than any other European nation, but has failed so far to confront its past and little is taught about its role in transatlantic slavery in schools. Instead, Portugal’s colonial era, during which countries including Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde and East Timor as well as parts of India were subjected to Portuguese rule, is often perceived as a source of pride. Photos You Should See – April 2024 Speaking at an event with foreign correspondents late on Tuesday, Rebelo de Sousa said Portugal “takes …

With her comments on slavery, Kemi Badenoch shows a poor grasp of history | Kemi Badenoch

With her comments on slavery, Kemi Badenoch shows a poor grasp of history | Kemi Badenoch

Published by skeptic

Your article quotes the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, claiming that the UK’s wealth “was not due to colonial history or racial privilege” (Kemi Badenoch: ‘UK’s wealth isn’t from white privilege and colonialism’, 18 April) Ms Badenoch is misinformed, and if she was interested in the local history of the place where she was born, Wimbledon in London, she would know that it was the centre of Britain’s initial involvement in the slave trade, from which that locality and Britain gained huge wealth. Wimbledon’s oldest and most costly house, the Old Rectory (a stone’s throw from the All England Lawn Tennis Club), was the home of William Cecil, the secretary of state and lord treasurer to Elizabeth I. It was Cecil who persuaded Elizabeth I to provide the first British ship to participate in the slave trade. The ship, part of the British navy, was called the Jesus of Lubeck and was captained by the slave trader and pirate John Hawkins. Both Elizabeth I and Cecil funded Britain’s and Hawkins’ first slaving trips in the 1560s. Peter …

‘I’m not afraid of anybody now’: the woman who revealed links between National Trust houses and slavery – and was vilified | Colonialism

‘I’m not afraid of anybody now’: the woman who revealed links between National Trust houses and slavery – and was vilified | Colonialism

Published by skeptic

Standing outside Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the drizzle, Prof Corinne Fowler seems a very unlikely looking fire starter. But that is exactly how anonymously apoplectic defenders of crown and country have tended to view her. Fowler was, in 2020, the co-author of a report into the colonial history of properties belonging to the National Trust. After which, as they say in the tabloids, all hell broke loose. At the moment her report was published, culture war arguments about the country’s past were already primed. The statue of the slave-trading philanthropist Edward Colston had lately been toppled into Bristol harbour; Black Lives Matter marches had brought an end to lockdown; footballers were taking the knee. For some on the right, Fowler’s report became (yet another) lightning rod for their anger. Most of the academic research in that report was already in the peer-reviewed public domain. Still, the professor was characterised in the Telegraph as being “at war with the past”. Nigel Farage accused her of “trashing” our nation (his own special subject). A group of 59 Conservative …

Tory MP from slave-owning family set to gain £3m from sale of former plantation | Slavery

Tory MP from slave-owning family set to gain £3m from sale of former plantation | Slavery

Published by skeptic

The Conservative MP under fire for his ancestors’ role in Caribbean slavery is in line for a multimillion-pound payout from the Barbados government. Despite threats to make Richard Drax pay reparations and seize his family’s plantation – described by one historian as a “killing field” of enslaved Africans – the government is now planning to pay market value for 21 hectares (about 15 football pitches) of his land for housing. The move has angered many Barbadians, especially those who say the Drax family played a pivotal role in the development of slavery-based sugar production and the Barbados slave code in the 17th century. This denied Black Africans basic human rights, including the right to life. Critics have called the planned deal an “atrocity” and said this is “one plantation that the government should not be paying a cent for”. Trevor Prescod, MP and chair of the Barbados National Taskforce on Reparations, said: “What a bad example this is. Reparations and Drax Hall are now top of the global agenda. How do we explain this to …

Guardian wins award for exposé of founders’ links to transatlantic slavery | The Guardian

Guardian wins award for exposé of founders’ links to transatlantic slavery | The Guardian

Published by skeptic

The Guardian has won a diversity award at the prestigious Press Awards after its exposé on its founders’ links to transatlantic slavery, while one of its reporters took home the award for news reporter of the year. Judges at the Press Awards called the Guardian’s cross-platform Cotton Capital series, encompassing news articles, long-form essays, podcasts, video, a magazine, a 15-part newsletter and social media content, a “breathtakingly honest mea culpa”. They added that it was “a hugely thoughtful and comprehensive project that provides a groundbreaking example of how an organisation addresses historical links to slavery”. At Thursday evening’s awards ceremony at the Marriott in London’s Grosvenor Square, David Conn won news reporter of the year, Anna Isaac was named business and finance journalist of the year and Tom Jenkins took sports photographer of the year. The judges said Conn demonstrated “stamina, tenacity and courage” in his two-year battle to reveal how the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her children received £29m as a result of a lucrative contract awarded to PPE Medpro, a company she …

From low-level drug dealer to human trafficker: are modern slavery laws catching the wrong people? | UK criminal justice

From low-level drug dealer to human trafficker: are modern slavery laws catching the wrong people? | UK criminal justice

Published by skeptic

Glodi Wabelua. Photographed in London by David Levene 23/1/24 Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian When armed police burst through his front door in Tottenham, north London, at 5am in September 2014, Glodi Wabelua knew things looked bad. The house was full of drug paraphernalia, including a hydraulic press, scales and mixing bowls, as well as a mobile phone full of incriminating texts advertising deals for crack cocaine and heroin. The case went to trial in February 2016, and Wabelua’s two co-defendants – who, like him, were aged 20 – received 10- and 11-year sentences. Wabelua, who had lodged an early guilty plea a year before, was handed six years for dealing class A drugs. He was not new to the criminal justice system, having already served three years for drug offences in his teens. But soon he would be charged with an even more serious crime. The dawn raid had been the result of a months-long investigation by the Metropolitan police gang unit. In spring 2014, five teenagers from London had been picked up by police …

Modern slavery helpline receives record number of calls in 2023, report finds | UK News

Modern slavery helpline receives record number of calls in 2023, report finds | UK News

Published by skeptic

Calls made to an anti-slavery helpline have reached a record high, with the number of potential victims in the care sector rising by almost a third. According to anti-slavery charity Unseen, the number of calls to the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline in 2023 increased by more than 19%, up from 9,779 in 2022 to 11,700 last year. Labour abuse remained the main form of exploitation up by 11% from 464 cases in 2022 to 516 in 2023. Potential victims indicated in the care sector went up by 30% from 708 in 2022 to 918. There was also a 21% increase in potential victims of criminal exploitation to 385 in 2023. Read more on Sky News:Almost one million renters given no-fault evictions since Tories promised to scrap themHow would a smoking ban work? Justine Carter, director of Unseen and co-author of the report, said: “Modern slavery and exploitation are heinous crimes that have no place in a modern, progressive UK that cares about human rights. “It is encouraging that we are continuing to see rising …

Gallery slammed for saying art-dealer made money from slavery | UK | News

Gallery slammed for saying art-dealer made money from slavery | UK | News

Published by skeptic

The National Portrait Gallery has been slammed after it wrongly claimed an art dealer launched his career using money from slavery. The gallery said Edward Fox White launched his career from a compensation payout his father-in-law received for freeing slaves. It said the cash helped “establish and sustain” his career. Curators at the London attraction had now been forced to admit there was “no evidence” for the link after it was picked up by Donald Gajadhar, White’s great-great-grandson. The caption has now had any mentions of slavery removed. Gajadhar is however asked for a public retraction of the comment. “The claim simply isn’t true,” he told The Telegraph. “They had no evidence that his father-in-law, Moses Gomes Silva, gave him any money from his slave compensation. “It seems to me that it was put there to tick some boxes, but that’s not right, they should have done their due diligence.” The oil painting, from French artist James Tissot, was sold by Gajadhar’s grandmother to Christie’s in 1988 and is currently on loan to the National …

‘Hidden in plain sight’: the European city tours of slavery and colonialism | Slavery

‘Hidden in plain sight’: the European city tours of slavery and colonialism | Slavery

Published by skeptic

Dodging between throngs of tourists and workers on their lunch breaks in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol plaza, we stop in front of the nearly 3-tonne statue depicting King Carlos III on a horse. Playfully nicknamed Madrid’s best mayor, Carlos III is credited with modernising the city’s lighting, sewage systems and rubbish removal. Statue of King Carlos III in Puerta del Sol plaza. Photograph: AfroIbérica Tours Kwame Ondo, the tour guide behind AfroIbérica Tours, offers up another, albeit lesser-known tidbit about the monarch. “He was one of the biggest slave owners of his time,” says Ondo, citing the 1,500 enslaved people he kept on the Iberian peninsula and the 18,500 others held in Spain’s colonies in the Americas. As aristocratic families sought to keep up with the monarch, the proportion of enslaved people in Madrid swelled to an estimated 4% of the population in the 1780s. It is a nod to the kind of conversation – one often neglected or wilfully ignored across the continent – that Ondo and his counterparts in Europe are steadily wedging …