1. MURPHY BROWNE (Abena Agbetu) Copyright by Murphy Browne And
if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee,
and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let
him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from
thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him
liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy
winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee
thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a
bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee:
therefore I command thee this thing today. From Deuteronomy Chapter
15, verses 12 to 15 On Thursday, April 9, 2015 the Reverend Jessie
Jackson quoted the above scripture as part of his keynote speech in
support of Reparations. Jackson was the keynote speaker at the
recent National/International Reparations Summit in New York City.
The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) a leading
research, policy and advocacy group hosted the
National/International Reparations Summit in New York City from
April 9 to12. The IBW which has offices in New York and Baltimore
emerged as an outgrowth of the State of the Black World Conference
which attracted some 2,500 African American scholars, activists,
organizers and concerned individuals to Atlanta in 2001. The
attendees of the Summit included the descendants of enslaved
Africans from Central, North and South America, the Caribbean and
Europe. According to the final press release from the IBW, the goal
of the Summit was: a clear determination to strengthen the global
movement to finish the continuous, heroic struggle of Africans on
the continent and people of African descent everywhere for
reparations to repair the damages inflicted on our peoples by
genocide and enslavement at the hands of European colonial and
slave-holding nations. This 21st century organizing is the latest
effort by the descendants of enslaved Africans to claim reparations
for the hundreds of years when African labour was exploited by and
enriched Europeans. Ironically when slavery was abolished the slave
holders were paid reparations for losing their property and the
Africans were forced to work to ensure the White people who owned
them received reparations from the British and other European
governments. The British slave holders received 20 million pounds
from the British treasury. Every White man and woman who had
enslaved Africans and made a claim for compensation listed the
African men, women and children that they owned and were
compensated for their loss. The listed names of those slave owners
who received compensation for the loss of their property exists in
archives in Britain. In the 2010 published The Price of
Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at
the End of Slavery White British historian Nicholas Draper using
information from the records of the Commissioners of Slave
Compensation has listed the names of the people who owned Africans
and received compensation for losing their slaves. The places where
these slaveholders held Africans in slavery includes Antigua,
Barbados, British Guiana, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Nevis, St.
Kitts, St. Vincent and Trinidad. Although slavery in Britain was
not as prolific as in the British colonies, many of the White men
and women who lived in Britain were absentee plantation owners and
enjoyed enormously financial benefits from the unpaid, coerced
labour of enslaved Africans who toiled on plantations in the
Caribbean and in Central, North and South America. A description of
the information in The Price of Emancipation states: When colonial
slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid 20
million to slave-owners as compensation: the enslaved received
nothing. Drawing on the records of the Commissioners of Slave
Compensation, which represent a complete census of slave-
ownership, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the
extent and importance of absentee slave-ownership and its impact on
British society. Moving away from the historiographical tradition
of isolated case studies, it reveals the extent of slave-ownership
among metropolitan elites, and identifies concentrations of both
rentier and mercantile slave-holders, tracing their influence in
local and national politics, in business and in institutions such
as the Church. In analysing this permeation of British society by
slave-owners and their success in securing compensation from the
state, the book challenges conventional narratives of abolitionist
Britain and provides a fresh perspective
2. of British society and politics on the eve of the Victorian
era. Much of the wealth in the British treasury was accumulated
from the unpaid, coerced labour of generations of enslaved
Africans. At the summit we were reminded that the 4 to 6 year
apprenticeship that was imposed on enslaved Africans following the
August 1, 1834 emancipation was a ruse to ensure the continued
exploitation of African labour by White people. Slavery was
abolished on August 1, 1834 with the stipulation that the Africans
who were field slaves would continue working for a further 6 years
without pay for their White owners and the domestic slaves continue
for another 4 years under the same conditions. Emancipated in name
only on August 1, 1834, the Africans were forced to remain on the
plantations where they had been enslaved and work as apprentices
until the White plantation owners had been paid reparations with
the labour of the Africans. The 6 year apprenticeship for field
workers did not materialise because the Africans protested in every
British colony where the apprenticeship system had been established
and on August 1, 1838 the British were forced to end the
apprenticeship system. A similar situation obtained in Suriname,
South America where the Dutch ended slavery on July 1, 1863 but the
Africans were forced to continue working on the plantations where
they had been enslaved for a further 10 years before they were
finally free to leave in 1873. White people who enslaved Africans
were compensated for the loss of their property when slavery was
abolished but the enslaved Africans did not receive compensation
for their labour while they were enslaved or after they were
emancipated. The enslavement of Africans, underdevelopment of the
African continent and genocide of Africans during the horrifying
Maafa has not been addressed by any of the European governments and
White people who continue to reap the benefits of the wealth that
was accumulated during those hundreds of years. The gathering in
New York City honoured some pioneers of the Reparations movement
including African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. who in
January of 1989 introduced the bill H.R. 40 the Commission to Study
Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act
(http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm/reparations) He has
re-introduced HR 40 at every Congress since 1989 with no support
from Republicans or his fellow Democrats. The question of
Reparations for Africans in America has occupied the minds of
African Americans since the emancipation of enslaved Africans.
Almost a century before Conyers introduced HR 40 in Congress an
African American woman Callie House (1861-1928) born 4 years before
slavery was abolished in the USA is credited with organizing the
first Reparations movement in the USA in 1894 when she co-founded
the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension
Association. In her 2005 published book My Face Is Black Is True:
Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations African
American history professor Dr. Mary Frances Berry describes House
and the early Reparations movement: An African-American laundress
from Tennessee, she became the leader of a turn-of-
the-twentieth-century poor people's movement that sought pensions
from the federal government as compensation for slavery. Her
movement, federal officials concluded, is setting the negroes wild.
They thought that if they did not stop her, when African Americans
understood that the government would never grant pensions, the
nation would have some very serious questions to settle in
connection with the control of the race. Consequently, the
government harassed Callie House for exercising her constitutional
right to petition the government and to mobilize others in the
cause. When she would not relent, calling her "defiant," the Post
Office Department and the Pension Bureau redoubled their efforts to
smear and confine her. Her organization was the first mass
reparations movement led by African Americans. Similar tactics were
used to destroy the Universal Negro Improvement Association &
African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) founded by the Honourable
Marcus Mosiah Garvey who was also railroaded into a prison cell.
The government of the USA seems to have a history of seeking and
destroying any African American who tries to lead their people to a
state of self-sufficiency. In her 2007 published book Dreams of
Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the
Last Africans Brought to America African American historian
Sylviane Diouf includes proof that African American abolitionist
Frederick Douglass supported the Reparations movement with
3. this quote: The nation as a nation has sinned against the
Negro. It robbed him of the rewards of his labor during more than
two hundred years, and its repentance will not be genuine and
complete till, according to the measure of its ability, it shall
make restitution. It can never fully atone for the wrong done to
the millions who have lived and died under the galling yoke of
bondage, but it can, if it will, do justice and mercy to the
living." Most White Americans pride themselves on being devout
Christians, boast of their nations Christian foundation yet ignore
the Bible instruction in Deuteronomy Chapter 15, verses 13 and 14
that bondspeople should be compensated when freed: And when thou
sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away
empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out
of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD
thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. The European
nations that enslaved Africans also claim to be Christians yet the
Dutch behaved in a very unChristianlike manner when they committed
one of the most horrific murders of African men, women and children
on January 1, 1738, when the captain and crew of the Leusden owned
by the Dutch West India Company locked 680 African men, women and
children below deck and abandoned ship leaving the Africans to
drown as the ship sank during a storm off Suriname. The Dutch
outdid the barbarity of the British captain of the Zong who on his
way to Jamaica ordered 132 Africans thrown overboard to drown
knowing he would not lose money since his cargo was insured. Oh yes
we are owed Reparations for the enslavement of our ancestors whose
blood, sweat and tears enriched White people who continue to
benefit from White skin privilege in every sphere!!
[email protected] Copyright by Murphy Browne