Guardian ( Trinidad and Tobago )
28 February 2023 ( Page 8 )
Descendants of slave owner apologise, make donation to UWI
RISHARD KHAN - RISHARD.KHAN@GUARDIAN.CO.TT
Descendants of John Treveleyan, part owner of six plantations in Grenada,
apologised yesterday for the role the family played in slavery and made
donations to the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus.
At a reparation forum hosted by UWI and the Grenada National Reparations
Committee (GNRC), BBC reporter Laura Treveleyan said she hoped the
gesture would be the first of such moves for Grenada and the Caribbean.
Treveleyan said her family discovered its dark past when the University
College of London published legacies of British slave ownership which
showed they received the equivalent of £3 million in compensation for losing
their slaves. The family presented a letter of apology signed by 104
descendants of the plantation owners to Grenada Prime Minister Dickon
Mitchell.
Treveleyan read from the letter which stated: “We apologise to the surviving
descendants of the enslaved on those estates for the continuing impact on
their daily lives, their health and their well-being.”
Also reading from the letter, her cousin John Dower said: “Slavery was and is
a crime against humanity.
Its damaging effect continues to the present day. We repudiate our
ancestors’ involvement in it.”
Treveleyan donated £100,000 toward an education fund at the UWI Open
Campus in Grenada and other members of her family donated bursaries and
gave support to the Grenada Education and Development Programme
(GRENED).
“I’m sure that £100,000 seems grossly inadequate when you think that in
1834 our family received the equivalent of £3 million in today’s money for the
loss of what was termed our property here on Grenada.
So I appreciate that it seems inadequate, that it seems like a token or maybe
it seems almost insulting and I apologise for that...that it’s not more but I
would say that it’s what I, at this moment, am able.
“I hope this is the beginning of a relationship with Grenada. I hope that in
collaboration with the Reparations Committee and the Government of
Grenada and UWI that we can be guided into how future money can be
donated and spent,” she said.
The letter from the Treveleyan family called on the British authorities to
follow suit and engage the region in reparations “to Caricom and bodies such
as the Grenadian National Reparations Commission.”
Prime Minister Mitchell accepted the apology on behalf of his people and
ancestors and invited members of the GNRC to receive the letter on behalf of
Caricom. He also commended Treveleyan and her family for taking the step.
“I have no doubt that if my ancestors were part of such a system that I would
be horrified, that I would be ashamed and perhaps the easy decision would
have been to pretend that since I didn’t do it I ought not to take any
responsibility for it. So it is testimony to your courage, it is testimony to your
bravery, to your willingness to confront no doubt what is a dark and difficult
past, that you are here today to apologise in person,”
Mitchell said.
He called on the United Kingdom government to engage the Caribbean in
discussions on reparative justice in an “open, transparent, frank and
dignified manner.” He also asked the UK government to extend that
invitation to their European counterparts who played a part in the atrocities
in the Caribbean, such as France and Spain.