For 200 years or more, Quakers were involved in the enslavement of Africans, whether directly as owners of enslaved people, as in Barbados, or as ship owners, arms manufacturers and bankers. Quakers were also involved in other industries dependent on goods produced by enslaved people – cotton, cocoa, tobacco, even if only as retailers. Whilst actively campaigning to abolish slavery and the slave trade, not all Quakers boycotted these products in their personal lives. And today, do not Quakers enjoy visiting galleries, libraries, museums and historic houses established with profits earned from the slave trade?
David Olusoga (historian, broadcaster, Professor of Public History at Manchester University) wrote “If we can inherit wealth and benefit over centuries from compound interest, do we not equally inherit responsibility?” He has also pointed out that legacies of chattel slavery exist today – the inequality between those who benefitted from chattel slavery and those who have suffered economically down the years; and a hierarchy of race and racial stereotypes that persist today, invented and propagated by slave owners.
Some organisations have addressed their historical involvement with the slave trade. The founder of pub chain Greene King owned several plantations in the Caribbean and was compensated in the 1830s. In 2020 the company publically acknowledged this and partnered with the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool to educate their staff in this history. The company has also diversified its hiring practices and changed some pub names with racist connotations. Glasgow University has funded a research centre with the University of the West Indies to address public health issues, search for economic growth policies and establish a Masters programme in Reparatory Justice. Germantown Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia was historically involved with early protests against slavery, asking their Monthly Meeting in1688 about the acceptability of Quakers engaging in slavery. In 2022, Germantown Quakers pledged to give $500,000 in reparations to their Black neighbours over a 10 year period. In the first year, $50,000 was allocated to legal and real estate costs, to help address problems of land titles, will and deed transfers.
Positive though these actions undoubtedly are, many are random, isolated events, and others are sometimes uncontentious and lacking ambition. Some show a lack of understanding of what is actually required and commentators have suggested that true reparative justice must be government lead.
The Caribbean Community Reparations Commission (CRC) asserts that European governments were owners and traders of enslaved Africans and created the legal, financial and fiscal policies necessary to facilitate this. When the slave trade was finally abolished, it was the slave owners who were compensated. These actions laid the foundations of racial apartheid and more than a century of economic poverty.
The CRC has drafted a Ten Point Plan that will lead to reparatory justice for the descendants of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. The list starts with a demand for “a sincere, formal apology by the governments of Europe” and includes points relating to public health, education, and technology transfer and debt cancellation. The high incidence of chronic diseases and illiteracy among the African-descended population both need the investment of capital and expertise. The Industrial Revolution was never extended to the Caribbean so investment is needed now to give the population access to current scientific and technological developments.
Do Quakers today recognise the idea of historical responsibility and complicity? It may be easy for us to say “Oh yes, European governments should apologise and provide finance and support to Caribbean countries!” Can we, however say that Britain Yearly Meeting should be making serious reparations in Barbados for the damage caused by the thousands of Quakers 400 years ago, most of whom were owners of enslaved people?
And finally - in 1833 the British government paid slave owners £20m in compensation (£166bn today) using a Bank of England loan. This loan was finally paid off in 2015, paid for by British taxpayers including, from the late 1940s, members of the Windrush generation and their descendants.