Slavery and the Atlantic slave trade are among the most heinous crimes against humanity committed in the modern era. Yet, to this day no former slave society in the Americas has paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. European countries have never compensated their former colonies in the Americas, whose wealth relied on slave labor. Likewise, no African nation ever obtained any form of reparations for the Atlantic slave trade. In this book, Ana Lucia Araujo shows that these calls for reparations have persevered over a long and difficult history. She traces the ways in which enslaved and freed individuals have conceptualized the idea of reparations since the 18th century in petitions, correspondence, pamphlets, public speeches, slave narratives and judicial claims. Drawing on the voices of various peoples who have and do identify themselves as victims of the Atlantic slave trade, it illuminates the multiple dimensions of the demands of reparations. Taking the reader through the era of slavery, emancipation, post-abolition and the present day, this new edition boasts a new chapter that engages with the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, the seismic effect of the killing of George Floyd, calls for university reparations and the dismantling of statues. It also includes new comparisons with other calls for reparations from communities such as Native Americans and Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Updated throughout, and with new primary sources, further reading and a timeline of notable events, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade explores how the history of slavery is as current today as it ever has been.
Show moreSlavery and the Atlantic slave trade are among the most heinous crimes against humanity committed in the modern era. Yet, to this day no former slave society in the Americas has paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. European countries have never compensated their former colonies in the Americas, whose wealth relied on slave labor. Likewise, no African nation ever obtained any form of reparations for the Atlantic slave trade. In this book, Ana Lucia Araujo shows that these calls for reparations have persevered over a long and difficult history. She traces the ways in which enslaved and freed individuals have conceptualized the idea of reparations since the 18th century in petitions, correspondence, pamphlets, public speeches, slave narratives and judicial claims. Drawing on the voices of various peoples who have and do identify themselves as victims of the Atlantic slave trade, it illuminates the multiple dimensions of the demands of reparations. Taking the reader through the era of slavery, emancipation, post-abolition and the present day, this new edition boasts a new chapter that engages with the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, the seismic effect of the killing of George Floyd, calls for university reparations and the dismantling of statues. It also includes new comparisons with other calls for reparations from communities such as Native Americans and Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Updated throughout, and with new primary sources, further reading and a timeline of notable events, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade explores how the history of slavery is as current today as it ever has been.
Show moreIntroduction: Reparations in the Past and the Present 1. Greatest Riches from Our Blood and Tears 2. “And What Should We Wait of these Brutish Spirits?” 3. “We Helped to Pay this Cost” 4. “What Else Will the Negro Expect?” 5. “It’s Time For Us to Get Paid” 6. Reparations in the 21st Century Notes Bibliography
A history of the demands for financial, material and symbolic reparations for slavery and the Atlantic slave trade.
Ana Lucia Araujo is Professor of History at Howard University, USA. She is the author of Slavery in the Age of Memory (2020), Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic World (2010) and Shadows of the Slave Past: Memory, Heritage and Slavery (2014).
This is a book I've been waiting for - a timely and overdue account
of the centuries-long cry for reparations, written by a gifted
historian of transatlantic slavery.
*Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh, USA*
‘Araujo is the first scholar to examine reparations for slavery and
the Atlantic slave trade comparatively and transnationally, drawing
on a broad range of texts in English, French, Portuguese, and
Spanish … An important book for all collections. Summing Up:
Essential. All libraries.’
*CHOICE*
‘The trans-Atlantic debate about reparations for slavery has long
needed a serious historical explanation. Now, in Ana Lucia Araujo’s
book, we have the answer. This original, sweeping study, grounded
in meticulous research, explains how and why reparations have
become so pressing a modern-day issue. It is essential reading for
everyone concerned – whatever their viewpoint.’
*James Walvin, Professor of History Emeritus, University of York,
UK*
‘Ana Lucia Araujo’s book on slavery reparations movements reaches
across time and space. She considers enslavement, emancipation, and
the continued refusal of every single slave-owning society in the
Atlantic world—the USA, Britain, France, Brazil, Portugal, and
Spain, especially—to address the centuries of theft that made them
wealthy and built the modern global political economy. Professor
Araujo’s erudition is unbounded, and her clear, readable prose will
make this book an important and useful addition to the toolkits of
academics, students, and activists.’
*Edward E. Baptist, Professor of History, Cornell University,
USA*
‘Araujo’s history offers a compelling review of the rationales made
for reparations payments, the historical actors who made such
claims, and historical events that motivated their political
demands … Reparations for Slavery and The Slave Trade is an
insightful and expansive history of enslavement that reveals the
interconnected nature of the Atlantic world from the origins of
enslavement to the present day.’
*Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective*
‘This book is absolutely indispensable and makes an important
contribution to what Araujo concludes is an ‘unfinished
struggle.’
*The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History*
‘What is so clear in this important and timely book is that many
people keep making moral claims even as they are repeatedly,
rudely, and firmly rejected by those in power … While the focus of
the book is on reparation claims, Araujo puts those claims in the
context of the broader movement for economic and social empowerment
of people of African descent. It is this comprehensive and broad
story that makes Reparations the best book yet on reparations for
slavery … As others take up the difficult moral questions it
raises, such as who should pay and why, this book will be at the
center of discussions of ways in which the past burdens the
present.’
*New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids*
‘In this insightful and compelling study, Ana Lucia Araujo shows
the importance of a transnational and comparative approach to
examining the ways in which slave societies throughout the Americas
presented the case for reparations.’
*The North Carolina Historical Review*
‘Araujo has cemented herself as a senior historian thoroughly in
command of her craft … In addition to the U.S., nearly every
country in Latin America and the Caribbean makes an appearance.
While focused on reparations, the book also serves as a global
primer on slavery and emancipation … Overall, Araujo’s book offers
a valuable contribution to scholars of the African Diaspora.’
*Black Perspectives*
‘A wide-ranging overview of the historical and contemporary
struggle for reparations ... A book that will enrich current
debates surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, controversial
monuments and memorials to slave holders and Con-federate heroes,
and the ongoing social inequalities along racial lines ... Readers
of many varieties will bene?t from Reparations for Slavery and the
Slave Trade as a classroom text, research tool, and narrative guide
to the evolution of one of the most contentious issues of our
times. It will broaden the scope of intellectual discussions
because of its international orientation, and it will deepen
readers’ appreciation for the long history of the struggle.’
*The American Historical Review*
Reparations for Slavery is a thorough and comprehensive history of
this topic. A must read for anyone interested in the global reach
of the movements for reparations.
*Joan W. Scott, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ,
USA*
This excellent study not only reaffirms the importance of the
current debate about reparations but advances a subtle argument via
a wide range of new materials - historical, political, archival,
and visual. The author’s command of the intellectual arguments
steers her through contentious political issues which would
distract a lesser historian. The result is a very important and
well-written book which is relevant, topical and persuasive.
*James Walvin, Professor of History Emeritus, University of York,
UK*
Araujo offers a precious transnational study, grounded on research
in four languages, of how the global histories of African slavery
generated demands for reparatory justice which, beginning in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, reached a new urgency in the
1960s and in our post-2020 moment.
*Richard Drayton, Professor of Imperial and Global History, London,
UK*
In this book, Araujo revisits the human tragedy that was the
trans-Atlantic trafficking in enslaved Africans and its afterlife -
a global movement for reparatory justice. She tracks brilliantly
the genealogy and current status of the movement. This is a must
read for all who believe in a resolution for the injustices
inflicted on people by barbaric colonial systems
*Verene A. Shepherd, Professor Emerita, History & Gender Studies.
The University of the West Indies, Jamaica*
In this timely and updated edition of her comprehensive history of
reparations, Ana Lucia Araujo provides us with an authoritative
transnational narrative. This wonderful book will appeal both to
specialists and a broader lay public interested in the legacies of
the enslavement of people of African descent in the Americas.
*Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History, University of
Connecticut, USA, and author of The Slave's Cause: A History of
Abolition*
[Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade] is an accessible
transnational history that is meticulously researched and argued.
This makes it a remarkable contribution to the debates about
reparations, and to Black social movement history, Black Atlantic
history, and African Diaspora studies.
*Bowling Green Daily News*
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