Frank Phipps | Slavery like none other

Many Jamaicans are turned off from supporting the reparation movement by the contrived self-serving message that slavery, as we know it in the Caribbean, would not have been possible without the participation of black Africans with the enslavers from Europe, accepting the propaganda not knowing what slavery in Africa was.

Before setting the record straight, I must first declare that I am member of the Legal Committee of the Jamaican National Council on Reparation (NCR) that is pursuing a claim against enslavers for reparation, and any pain in my foot is not from a self-inflicted firearm injury. The NCR will, no doubt, speak for itself.

Slavery in the Caribbean was chattel slavery that dehumanised individuals and treated them like any other industrial machinery on the plantations. These were people who were forcibly taken from their respective homes and family in Africa, thrown together with others of different language, religion and culture, undiscriminating for status and transported across the Atlantic Ocean in horrible conditions on slave ships, in bulk like cargo for sale in a strange land. On the plantations, they worked under the whip for obedience, with death as the only hope for relief from their misery. This was not like slavery in Africa.

The Encyclopaedia of Jamaican Heritage (O. Senior, 2003) reports the first Africans to arrive came in 1513 from the Iberian Peninsula after having been taken from West Africa by the Spanish and the Portuguese as servants, cowboys, herders of cattle, pigs and horses, as well as hunters.

The records of Port Cities for Bristol show the lowest estimate for the transatlantic slave trade to be about 20 million people, of which 10.7 million survived to disembark in North America, the Caribbean and South America. There was a hell of a transformation of the Africans who arrived on the other side of the Atlantic - degraded and humiliated, with ethnicity as the qualification for enslavement.

Slavery existed in Africa, but it was not the same type of slavery that the Europeans introduced. The European form was called chattel slavery. A chattel slave is a piece of property, with no rights. Slavery within Africa was different.

COMPENSATION FOR WORK DONE

Historically, many civilisations in Africa practised enslavement, which took different forms in different places. Enslavement in African societies might have involved criminals, prisoners of war and debtors - and it did not necessarily involve ill-treatment, nor even hard labour, but the loss of freedom.

People who were unable to feed themselves in times of famine might have voluntarily agreed to become enslaved in return for food. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who wrote an account of his life, noted that slaves might even own slaves themselves. In larger states, some slaves worked in government administration, and might become an important state or royal official with wide-ranging powers.

Africans usually enslaved 'other' people, not their own particular ethnic, or cultural, group. As the demand from outsiders such as Arabs and Europeans grew, warfare and raids to get slaves and the kidnapping of individuals increased. Europeans wanted to buy enslaved Africans to work on the land they owned on the Caribbean islands and in America. Against that background, there are some critics who would encourage Jamaicans to forget their history, just as David Cameron would have us, ignoring the caution.

On the issue of compensation for the enslavement of Jamaicans, it would not be too much to demand an apology from Britain for the crime against humanity. The Anglican Church, where Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, is the supreme governor, at synod in 2006 issued a fulsome apology for involvement in slavery. The plantation owners were compensated by the British government for the loss of property when slavery was abolished, but there was nothing for the enslaved people, not even a return ticket to home and freedom, or compensation for work done.

Chattel slavery with free labour helped to finance the Industrial Revolution and the phenomenal wealth of Britain. The Caribbean islands became the hub of the British Empire and its most valuable colonies. These islands today may be said to be in a state of persistent poverty.

It would not be too much to demand a programme for the offender and the victims of enslavement working together to find ways to compensate victims, ease the conscience of the offender, and provide what is in the best interest of these islands - it is called reparatory justice. Otherwise, we will be on a fast boat to China.

- Frank Phipps, QC, is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.