Plantations owner’s descendants apologise for family’s role in slavery

by Linda Straker

• Trevelyan relatives apologise for action of their ancestral family
• Apology letter then presented to local Reparations Committee, to be handed over to regional committee
• Day’s event described as a day of remembrance

Relatives of a family in the United Kingdom, who in the 18th and 19th centuries jointly owned approximately 1,200 slaves on 6 plantations in 3 different parishes in Grenada, have apologies for the action of their family.

“To the people of Grenada, we the undersigned, write to apologise for the actions of our ancestors in holding your ancestors in slavery,” said the opening paragraph of a letter presented to Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell during a ceremony at the Grenada Trade Centre on Monday, 27 February 2023.

Signed by 7 members of the Trevelyan family, including well-known BBC correspondent Laura Trevelyan, the letter describes slavery as a crime that was and continues to be a crime against humanity.

“Its damaging effects continue to this present day. We repudiated our ancestor’s involvement in it; 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,” said an extract from the letter.

The complete letter, which was then handed over to Prime Minister Mitchell, was in turn presented to members of the local Reparations Committee. It is expected to be handed over to the regional committee.

With the names of the slaves shown in historical records as belonging to the 6 estates as part of the ambiance, the ceremony which was attended by Professor Hilary Beckles Vice Chancellor and Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Committee, Dr Nicole Dowe, Vice Chair of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, cabinet ministers, heads of regional reparations committees and students was to launch a fund in which Laura has personally committed to giving £100,000 to the local reparations committee.

“I came up with that figure because at this moment in time, that is what I can afford to give. I am 54 years old, and when I turn 55 in August, that is the moment when I can actually give this money because I will come into a pension from the BBC, and so I am taking a portion of the pension as a cash payment to give to the people of Grenada, but I hope in years to come…I will be in a position to give more money, and I hope that it works and achieve what all of us here want it to achieve,” Trevelyan replied when a student asked her how the figure was decided.

She also pointed out that the 2020 George Floyd situation in the USA played a role in her accepting that her family contributed to the enslavement of Africans and the devastating effects it has had on African descendants. She had learned in 2013 that her family had owned slaves on the island and was battling with the guilt of that reality.

Arley Gill, chairman of the local reparative committee, described the day’s event as a day of remembrance. ‘It’s a day to remember our ancestors and their descendants, and it is finally a day of recognition of the harms of slavery and a moment of global reckoning that is long overdue,” he said in his welcome remarks.

“This apology and financial commitment from Laura and the Trevelyan family should serve as a clarion call to other families, institutions, and other governments in Europe to acknowledge wrongs, apologise and commit to repairing the harms done by their ancestors,” said Gill, a former government minister.

“Governments in the Caribbean region must do more for the struggle for reparative justice and come together using of course, the Caricom Reparation Commission as the vehicle through which the battle for reparative justice is waved and must be won. Further, our governments must consistently and publicly, with one voice, call on European nations to engage in a conversation with their counterparts in the Caribbean region,” he said.

“The results of these conversations must be the creation of a comprehensive social and economic development plan that creates a stronger and sustainable and striving Grenada and the Caribbean region,” he said, calling for the topics of slavery and reparation to be included in the curriculum of all educational facilities.

“This fight for reparative justice is our fight; the topics of slavery and reparation should and must be part of our schools’ curriculum from primary school through university because it’s only through education rooted in the truth about our past, our present, and our future that we will truly liberate ourselves from the lies and falsehoods that we have been taught. This movement for reparative justice must utilise our education system as a place to realise true liberation, I call it education for liberation,” he said.

Gill said that financial commitment from the family is the beginning of a process or part of a process that is undergirded by truth, transparency, and repair. “The truth of the matter is that for 400 years, Europeans, including the Trevelyn family benefitted from the inhumane and illegal trafficking of human beings for profit and generational wealth building,” he said.

While the ceremony was taking place, a group of people not in favour of financial commitments and the ceremony protested, believing the event to be tokenism to the reparation initiative.