Europeans cannot avoid reparations for slave trade

It is now news that Presi­dent Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has justified the need for reparation for the atrocities and barbarism of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

The slave trade has come to have more histories because of the different European countries, places in Africa and the times such places got involved.

However, we can generally say that the atrocious trade began in the early 1470s (or late 15th century) in Nigeria by the Portuguese, and were joined later by other Europe­ans like the Dutch, the French and the British.

Also, we know that the slave traders shipped their acquired African slaves, made up of men, women and unfortu­nately children, to the Ameri­cas and the Caribbean to work on sugarcane plantations.

Even though Britain finally abolished the slave trade in 1807, and the United States implemented its ban a year later, the illegal trade contin­ued into the 1860s until it was finally ended.

The call for reparation has a long history that can be traced to the early 17th century, when people who had acquired the status as former slaves in the United States such as Belinda Sutton of Massachusetts formulated individual demands for repa­rations from their masters.

Then collective calls for reparations emerged at the end of the 19th century, following the abolition of the slave trade and ever since such calls continue to be renewed.

For instance, about nine years ago, students of Georgetown University brought to light the fact that in 1838, the Jesuits who owned the university, sold 272 enslaved men, women and children to pay the institu­tion’s debts.

This triggered a call for reparations, with the students themselves voting to create a fund, financed by an annual student fee, to aid the de­scendants of those enslaved people.

Those making the calls for reparations stress the horrors of slavery and its aftermath as the justifications and this is in order.

Those calls cannot just be about the need to address wealth inequalities between Africans and Europeans and Americans but also mainly about the slave trade causing tribal wars that caused inse­curity which undermined the Africans’ social, political, and religious structures.

We must not forget either the disrespect visited on unfortunate slaves who could not make the journey to the plantations whose bodies were not buried but thrown into the sea and inhumane treatment or abuse of the rights of those who ended up at the plantation.

We think it is these horrors and lack of civility associated with the slave trade that Presi­dent Akufo-Addo describes as atrocities and barbarism and we agree with him.

We know the history that some Africans such as chiefs aided the slave raiders and traders but certainly under the influence of the Europeans, including threats or other pressures.

The calls for reparations certainly will not die, consid­ering how old such calls are.

Therefore, the best thing to do now is for the countries that distorted the African life with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to come together and meet African leaders to agree on the amounts to pay and probably other forms of assistance they can offer.

That way, they can end the ever-growing calls for repara­tions.