Some months back, we attended a fascinating webinar where Professor Sir Hilary Beckles talked about the role that British universities played in the slave trade. We took notes, and below we paste them unabridged. If you’re as interested in the subject as we are, we recommend reading more of Beckles’ work, and we’d be happy to recommend more books on the topic if you get in touch.
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
Dave Thomas
Toni Williams
- New book: how Britain underdeveloped the Caribbean – a reparations response
- Felt at home in Birmingham because of the cultural familiarity and the warmness of colonisation
- Did a thesis of white working class on plantations in Caribbean.
- ‘Black guy with female name studying white people!’
- Barbados was Britain’s first major colony. Britain found it empty but with lots of houses. The Spanish and Portuguese had emptied it. Britain started it afresh
- Europeans were called Christians, not white. It was Barbados Africans that first used the term ‘white’.
- 1661 constitution of Barbados was the first slave constitution – black people were property and non-human. This Barbados model was then applied elsewhere.
- British ended medieval approaches such as treating workers with respect. Portuguese and Spanish treated blacks as Christians and let them live with their families etc.
Impact of universities
- John Locke (Oxford) started things – was at the centre of the Barbados project. Locke was the secretary of the corporate slavery entity and wrote the constitution and was a slave owner himself. Concepts like freedom not applicable to Africans. He brought the wit of academia to help the state. There was a lot of criticism even in academia, but Locke’s argument was that it was in the national interest. So, slavery proliferated
- Adam Smith (Glasgow). Jamaica was the prize of the empire in the 18th century. But ROI started to fall as Spanish and Dutch came back in. This is after 150 years of big profits to the English. That’s a lot of time to be doing something – a lot of doing. When ROI fell, Britain reconsidered whether slavery was worth it. Adam smith suggested moving on, and suggested an alternative model: what if we convert slaves into wage labourers? Worked out it would be cheaper because you didn’t have to clothe them and feed them etc, so make more profits. Smith the economist didn’t care about the welfare of the black people, he cared about profitability. Pure capitalism. So the slave owners came back with a suggestion of reform, to reduce costs and therefore avoid abolishing slavery. Main way to reduce costs was to detach the colonies from the slave trade – price of auctioned Africans in the Caribbean was much higher. So suggested breeding of the slaves and improving conditions so they survived longer. Incentivise women to have babies. Free women if they had 7 babies. Slave owners won the debate with Smith, and slavery ensued for another 100 years
- Debate around emancipation. All universities involved in the discussion. Glasgow voted for freedom but meanwhile raked in the profits from slavery through their endowment.
- The emancipation act was the most racist act in the history of Britain. Firstly tried to dodge that it was British. Then compensated slave owners with property compensation, which meant that the 600,000 black people had to be deemed property. So the act starts with that provision – that black people were property
- It’s the parliamentary subcommittees that run the numbers that then lead to the decision. The debate in the commons is just rhetoric for entertainment. So the universities calculated a sum of 45m. So they needed to find the money – borrowed 20m from the Rothschilds. The other 25m will be worked off in kind by the ex-slaves for free for another 6 years. So the enslaved people paid more for their freedom than did the British state
- 1836 London slave owners decided to fund the university of London. Black free people wanted to go back to Africa. But Britain said no – you’re free but not free to go. Robert Carlisle – in a discourse on the N* question – said that freeing the slaves was a massive mistake, slavery was a learning curve for black people. Carlisle first articulated this but Anthony Froude (Oxford) brought it up to the highest levels. The Bow of Ulysses – deny them land.
- JJ Thomas – Froudacity, the myths and fables of an English scholar. He was the beginning of the discourse of the slaves and ex slaves writing back and creating a new framework. He said that it was Froude that was responsible for the massacre of Jamaicans during the famine. British sent army to kill 400 ex slaves who planted food on abandoned farmland. He said how is it that Britain – the centre of democracy – is hanging people in the Caribbean. Britain is either blindly racist or schizophrenic. Liberal at home but fascist abroad
- Final phase. 2007 Britain is celebrating its abolition of its slave trade 200 years prior.
- Universities invested in apartheid from the 40s. Wilberforce would have been turning in his grave to know that his uni was investing in apartheid.
- Wilberforce WISE project. What if it was WISE + reparation, therefore WISER. So Sir Hilary distanced himself from WISE because it couldn’t imagine in all its wisdom being wiser.
- Then Glasgow finally accepted that they would invest in a partnership with Uni of West Indies. Investing in health research, because of ongoing effects.
- Now, Barbados and Jamaica competing for the prize of most hypertension and diabetes and BP. Because of sugar diet – grow what you eat and eat what you grow.
- Asked Bristol Uni to consider its legacy, four months before the statue in Bristol was torn down. Asked the same question to Oxford. Ironically same in Uni of West Indies with Milner Hall, now named Freedom Hall
- 21st century Uni has to be a site of enlightenment, must undo what has been done.
- 10 years ago, digging foundations for a new campus in Jamaica, found a mass grave. Now that plantation is a site of education. What about us? Those who are buried beneath our feet.
- Chinua Achebe – until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter
- What about African leaders? Royal African company was a military and commercial enterprise. African leaders were partners yes but they couldn’t put up much of a fight. Think of cartels vs government, and agents/partners/dealers in the U.K that are working in cooperation with the narcotics companies. Some small govts or groups of people complied either to survive or to profit.
- Question: if you were the head of reparations, what would be your three point priority plan? Objective of repair is to prepare for the future. To prepare you have to repair. Don’t brush it under carpet or ignore it. Start with the psychological aspect – start with an apology. Then deal with poverty – slavery was a massive process of wealth extraction, 200 years of free labour. Some actuaries calculated about £7tn in total. Clean slums, fix illiteracy, health issues. Then build institutions such as schools etc. to build a structure for the future.
To the pound 