Family of Fmr British PM to visit Guyana to apologise for slavery & pay reparations
John Gladstone was the father of four-time British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone.
According to reports from BBC News, six of former PM Gladstone’s descendants will travel to Guyana as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of the 1823 rebellion in Demerara, a British colony that later became part of Guyana.
The report added that a joint statement by descendants said they believed the former PM’s actions during slavery amounted to "a crime against humanity" and that they hoped to “make a better future.”
“The Gladstone family plan to make their official apology at the opening of the University of Guyana's International Institute for Migration and Diaspora Studies, which it said it hopes to help fund with a grant of £100,000,” BBC detailed.
"For us, this isn't just about money though. It is about acknowledging that slavery still has a massive impact on many people's health and wider socio-economic status across the world," the family’s statement said.
Family to pay reparations
In collaboration with the National Reparations Committee and Heirs of Slavery, a group that includes the Gladstones will be present when the International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies is slated to be launched on Friday, August 25, 2023, in the George Walcott Lecture Theatre of the Turkeyen Campus, in Georgetown, Guyana, from 8:30 AM to 11 AM.
The University and Reparations Committee say they have specially invited and continued to invite several elders, the Guyana Reparations Committee and other groups, students and senior potentates to witness receive the formal apology at the short formal ceremony, UG says.
The UK Guardian newspaper reported that in addition to making an official apology for John Gladstone’s ownership of Africans, the Gladstones' descendants have agreed to pay reparations to fund further research into the impact of slavery.
The Gladstone family said they intend to fund the University of Guyana’s International Institute for Migration and Diaspora Studies with a grant of £100,000.
The Guardian reported that John Gladstone was the fifth-largest beneficiary of the £20 million fund (about £16 billion today) set aside by the British government to compensate planters when the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833.
Leaders in the [British] Virgin Islands have also called for reparations for slavery.
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41 Responses to “Family of Fmr British PM to visit Guyana to apologise for slavery & pay reparations”
Do you know why because everyone will have the same thing as the next person. If you don't have something and I have it I can just give it to you because we're brother and sister so we share and trade to get by. You all don't understand how this world the Almighty Creator gave us is supposed to run. We're supposed to live stress free. Do you see the Bible for filling in front of you with all those fire world wide. Of course this devil puppets is going to start fire to kill children and adults just like the Bible says Wow. The government is the ones killing the people. People will burn in this great reset Mark my words. Everything is electric nothing and of course they can hack into it and start a fire. You all want a smart meter of course they got you. You want technology because you lazy to do thing on your own of course it can catch on fire. Look up fires world wide. You will see what part of revelation we're in. I am dead on point so you need to catch up to me with my knowledge, which is the key to survive this Earth
from Africa on slave ships to vacation here in the BVI.
Moreover, some slave owners descendants give the excuse that they should not be paying reparations to the descendants of slave, for they didn’t 1)own any slave, b) slavery was long ago, c) they should not be held liable for the sins, atrocities, etc, of their foreparents..Well, that dog is not going to hunt or canary fly this guava crop. Simple question, have you benefited and still benefiting from slave labor? Yes, you have and benefiting to this day. How so?
Slavery, exploiting and expropriating slave labour built the UK’s economy. Additionally, it structured a system whereby Whites the dominant class deemed themselves as the upperclass with special unearned privileges, entitlements, and racially superiority. They structured the system where they acquired almost 100% of the wealth, power, control, resources, the levers of government, justice system, educational system, medical system , housing, economic system, social safety nets, etc. On the other hand, Blacks were cast as subhuman (equivalent to field animals), permanent underclass, an out group, a non-competitive labour force, etc. Moreover blacks are labeled as being fully and completely responsible for their deplorable conditions, for they failed through their corrupt and warped attitude and behaviours to take advantage of available opportunities. Hogwash. The Lion share of Blacks deplorable status resulted from White dominant status and controlling actions.
Further, everyone but slave descendants benefitted from the fruits of slave labour. To date, descendants have not even gotten a simple apology for slavery,,the dehumanization, exploitation, rape, brutality, murder, etc., of their forebears. Time is long past for a) an apology from the Crown, and Parliament, and b) reparations. Here is a news flash. In spite of the common belief,,reparations is not only about a cash handout but also about a) national economic development, b) education and training investment (slaves were deliberately kept ignorant by preventing their learning how to read , write,,and do basic math. It was planned ignorance ), c) debt forgiveness, d) developing infrastructure, e)developing health system, etc. The British government authorized and appropriated the borrowing of £20, 000,000 under the 1833 Abolition Act to pay approx 3,000 Slave owners for the lost of their chattel property( people)—-UCL ( University College of London). If the British government borrowed money to pay slave owners, why not do the same for slave descendants?? Is it racial ?? Incidentally, the £20, 000,000 was paid off in 2015, which meant that some Black Britons were paying taxes to pay for a loan that paid slave owners who may have owned their forebears. How ironic!!
it takes a seller and a buyer to make a trade...not just the buyer is at fault
then please tell me what they ( forebears) would have wanted when they sold kin folk into slavery...i i am not saying that the buyers are not to blame, nor that reparation should not be sought from the traders.. what i am saying is that it is always conveniently forgotten or frowned upon when discusses, that black people in Africa were sold to traders by their own kin...but everyone goes after the white traders and no mention is ever made of the black traders who sold their own into lives of misery abuse starvation and death...all for their own selfish gain
Moreover, the Crown and Parliament who legally sanctioned the slave trade, slavery and colonialism (Manjack) should be held liable for both apologies and reparations. Was it not slave labour that pulled Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries out of a deep depression, disease, feudalism, etc?? Did not Britain borrowed £20M to pay slave owners? Why did they not go the tribal leaders for the filthy lucre?
do eat / drink / sleeping and dream about racism ? All you do is spew our evilness , you need spiritual healing - you are in a fantasy world
Fake attention.
So, when he apologized, what will change? NOTHING.. not a darn thing because the "white man" still enslaving the back. The Indians still have racism against black Gayanies in Guyana.
but hang in a minute.. one of the bloggers above made the comment that.....so what..pay 100,000 and it all goes away..?
extend that to this thought. if uk paided out 100,000,000...would that actually change anything ?? of course it wouldnt. all it would mean us that those who actually receive some of that money ( and how that gets worked out who the heck knows) are simple hypocrites...benefiting financially from the pain and tragedy of black people who were sold out of Africa and enslaved..it doesnt make it right that black people would be being essentially paid off by way of reparation.........better the hundreds of millions of reparations $$ be used to build universities or schools or housing in honour of those who gave their lives hoping for a better future