>
A BBC journalist has publicly apologized to the people of Grenada for the possession of more than 1,000 slaves by her aristocratic ancestors, and her family donated £100,000 in reparations.
Laura Trevelyan, 54, a New York-based reporter for the BBC, delivered the apology at a ceremony in the capital, St. George, on Monday, attended by Grenada’s prime minister.
Trevelyan said the signed public apology was the first step in reparations, and that the money the family will give to the country pales in comparison to his ancestors’ fortune derived from owning slaves.
Trevelyan read the apology aloud with his cousin John Dower, and other family members signed the apology letter on behalf of all 104 family members.
“To the people of Grenada, we, the undersigned, write to apologize for the actions of our ancestors in holding your ancestors in slavery,” the apology read.
Laura Trevelyan (right) and John Dower delivered the apology at a ceremony in the capital, St George’s, on Monday.
“To the people of Grenada, we, the undersigned, write to apologize for the actions of our ancestors in holding your ancestors in slavery,” the apology read.
Trevelyan read the apology aloud with his cousin John Dower, and other family members signed the apology letter on behalf of 104 family members.
“I am very sorry for our painful shared past and the role of our ancestors in it,” the journalist said.
His cousin John Dower said ‘we disown the participation of our ancestors’.
The family’s aristocratic relatives owned more than 1,000 slaves on six sugar plantations on the Caribbean island in the 19th century.
In 1834 the Trevelyan family received £26,898 as compensation for the freeing of slaves following the abolition of slavery. This money would be worth around £3 million today.
The family acknowledged that the £100,000 they were giving was well below compensation in 1834, but said this is what they could afford to give at the time.
The money will go into a community fund for the nation’s economic development to be administered by the University of the West Indies.
The family said there will also be more private donations from individual family members.
Dower also used the ceremony to ask the British government to start talks with the leaders of Caribbean nations to negotiate compensation.
“We urge the UK government to enter into meaningful negotiations with Caribbean governments to make appropriate reparations through Caricom and bodies such as the Grenada National Reparations Commission,” Dower said.
Sir John Trevelyan with his wife Louisa Simon (middle couple) who had over 1000 slaves in Grenada
Laura Trevelyan, 54, is a BBC reporter based in New York.
“I am very sorry for our painful shared past and the role of our ancestors in it,” said Laura Trevelyan.
Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell accepted the family’s apology, noting it was not something they had to do.
‘I appreciate that some of our fellow citizens may see this as a symbolic act, as an attempt to pacify us, but I am pleased that sometimes even the symbolic act is a step in the right direction. They didn’t have to do this,’ the prime minister said.
Sir Hilary Beckles, vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies, with whom the Trevelyan family said they worked to deliver the repatriation and apology, also spoke at the ceremony.
Beckles called Trevelyan’s ancestors ‘leading architects’ and an ‘essential part of this world’s slaveocracy’.
The vice chancellor related that some 3.5 million Africans were brought to the Caribbean by the British, and only 600,000 remained when slavery was abolished.
Beckles said: ‘The slaveholders dominated the British Parliament. They were the legislators. So the enslavers raided the British £20 million Treasury to pay themselves off. It was the largest expenditure ever made by the British Parliament.’
Sir Charles Trevelyan is also an ancestor of the family. He was the English official in charge of Irish famine relief when outbreaks of potato blight killed half a million people in the 1840s and 1850s.
Wood engraving of a man taking the pulse of a sick Irish emigrant on board a ship bound for North America during the potato famine
Arley Gill, chairman of the Grenada National Reparations Commission (GNRC), said the Trevelyans had taken a “brave step”.
“Today is a day of remembrance, a day to remember our ancestors and their descendants and finally it is a day of recognition of the damages of slavery and a time of long overdue reckoning,” he said.
“This apology and financial commitment from Laura Trevelyan and her family should serve as a clarion call to other families, institutions and governments to own up to their mistakes, apologize and commit to making amends for their ancestors.”