Dear Editor,

I have seen many articles in this paper claiming reparations for slavery, but Britian does not owe reparations to Caribbean nationals. It is simple. The British did nothing wrong when they enslaved Africans, because slavery was not an illegal practice.

Almost 2,00 years before the Atlantic slave trade, Greek philosopher Aristotle developed a theory of slavery, based on natural law, as described in Book 1 of Politics and Book 7 of Nicomachean Ethics, in which he argued that some humans were born to be slaves, while some were born to be masters. Eventually, Christian Europe adapted Aristotle’s philosophy and with it his theory of slavery.

Even after slavery was abolished, enlightenment philosopher Nietzsche said that the natural instinct of the more powerful humans was to dominate weaker humans. So, since classical times, there was a common belief that weaker humans were fit for slavery. Peoples who were weak militarily were conquered and enslaved. This was the natural order of things in the state of nature.

Before the Atlantic slave trade, slavery was mostly associated with Asians and Europeans, not Africans, as is so often reported in history books. Most of the slaves in Rome were Europeans and Asians and, during the Dark Ages, most of the slaves in Muslim lands were Europeans. Africans were enslaved en masse, as a last resort, due to the rapid decimation of the Indian population in the Caribbean and the Americas.

Centuries before the British were able to unite themselves under the leadership of the Tudors, Britain was invaded numerous times and its people enslaved by various foreign powers, including the Romans and Vikings. So, when in the 17th century, the British and other European military powers conquered and enslaved the military weaker peoples of the New World, they did what was viewedas acceptable and natural.

Now, the argument that the British paid the planters, therefore, the slaves should also be paid is not sufficient to claim reparations. Slaves were property and have been so for thousands of years. First century BC Roman philosopher Marcus Terentius Varro went even further to describe slaves as ‘tools with voices’. The masters of the slaves would not allow their properties or ‘tools with voices’ to go free, without some form of compensation. As a result, the British paid the planters in exchange for the freedom of their properties. The amount of money paid to planters was not based on future earnings, but on the market value of the slaves at the time of their freedom.

Paradoxically, the same British who enslaved our ancestors were also the first in history to abolish the institution. Britain owes us nothing.

Not only Caribbean nationals, but weaker peoples of the world, should be grateful that, for the first time in the history of the human race, slavery was made an illegal institution in the 19th century.

Africanus

sawirus@outlook.com