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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This year with the Juneteenth federal holiday and a greater national focus on the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, more Americans have been getting more familiar with the history of slavery and the amount of money plundered in that context from Black families over the centuries. Well, now, Reuters is reporting that the nation of Jamaica is preparing a petition to Queen Elizabeth for the UK to pay around $10 billion in reparations for some of the financial effects of slavery there.

The UK ruled Jamaica in the colonial era, independence only came in the 1960s. What might reparations from the UK to Jamaicans look like and could this process offer any kind of a model for the United States? With me now is Selwyn Cudjoe, Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative Literature at Wellesley. He has been Chair of the History of Ideas at Wellesley, and among other things, the Director of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.

Professor Cudjoe, we appreciate your time for this today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Brian, thank you for having me back again. It's lovely to be on with you.

Brian Lehrer: Can we use this opportunity to go over some history first that many listeners may not know such as, we know 1619 in this country much better now as the year of the arrival of the first enslaved people, thanks to Nicole Hannah-Jones. Who brought the first enslaved people to Jamaica, and when?

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Certainly, the British are the ones who brought them into Jamaica as part of their plans to utilize the sugar industry to enhance their wealth in their country. As a matter of fact, a lot of the people in England lived off the profits from slavery. As a matter of fact, in 1776, 40 members of the British parliament were making their money from the investments in the Caribbean. Of course, we can't forget Haiti, which of course, was the richest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Well, not only inaugurally brought an end of slavery, but of the fact, the people who in fact were being enslaved and being ripped off by the French, who had them pay them monies just to recognize their independence. Of course, remember, Jefferson, refused to do that about 1823. It's been a long history, but in terms of Jamaica, their coming into Jamaica, was about around the 18th century.

Brian Lehrer: As a benchmark for paying reparations to descendants of enslaved people in Jamaica, and this is going to blow people's minds if they haven't heard it before. The Reuters story notes that the UK actually paid reparations to slaveholders to compensate them for their losses when the UK abolished slavery in Jamaica in 1834. Do you know that to be true?

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: It's in fact a point of fact that they borrowed the money, I think, from the Rothschild Bank, it was I think, at that time about 25% of the budget of Britain at the time, and they paid them very handsomely, and they just finished paying in 2015. The British Parliament borrowed very heavily and paid the slave masters about £20 million, which would be about $100 billion today, in fact, getting in compensation for their property. We were never seen as people, we were seen as property and in lieu of setting these enslaved people free, that of course, Britain paid a tremendous amount of money.

I think, must have been about a fifth of the national budget of Britain at the time. Of course, we and this is part of the petition that is being made, that we, the sons and daughters of slavery never got a cent from that. Even poor Haiti was made to pay back the French for the question of recognizing their independence. That is the history.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners with ties to Jamaica, we have time for a few phone calls in this segment. We welcome your questions, opinions, and stories for this conversation. Does anyone listening right now have a story to tell about your own family history and slavery and Jamaica perhaps? 646-435-7280. Jamaican Americans or anyone with ties there? What do you think about this reparations petition to Queen Elizabeth that Roger says is coming. What else would you like to say about the history that you think more people should know? 646-435-7280.

Or anyone with a question for our guest, Selwyn Cudjoe, Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative Literature at Wellesley, 646-435-7280, or tweet at Brian Lehrer. Professor Cudjoe-- [crosstalk] Go ahead. Do you want to make a point? Go ahead. Sure.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: I want to make one point, is that the notion that reparations should not be paid because none of us are directly descended from slaves and could trace the line is not entirely true. I am from Trinidad. I grew up on the estates, my family, one of the biggest slaveholders in the Caribbean, William Hardin Burnley. I've just finished a book about two years ago, on The Slave Master of Trinidad. We lived on that plantation from the inception of 1884, my great, great grandfather was born, and we could trace his lineage in that same village.

There is a direct connection in terms of our being ripped off and exploited by these masters. Just a personal note, I recall some personal stories on my book, The Slave Masters of Trinidad, I speak about that early slave master, who of course, is one of the largest plantation. I grew up with the big house, in my very sight, every day. Sorry about that but I felt [crosstalk] personal connection.

Brian Lehrer: No. I apologize that I wasn't aware of your book to bring the title. Why don't you say it again? Now that people are getting to know you by this interview, they know what your book is.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: My last book is called The Slave Master of Trinidad: William Hardin Burnley and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World. He was one of the biggest slaveholders, he got some of the most money that Britain compensated in the British Caribbean, not just in ancient outer Jamaica, but the entire Caribbean. Again, the book is The The Slave Master of Trinidad: William Hardin Burnley and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World world published by University of Massachusetts Press.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Who will decide on this claim? The Queen herself, Boris Johnson, someone else? Do you know?

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Well, the Queen is just a figurehead. It's a question of the Parliament, UK Parliament. Now, they're willing to say, and of course, even the queen or the Prime Minister, I think when we spoke last time, then I think it may have been Cameron who had got down to say, "Yes, we acknowledge we are sorry," but nobody could say officially because that means that it makes you liable. The people who make that decision is the British Parliament, and they're the ones that decide.

Of course, there've been large debates there but no one is prepared to do that. One good example is what happens in terms of Namibia, where I think Germany put for 1.3 billion for the genocide that took place in Namibia over the years and point of fact, about since 1970, or so '78 I interviewed Sam Nujoma who was the former president of Namibia. He had come in the United Nations decolonization committee in the beginning, to plead for freedom, at that time they were under the direct hand of the Germans.

The Germans themselves about I think sometime earlier this year, put out about $1.3 billion for what they call the harm that they had done, that they were responsible for the Colonial-- They themselves acknowledged they will responsible for the colonial genocide that took place in that country and they paid something like $1.3 billion in aid for the country. and that sum would serve as, "A gesture of recognition for the immeasurable suffering that the people of Namibia underwent." I think the British did the same thing in Kenya, when for example, they paid the descendants of the Mau Maus for what they'd done.

The legislature is the British Parliament are the ones who must do it. The Queen is simply a figurehead in all of this.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Someone with a family story, I do believe. Terry in Mount Vernon you're on WNYC. Hi, Terry.

Terry: Hey, hi, quick story. My grandmother's great-- No, that's going to make it my great-great grandmother. She was part of the last slaves that came over to the island from West Africa, the Ivory Coast. The stories that she told abut how-- She told my grandma that the first time of how she got captured, how her treatment was. She was on the island before the opposition to slavery and it was hard for [sound cut] find it easier to speak about it and whenever I hear about it. It is a deep, rich history of slaves and [inaudible 00:10:26]. Say that again.

Brian Lehrer: What does it make you think, Terry, that justice would look like in financial terms and how that money might be distributed or used?

Terry: It's going to be used to develop the island a little better, but there's never a price on humanity, you understand? You can never pay for the atrocity that got the billions of people, but then something has to give. The island is in a shamble because of that, I think. I don't know.

Brian Lehrer: Terry, thank you so much for your call and sharing your story. I really, really appreciate it. Professor Cudjoe, $10 billion as this reported petition will claim for Jamaica, it's pegged to the amount in today's dollars paid to those former slaveholders I understand, but in today's dollars, it's actually not that much money. The New York City budget alone just for this year is 100 billion, but then again, the population of Jamaica is only around 3 million people, and New York City, 8 million, but we're talking about compensation for hundreds of years of financial plunder.

Is it clear how it would work, or do you have an opinion about how it would work best?

Selwyn Cudjoe: Well, I think it would work best, I think the last speaker alluded to the fact that Jamaica right now and the entire Caribbean, while Jamaica has done their side, remember CARICOM. Let's say [unintelligible 00:12:02] was about 10 years ago, petitioned the European Parliament, the European nations for reparations. That part of the problem is that Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia, all these countries are under tremendous strain from the virus, for example, in terms of poverty, in terms of education, in terms of health.

Why we don't necessarily expect that people would get direct payments, even though that'd be a great thing, that their systems, their infrastructure needs as much help as they can. A place like Jamaica depends almost entirely on monies being sent from on tourism, I think they made about a billion over the last six months on tourism, but there's no infrastructure. Years ago they had bauxite, but there are no natural resources. These countries in terms of simply infrastructure, in terms of their health services.

In terms of their schooling, in terms of the whole question of joblessness. We see what's happening in South Africa right now, then, of course, these countries are structurally weak, and of course, these are the areas in which I think that reparations in terms of repairing the wrong, as sister said a few minutes ago, you can't reduce lives to monetary, but it's a good indicator, therefore, you could better the lives of those who are around. I think it's in those social services, in terms of poverty, homelessness, et cetera, that we could of course begin to pour monies, as I said, as Germany is trying to do in Namibia for the horrible genocide that took place there.

I think it's that these areas of social services and health that they could begin to repair the wrong that has been done over lots of centuries. As to your point in terms of the budget of New York, remember that New York was sold. I think it's the Suriname for about what $25 at a time when these countries would produce in places like Barbados that they were producing much more than many of the states here. The fact of the matter, just simply compounded, and we began to understand how much monies have been lost.

In terms of the amount, in fact, the Jamaicans, in terms of the Rastafarians in fact were demanded in 1961, something like, I think $72 billion, it was never listened to. By the way, I was suggesting-- and you could not be able to get it, but I was suggesting that perhaps a guy like Jimmy Cliff, I love that song By the Rivers of Babylon, in terms of the Harbor, the cut might be one reason to think about the fact that we've been asking for these reparations for a long time.

I don't know if you know the song, but just the lyrics, By the river of Babylon where we sat down, and then we wept when we remember Zion. But the wicked carried us away in captivity, required from us a song. How can we sing King Alpha song in a strange land? This kind of petitioning had been going on for a long time. It completely, not just only exploitation, which has to do with the question of labor, stealing of labor power, but alienation, the separation of the self from one's essence. The complete fragmentation of the self as the one like Fernand would speak about.

I mean the danger and the damage goes very, very deeply.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer in Barbados, or originally from Barbados, Jennifer, your own WNYC. Hello.

Jennifer: Good morning, Brian. Thank you so much. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak to Dr. Cudjoe to just make comments. I am Jamaican, but I'm a Caribbean woman. All that he said, I totally agree with, and I want to point out two things. Number one, the then UK prime minister, Cameron, who it is said his family or his lineage that they benefited handsomely from slaveholding from profits. He came to Jamaica years ago and offered, in response to the request or the suggestion that we deserve reparations, he offered a jail.

[laughter]

I'm telling you.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Hello.

Jennifer: All the wind rush.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you are there.

Jennifer: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Jennifer: Sorry. All the people who answered the call of Britain to go there and work, the Windrush generation, they have been so oppressed. They have been deported in mass to countries they don't even know. Some of them were born in the UK. It is vile, and it's time that a concentrated effort, and professor Cudjoe, thank you so much for your work because we need to expose and repair.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer, we will leave it there. Thank you so much. We've only got about a minute left in the segment. Professor, is there any political appetite for this in the UK?

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Well, we must make them have the appetite. Just one thing in terms that the Barbados situation and Codrington who-- and from which got Codrington College, that we are the ones who in terms of the Oxford, also college at Oxford produced and supplemented money for that. We supplemented money for Glasgow in terms of, they called us there, an evening from Antiga, the great Harvard, one of the chief benefactor was an Antiguan. We in the Caribbean have been a lot, even they produce and promote civilization in these countries.

That is something we must have looked at in terms of how we begin to repair and repay what has been lost.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with Professor Selwyn Cudjoe, Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative Literature at Wellesley and author, most recently, of The Slave Master of Trinidad.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: Yes sir, you got it right. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much for coming on with us. We really appreciate your insight. A lot of people learned a lot of new things. Thank you very much.

Professor Selwyn Cudjoe: My pleasure, Brian. Thanks again for having me.

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