Glasgow uni to pay £20M in slave reparations

| 05/08/2019 | 100 Comments
Cayman News Service
Sir Hilary Beckles (left) and Dr David Duncan

(CNS): Having received millions of pounds in grants from British slave owners throughout the 19th century, the University of Glasgow has entered into a unique deal with the University of the West Indies to pay £20 million to fund an institution to work on solutions to Caribbean development issues. In a press release about the first of its kind agreement, Sir Hilary Beckles, who is spearheading the Caribbean reparations movement, said Glasgow University recognised that it could not be excellent if it isn’t ethical.

The £20 million agreement was signed at the Regional Headquarters of UWI in Kingston, Jamaica, recently by Beckles, UWI’s vice-chancellor, and Dr David Duncan, from Glasgow University. The deal sees the university giving £20 million to fund development research, which will be carried out by both universities over the next two decades.

The sum of £20 million was the amount paid to slave owners as reparations by the British government when it abolished slavery in 1834. It represents the first time a slavery-enriched European institution has apologised for its part in slavery and committed funds to facilitate reparations programmes.

The money will be used to create a jointly-owned and managed institution, to be called the Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research. The Centre will target and promote solutions to Caribbean development problems in areas such as medicine and public health, economics and economic growth, cultural identity and cultural industries, and other 21st century orientations in Caribbean transformation, officials said in a release.

The two institutions began talks about such a deal after Glasgow University published a report last year revealing the extent the 600-year-old institution had befitted from slave money.

The £20 million will be invested in policy research in science, technology, society and economy, and education and advocacy that seek to repair what Beckles said was the “debilitating consequences of slavery and colonisation that continue to hold back Caribbean development”.

The Centre will therefore focus on joint efforts to clean up the “colonial mess that continues to subvert efforts at Caribbean social growth and economic growth”. It will be formally established on the two campuses in September.


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Comments (100)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Stop wasting my time
    You know what I want
    You know what I need
    Or maybe you don’t
    Do I have to come right flat out and tell you everything
    Gimme some money……

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  2. Anonymous says:

    Reparations… tell me who in this world can’t look back and say their people were wronged? Get over it.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    1:47 pm, you are 100 % right, and who that don’t believe it, they don’t any common sense or education.

  4. MCCARRON MCLAUGHLIN says:

    Pure BS from a bunch of politically correct assholes. When will we stop living in the past and when will this crap stop of repatriations? There’s not one single slave owner from that era alive today, so why do these assholes think they have to return this money.

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    • Anonymous says:

      FFS this is an agreement between 2 higher learning institutions, they get it, you don’t.

      STFFU, move on.

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      • Anonymous says:

        As Glasgow receives significant funds from UK taxpayers, your response, base as it is, is misplaced. Your tone though, has a certain Glaswegian piquance, I’ll give you that.

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        • Anonymous says:

          “Having received millions of pounds…from British slave owners”, they are transferring just GBP 1mln/year over 20 years back to a Jamaican University. Nothing wrong with that, except to label it a full reparation for the behavior and industry of their 19th Century donors.

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        • Anonymous says:

          12:36am above and 8:06am below

          you appear to be finally getting it…

          money stolen from the backs and blood of slaves, enriched the country, and provided subsidised education, infrastructure, wealth and so on….

          offspring beneficiary taxpayers now paying….

          as they should.. but without interest

          FFFS, what’s so hard to comprehend?

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      • Anonymous says:

        You forget that Glasgow receives millions from the state and that money can’t have been intended to be wasted on this sort of crap.

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    • Anonymous says:

      After 50 years of independence, Jamaicans still blaming slavery for their corrupt and crime ridden condition.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    I want the Romans to start paying out for enslaving all my ancestors too. Where are they now, anyone know?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Why??? where i am in agreement that it was awful people were taken against their will and placed in slavery but why am i being held responsible for what my ancestors did. On the other hand see how many would go back to Africa to liv . Give them a choice. Give them the settlement under one condition they go back to Africa to live.

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      • Anonymous says:

        And that is the point of this whole thing.

        Africa would have been a different place had it not been for slavery, colonialists, and so on.

        How can you be so dense to not get this?

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      • Anonymous says:

        Remember it was the Africians that captured the slaves from other tribes and sold them to the slave traders. So why not ask the other Africans tribes to give them money too.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Well said! African Tribes caught African Tribes and sold them to traders…that’s a fact!

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          • Anon says:

            Guess you were there to verify this.. oh wait.. you’re british book told you so..smh

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            • Anonymous says:

              As its been said may times before, slavery exists today in many different forms and to many different types of people, doesn’t matter who caught who, what matters is what groups like the British and the Dutch etc did once in possession of this property as we were known as back then. And the racist legacy that is still alive and well today.

              • Anonymous says:

                “And the racist legacy that is still alive and well today.”

                Would you look at that, the freaking point. Everyone engaging in mental Onanism about the Romans and the Africans that enslaved other Africans that the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is felt keenly to this very day.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Great Idea, but heres the catch, descendants of the “white” colonisers just won’t remain in these beautiful islands once the africans go, you too shall have to relocate back to the great white north, but not before locating the modern day descendants of the tainos, arawaks, amerindians, ciboney, black seminoles (google it), caribs, kalinago etc and handing them back these wonderful lands that they once possessed. Then all shall be well.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Yeah, but here’s the catch. There’s zero evidence that any of those indigenous peoples existed here. Maybe you should have googled that.

    • Anonymous says:

      yeah thats the problem, you are “them” !

  6. Ed says:

    Whodatis & Sympathisers,

    But answer came there none
    And this was scarcely odd because….

    Cayman is a territory founded and created by the British, with British values and British type institutions. It’s as African as Alaska and Europeans flock here because it’s Europe-In-The-Sun with high pay and low taxes but you already knew that.

    Please, I ask again, name just one African country as safe and as prosperous as Cayman. You won’t be able to and all you will do write is to some glib, question-dodging evasion.

    None of you “White Imperialist Haters” will accept the fact that my ancestors did the descendants of your ancestors (that means you), a huge service by taking them out of Africa.

    The only country on that continent that even vaguely resembles a democracy is South Africa and while South Africa is probably the least corrupt country in Africa, it is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

    Come on, tell us: If not Cayman, where in Africa?

    I’m waiting…..

    Ed

    PS. Whodatis, “thereonto” is not a word.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Oh dear…has Who ruffled your precious little lilly-white feathers??
      Bless.

      😀

      Anyway, putting jokes aside, a political designation DOES NOT define a culture or community.

      FFS, racial frictions and chaos has been at the forefront of every western country from its inception – and they are typically majority white.

      We just had a weekend of yet more American White Supremacist Terror that confirms all of the above.

      The statistics of Cayman’s local population do not support your assertion, my friend.

      Therefore, as much as it CLEARLY pains your innermost sensitivities – you have sought a better life in this “Black” aka “African” community.

      I can tell you, as a born and raised Caymanian who has intimate and in-depth experience with either, culturally, we have FAR MORE in common with AFRICANS than we do the British – despite the long-standing political affiliation.

      In fact, Caymanians and Caribbean people in general, are more culturally similar to Eastern Europeans than we are to the English or Western Europeans.

      You see, I am a curious and very well travelled individual – compared to you who is an a$$hole that uses “”‘s when describing chattel human slavery as a crime against humanity.

      Rest assured, I realised from the outset that you and I are diametrically opposed in respect to values and perspective, so I expected you to react as the brash ignoramus your words prove you to be.

      As for your question; it is so devoid of sound historical context and knowledge that it shall be rightly ignored.
      E.g. I bet you fail to realise that the lives of your “ancestors” were greatly improved and enriched, literally, by the deeds, skills, knowledge, science, mathematics, astrology, innovation, education, inventions, and natural resources of my “ancestors” upon “discovery” thereof in Africa 500 years ago.

      You know, in a strange way, I envy you. For it must be a great existence to walk around this world with such limited understanding and compassion for anything other than your immediate environment.

      – Whodatis

      *P.S. Btw, ““White Imperialist Haters””??!
      Really guy?

      In any event, are you suggesting I be a lover of “White Imperialists”?
      Lol!

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      • Ed says:

        Still waiting.

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        • Anonymous says:

          “@ Ed,

          You ask what “African” country I would want to live in?

          Evidently, my friend, the same as you – the Cayman Islands.”

          “As for your question; it is so devoid of sound historical context and knowledge that it shall be rightly ignored.
          E.g. I bet you fail to realise that the lives of your “ancestors” were greatly improved and enriched, literally, by the deeds, skills, knowledge, science, mathematics, astrology, innovation, education, inventions, and natural resources of my “ancestors” upon “discovery” thereof in Africa 500 years ago.”

          I reiterate, as you seemed to have missed it previously.

          – Who

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    • Anonymous says:

      12:05 pm, you are 100 % right, if they was still in Africa. They will be starving and full diseases, now they got it made here.

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      • Anonymous says:

        And turns out if you were in the US you would be shot by your brother, or while looking for baby formula in aisle six.

  7. Really! says:

    Well I’m going cap in hand to the French(Normans), the Vikings & the Romans.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Now that you fools have paid this bribe, don’t expect this gravy train to go away anytime soon.

    This isn’t a payment, this was a just down payment for a permanent race tax.

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    • Anonymous says:

      It would be an eye opener to track how these Jamaicans (born again Africans) spend the 20m.

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  9. Anonymous says:

    @ Ed,

    You ask what “African” country I would want to live in?

    Evidently, my friend, the same as you – the Cayman Islands.

    Be ye not typically confused, Cayman is a community made up predominantly of African people, culture, values, food, and customs.

    Interestingly, one where many Europeans and others flock to in search of a better life.

    Welcome.

    – Whodatis

    *African, know thyself..and the hatred thereonto.

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    • ADA says:

      Yes, because the Cayman Islands were discovered and founded by the Africans. In your parallel universe of course. Much love.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Cayman is predominantly blackish, but very unAfrican. The Europeans all have an angle of one kind or another and don’t stay forever. Those looking for a better life don’t go to Cayman, they go to real countries.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Well, you coulda’ fooled me, because practically every nationality, European and otherwise, is already here – and those that aren’t are scrambling for a way in.

        However, considering that my beloved Cayman has more than TRIPLED (that’s a 300% increase for the xenophobic Trumpeteers and Brexiteers in the room) its population in my lifetime alone, you are all warmly welcomed.

        But please, check the entitlement and asshole energy at the door, will ya?
        It makes for a better experience for us all considering the host reputation is that of a “warm and friendly” people.

        Fanx’ mate,

        – Who

        *Regardless of how you choose to describe Caymanians, we are not of the category of undeniably preferred people of the western world today.

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        • Anonymous says:

          …and TRIPLED is a 200% increase for the innumerate in the room.

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          • Anonymous says:

            Touché.

            The point remains, we don’t dehumanize and KILL others out of hatred and xenophobia like “great”, ” civilised” (non-Black / African) nations such as the USA and UK.

            – Who

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    • anon says:

      12.10pm When I arrived here in the late sixties at least half of the population was of white complexion and of course the most common names were and still are, of British origin. The national complexion has changed considerably since then but I can assure you it is not because of the influx of arrivals from Africa.

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      • Anonymous says:

        “…at least half..”, lol!!

        Well, that’s that then, huh?!

        Unfortunately for you ol’ Buddy, your observations do not correlate with official statistics.
        Do some actual research if you don’t believe me.

        As for; “the most common names were and still are, of British origin” …

        Yes, my name is also of “British origin” as well, but not because “my great-great-great-great grandmother married an Englishman back in da day” as is the oft recycled mantra in the community – but because my ancestors were property of a Scotsman.

        Yes, I have done my research.

        (Homework: Do a case study on the local Bodden’s of the Cayman Islands. Bear in mind, the first registered Caymanian was an “Isaac Bodden”.
        Try to ascertain the history and reason for the stark difference in appearance and phenotypes within the local population. Be prepared to be enlightened, my friend.)

        Your final sentence, despite you regarding it as a great sign-off, really only exposes your ignorance of what is an African.

        – Whodatis

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  10. Alumni says:

    Well then they have received their last donation from me.

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  11. Anonymous says:

    gimme, gimme, gimme……yawn.

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  12. Anonymous says:

    its all about the benjamins….
    what about a statute of limitations?
    shameless higglers the lot of them…

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  13. Anonymous says:

    Organized descendants of African Diaspora in Jamaica, should form a legal challenge to the occupation of several addresses in the UK, like, that of Alastair, 3rd Lord Margadale and Trustees, current occupier of 9000 acre Fonthill Estate. The estate, titles, and positions acquired by way of Jamaican Sugar Baron Beckford’s “proceeds of crime”, gleaned through the sweat and lives of their ancestors. The UK gov’t can decide if they want to compensate Lord Margadale for the forfeiture of title. Maybe they lease it back to the Margadales. Others occupying land acquired and/or built with historical proceeds of crime should be put on notice in the UK and elsewhere. Drax family heirs etc. It should be a much more precise collection from the descendants of the short list of inter-generational dynastic UK wealth.

    https://www.fonthill.co.uk/history

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    • Anonymous says:

      Except there was no crime. Slavery was everywhere in the world in 1700. It was the biggest business in Africa before Europeans even showed up.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Wow.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Slavery is still everywhere, then and now, hence why the brits should’ve kept their dirty hands out of it, they wouldn’t be blamed for so much of it today. Sun didn’t set on the British empire at one point remember ? It surely wasn’t due to adverse possession.

  14. Anonymous says:

    I don’t celebrate how giving GBP 20mln to an intermediary institution (one which purportedly sold a doctorate to our Speaker) constitutes a fair and full redistribution of capital back from the estates of UK sugar barons, or how this isolated settlement is to benefit all the descendants of the African diaspora. It sounds more like University of Glasgow got shaken down. Jamaica has been an independent country for years now, but it’s their corrupt political class that continue to choose to hold their brethren down and subvert their opportunity, and upward mobility. It’s a regrettable but deliberate choice made by the Jamaican classes – highlighted by the practice of selling of fake degrees for money!

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    • Anonymous says:

      UWI did not confer that degree. University of the Caribbean is another less known (ok no name) institution

  15. Anonymous says:

    The tab for that crime against humanity is infinite.

    There is little wonder why so many refuse to engage in serious discussion about the period itself.

    (Responses to this very message and explicit declaration will prove these words truthful. They cannot help or stop themselves.)

    Nevertheless, those that know, know – and truth is truth.

    Dear African, at all times, know thyself.

    You are; the original, the dispossessed, the misrepresented, the despised, the mocked, the mimicked, the beaten, the slaughtered, the Christianised, the softened, the abused, the shackled, the whipped, the raped, the stolen, the strong, the feared, the lusted.

    Happy Monday all.

    – Whodatis

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    • Ed says:

      Let’s suppose that those “crimes against humanity” you write of had never taken place and that you and all other Caymanians of African origin were still living in Africa.
      Please, tell us which present day African country you would chooses to be living in and how your life there would be better there than your life in Cayman now?

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      • Anonymous says:

        Dear insensitive privileged idiot (and friends), who put crimes against humanity in air-quotes: if you picked up a book, you’d read that >50% of non-voluntary “cargohold” never arrived to market. So yeah, never having been whipped, raided, shackled, tortured, raped, castrated, branded, denied water and food, and/or been discarded mid-voyage from Africa would have been preferable, I’m sure. Similarly, it might not have fueled the moral-corruption and class-division exports that were borne of this period and still remain in many West African countries.

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        • Anonymous says:

          All of that was bad, but who do you think caught and sold the slaves—the African tribes themselves and the Muslim traders. It can never be sorted out, and reparations is just a political ploy fo fund more politics.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Jesus Christ, is this what we’ve come to? Slave apologia?

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      • Anon says:

        While I can see where you’re coming from. Your logic is not consistent and quite ignorant to the situation.

        Africa countries are plagued with external corruption, that MILK and put in puppet governments in power. When the locals uprise, they are deem terrorist to fuel the slaughtering of these “unruly savages” by the “superior” countries who have vested interest in keeping these countries under control.

        My suggestion; go and learn some history instead of mimicking ignorant people. Try to wrap your head around political matters that seems to fly over peoples head because it’s not a music video or the kardashians.

        Its funny that you would deem Africa as unpleasant, but please remember where the information that fuels the world originated from. Remember where culture, dynasties originated from.

        Peace and love

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      • Anonymous says:

        If the crimes against humanity did not happen and if African countries were not looted by ” you know who they were” many Africa countries would not have become disenfranchised and most African countries would have been a great place to live. The fall started after the horrific crimes against humanity happened. The Europeans and Americans can never repay the damaged they caused but I suppose twenty million pounds is a start, albeit a drop in the bucket. They could apologize every day and it still would not be enough.

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    • Anonymous says:

      There are, and always have been, shitty humans and nice humans. The world would be a much better place if we always picked the latter when given the choice. Hopefully St Peter exists, and will have the ultimate duty in sorting the eternal tab.

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      • Anonymous says:

        “Do not worry gentle Christian, all shall be reckoned in good time. Pay no attention to all those in power who oppress you and your kin and meekly obey.”

        What a load of crock

    • Anonymous says:

      one mustn’t forget that most of Africa is still to this day is being exploited for its oil, metals and other commodities by western and eastern countries.

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      • Anonymous says:

        More so by the east actually! China is raping African countries of everything, not the west. Please do your research!

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        • Anonymous says:

          Umm, for the last decade or so, yes.

          However, the West (USA, UK, France, Holland, Portugal) has been pillaging Africa STEADILY for the last 500 years, and continue to do so.

          (foh)

          – Who

          *How’s your Starbucks tasting these days? That diamond you bought your wife, still shiny? How’s your smartphone holding up?

          Africa is everywhere, but ignorance will keep you blind to the fact.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Yes, it would be better to leave and let the jungle take over

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  16. Anonymous says:

    Wow! This is amazing and a delight to see. Well done UoG!

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  17. Anonymous says:

    Pathetic. If the university has such money to fritter away, the government can essily cut $20m off its funding.

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  18. Anonymous says:

    What a load of nonsense.

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    • Please elaborate. says:

      Please elaborate.

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      • Out of Africa says:

        9.23am Well this sure is a way to guarantee all the Glasgow University faculty a 3 month sojourn in the sunny Caribbean every winter. Other than that it is a load of nonsense.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Ignorance is bliss. Go read a history book on the slave trade or go back under one of the ” white cliffs of Dover huge boulder where you slithered from?

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      • Anonymous says:

        I’m pretty sure the people who were actually slaves are already dead, and I’m pretty sure that all of their decedents have better opportunities in life than they would have if they were still in Africa!

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        • Anonymous says:

          “You see, slavery Is good actually, because it gave us justification to blame the scramble for Africa on Africans!”

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