by Linda Straker
- Traditional churches benefitted from enslavement of black people
- Slave Trade was abolished in 1838
- In Grenada and many other Caribbean countries obeah is still criminalised
Arley Gill, Chairman of Grenada’s Reparation Commission, believes that the traditional churches such as the Catholic and Anglican which benefitted from the enslavement of black people need to apologise for the role they played in the trade which was abolished in 1838.
“It is important as a people that we recognise that the church has done us wrong as a people. The church must apologise and make good on the exploitation that they took part, active part, in the exploitation of black people,” said Gill, a former culture minister during the Tillman Thomas National Democratic Congress administration.
“The Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Protestant churches they benefited directly, financially and otherwise from the enslavement of black people,” Gill said during an Emancipate Day virtual panel discussion organised by the Grenada Cultural Foundation.
Focusing on the role religion played during the period of the slave trade, Gill said, “Fundamentally, religion was a tool of slavery, western practices were used to justified slavery.”
“The fact is religion was used as a tool to justify the enslavement of black people and it was used to strip us from our cultural identity…All culture has its own religion, they own religious belief.” He pointed out that the religious or spiritual practices of African people that were brought to this region by slaves, were outlawed and made illegal by the colonial masters. “I remember us studying about Arawaks and Caribs and them having their own religious belief. They have different gods, rain god, sun god and so…In Africa we had our own; our forefathers had their own religion.”
He reminded his audience that conversion to Catholicism was used as a controlling mechanism for the slaves. “Catholicism was used, and the Catholic Church benefited, the Anglican Church benefitted directly from slavery, slave trade and colonialism,” Gill said as he passionately supported Richie Maitland, another member of the panel, who pointed out the various religious beliefs that were brought to the Caribbean through the slave trade.
Discussing the subtopic “Enslavers belief that black people was destined by God to be servants of whites”, they also pointed out that the bible did not condemn slavery and blacks required conversion. Maitland, a lawyer by profession, said that a major part of slavery was breaking black people culturally. “Separating them from their spiritual roots was a mechanism to dominate them and we see that manifested in many different ways. Christianity is what we use now, but in Grenada and many other Caribbean countries obeah is still criminalised…the criminalisation of that I see absolutely as a continuation of demonisation of blackness.”
Maitland pointed out that in reality, many ancestors came from West African with different forms of spiritual practices such as Orisha and Yoruba.
Read this people, compensation is real!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48264941
Move on to where, are they letting you move. Their children are reaping the benefits. I read in 2015 UK had only finished compensated the slave masters for the loss of earnings due to the abolishment of slavery. Do you you know I contributed to this with my tax.
Mr. Gill, you can lobby for your apology; I will lobby for compensation as I believe in tangibles. Further, while you are out there lobbying for apologies, Mr. Gill, tell whomever you are seeking apologies from to give me your share of compensation and tangibles. Thank you in advance. Mr. Gill does not seem to know that an apology that is asked for is meaningless.
In reference to concerned citizen comment
The first comment.
As you said, why should we get an apology? And why not?
The Jews got an apology from the Germans, many of them received money. So why should our black people get left out?
The reason why you are saying such foolish thing is you dont understand what my great, great mother’s and father’s went through. Many of us still going through.
Why should they apologize for something they didn’t do or were not involved in. The people that were involved are dead…. We say we just want apology but will it really be enough. As black people we have to stop playing the victim and move on.
I agree 100% we as black people keep looking back and not forward history is important it supose to be a spring board for the next generation to take off. Why is it we always want someone to feel sorry for us, we know whats going on even today we still fighting one another we take adcantage of the weak amongst us instead of helping to lift them up. We blacks are our own enemies and we hide behind the curtain of being victims to cover our evil
The writer of the above post should remove his or head from the sand pit for making such an uneducated comment because for us as black people to move forward we should always remember where we came from and the sufferings that we as a race suffered and by the hands of whom, for example you try telling the Jews to do what you are asking us blacks to do and they will STONE You.
THANK YOU Mr. Fraser. I still can’t understand some black people who refuse to fully educate themselves on how DEEPLY affected we are by slavery (ironically, that person’s statement alone is proof of their indoctrination). Why is it only Black people that are required to forget about what was done to them and no one asks this of any other group? We have no friends on this globe. No one asks Jews to forget the Holocaust, no one tells the Chinese and Japanese Americans to forget the internment camps (of which they were paid reparations). Globally, every where we are, we are usually at the bottom of the social strata. “Massa” would whip us Mon-Sat then give us a bible on Sunday. We are now praying to same God as the slave masters? How twisted is that?
That is the most unintelligent thing i have read in my entire 34 years on this planet.
Sorry concerned citizen , i am baffled by your comments, quote the people who were involved are dead and as black people we should move on, is that so? please enlighten me further.
I agree 100% and the head of those churches must be the ones making the apology in public.
Also the money they were given for the slaves they owned should be returned at today’s value to the Caribbean islands they had slaves on.