updated 2025
This topic guide is a companion to ‘Germany should pay reparations for its colonial past’
Please note, this Topic Guide should be the starting point of your research. You are encouraged to conduct your own independent research to supplement your argument.
INTRODUCTION
Although the issue of slave trade reparations has long been contentious, a new wave of the debate began in 2022, after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as scrutiny of her reign and the legacy of the British Empire came under the spotlight. Again, more recently, the debate was reignited following the statement from Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, in 2024 that Britain would not take part in any slavery reparations [Ref: Guardian]. However, several former colonies have been progressing plans to remove the British monarch as their head of state and calling for reparations [Ref: The Atlantic]. A move endorsed by Commonwealth leaders at the CHOGMA summit in Samoa in October 2024 who reiterated the view that Britain should commit to reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade [Ref: BBC].
This follows a trend across the West of increasing demand for compensation from Western nations to individuals and countries who were affected by the slave trade. According to some calculations, reparations for the transatlantic slave trade could exceed $18 trillion [Ref: BBC] with those calling for reparations arguing that slavery facilitated the rise of Britain as a global player at the detriment to those whose heritage is rooted in slavery. The implication of this is that these negative affects have filtered down through generations and had a discernible material impact on the present. In summary, it has benefitted the descendants of those who owned and traded slaves, and held back the descendants of slaves [Ref: Guardian].
Furthermore, there is also growing demand from climate activists for developed countries with a long history of greenhouse-gas emissions, including Britain, to pay reparations to the parts of the world most affected by climate change [Ref: New Scientist]. In this vein of argument, colonial powers do not just owe previously subjugated people and states for direct violence and economic exploitation, but also for the disproportionate effect the resulting rapid development of Western nations is now having on the lands of ex-colonial lands. Indeed, this idea appears to have been agreed at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt [Ref: UNFCCC].
Critics of reparations, however, are concerned about the idea of apologising and paying reparations for something no modern Briton was a part of, and question whether reparations are the best way to resolve an historical injustice [Ref: Spiked].
Furthermore, in the US, after 10 years of debate, a 2023 poll found that the majority of Americans remain opposed to reparations, with respondents arguing it is ‘impossible to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery’ and ‘African Americans are treated equally today’ [Ref: NPR].
In Britain, where the call for reparations has led to a highly contested debate, some commentators have argued that, despite the huge amounts involved, when the true cost of the legacy of slavery is calculated, it is the moral thing to do [Ref: The Voice]. However, columnist Stephen Bush notes that ‘the problem is that arguments about reparations inevitably become about who should pay, rather than about who needs money. Politics becomes a debate about the moral status of creditors and debtors.’ [Ref: FT]
Though few would argue about the inhumanity that slavery embodied, the issue at hand is whether there is a moral and financial debt still to be paid by modern Western states, such as the UK. Would financial reparations absolve the UK once and for all from its debt to generations of people affected by the transatlantic slave trade? Or should we stop trying to find solutions to today’s problems by resolving history’s wrongs?
DEBATE IN CONTEXT
The moral case
In a seminal piece on the topic, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates highlights philosopher John Locke’s observations in his Second Treatise of Government that ‘he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation’ [Ref: Atlantic]. This right to seek redress lies at the heart of the moral case for reparations as a way of atoning for hundreds of years of unpaid labour, suffering and exploitation. Speaking at a congressional hearing in 2019, Coates furthered this argument to say that American citizens are ‘bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach’ [Ref: The Guardian].
However, some highlight the role Britain played in the abolition of the slave trade, at great financial cost, as moral atonement [Ref: Forbes], while others, such as columnist Inaya Folarin Iman, argue ‘[t]oo often reparations campaigners distort the tragic and painful history of slavery to make their arguments. They overlook inconvenient historical facts, such as the role of the African rulers who actively participated in the slave trade and frequently resisted abolition.’ [Ref: Spiked] These commentators view the moral opprobrium surrounding reparations as problematic, and question whether it is ethically right for modern citizens to apologise or pay reparations for actions carried out by ancestors, generations ago.
For example, in his rebuttal to Coates, writer Coleman Hughes states that ‘the moment you give me reparations… you’ve made one-third of black Americans who poll against reparations into victims without their consent. And black Americans have fought too long for the right to define themselves to be spoken for in such a condescending manner.’ [Ref: The Guardian] Does the issue of reparations infantalise black people or do we as a modern society have a collective duty to atone for this historic act of inhumanity?
A lasting legacy?
Opponents of reparations are wary of attributing any modern social, economic or cultural problems to the institution of slavery, and reject the idea that the descendants of slaves are determined by the events of the past. In this vein, journalist Christian Watson warns of the legacy of a ‘victim mentality’. For Watson, the topic of reparations is weaponised by politicians to homogenise African-Americans into voting as a bloc, and that ‘encouraging people to confront societal ills themselves is a far better route to equality than reparations’ [Ref: Spiked].
Others are equally reluctant to accept that the whole Caribbean is in abject poverty as a result of the legacy of slavery. According to writer Ralph Leonard ‘the crude redistributionist logic of reparations ironically locks in the same paternalistic relationship that undergirded colonialism.’ [Ref: Unherd] For Leonard, the focus should be on building a freer and better society for everyone in the future, Suggesting further that ‘Blood was shed in order to abolish slavery, and abolish it forever. That was reparation enough. Can anyone put a price on that?’
However, advocates dismiss these suggestions, and say that we can clearly see a modern legacy of slavery in both the UK and the Caribbean that needs redressing. A British writer and academic, Kehinde Andrews, argues that the ‘prosperity of the West is directly related not only to the wealth derived from centuries of genocide, slavery and colonialism, but also to the colonial economic and political system it has created which continues to oppress those in the Global South.’ [Ref: Wiley Online Library] and that racial equality can only occur with ‘nothing short of a massive transfer of wealth from the developed to the underdeveloped world, and to the descendants of slavery and colonialism in the west’ [Ref: The Guardian]. Similarly, columnist Kuba Shand-Baptiste writes that sustained inequality and social segregation founded in colonial slavery persists in the Caribbean, with descendants continuing to benefit from inherited wealth and profit from plantations [Ref: The Independent].
The key point for reparation proponents is that although slavery was abolished nearly 200 years ago, the legacy of slavery has had significant consequences for Black individuals such as ‘enduring racist experiences’, ‘lower self-esteem’ and ‘depression’, as well as a range of health consequences ‘ [the] Black populations face a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes
and high blood pressure, because of the dietary culture that emerged during enslavement… Similarly, the pressure to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards both negatively affects Black women’s self-worth and makes them vulnerable to harmful beauty practices, which can cause mercury poisoning, kidney damage, cancer, and premature puberty.’ [Ref: The Brattle Report]
A realistic solution?
One of the leading arguments from those who are critical of colonial slavery reparations is that the policy is impractical. Economist Thomas Grennes, writing for the Cato Institute, argues ‘it is impossible to pay reparations to slaves or penalize slave owners, as they have all been dead for decades. The case for paying reparations based on race is grounded in problematic notions of collective guilt and collective desserts. Targeting of descendants of slaves is very imprecise.’ [Ref: Cato Institute]
Similarly, in addition to his remarks at the congressional hearing, Coleman Hughes questions how best to resolve racial inequality by writing ‘the debate… is not between reparations and doing nothing for black people, but between policy based on genealogy and policy based on socio-economics… an ancestral connection to slavery is a far less reliable predicator of privation than low income’ [Ref: Quillette]. He also warns that reparations are likely to ‘function as a kind of subsidy for activism’.
For supporters, however, reparation and compensation programs do have precedent. Japanese-Americans descended from prisoners of Second World War internment camps, for example, were given a formal apology and $20,000 in 1988 [Ref: The New York Times] while Germany’s Holocaust reparations to Israel are argued to be the basis of 45,000 jobs and 15 per cent of Israel’s growth across the 12 years of the agreement [Ref: Atlantic]. On the other hand, not all reparation agreements are viewed as successful, as demonstrated by Japan and Korea’s ongoing feud about their 1965 agreement to ‘normalise relations’ after the war, which included a payment to South Korea of $300 million and a $200 million loan [Ref: LA Times].
However, a strong argument against reparations is the assertion that Britain had a key role in ending the slave trade, through Parliament’s passage of a law to abolish slavery in 1833. As part of that law, British plantation owners were paid for the loss of their slaves, to the tune of some £20m. The UK only finished paying off the debt it incurred to cover the payments in 2015. [Ref: BBC] But for supporters of transatlantic slavery reparations, there is an injustice here in that the slave-owners were paid, but not the slaves themselves.
Have the debates about reparations got out of hand? Can we say reparations are a genuine and helpful means of rectifying a historical wrong, a symbolic gesture, or an impractical and misguided policy, punishing the innocent of today for the actions of the guilty of yesterday?
KEY TERMS
ESSENTIAL READING
FOR
The case for reparations
Ta-Nehisi Coates Atlantic June 2014
Slavery reparations: A rose-tinted view of empire stops us seeing what we really owe the Caribbean
Eleanor Shearer Big Issue 24 October 2024
‘An apology is free’: experts on the UK’s approach to slavery reparations
Chris Osuh and Neha Gohil Guardian 23 October 2024
£18 trillion – what Britain owes in reparations. Time to pay up.
The Voice 28 July 2023
My family benefited from slavery. Why can’t we accept white people still owe a huge debt?
Thomas Harding Guardian 11 January 2022
AGAINST
Reparations and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Pyrrhic Victory
Coleman Hughes Quillette 17 March 2019
Why David Lammy must reject reparations
Ralph Leonard Unherd 9 February 2025
The gross injustice of slavery reparations
Inaya Folarin Iman Spiked 30 October 2024
Reparations are wrong on every level. We must reject the divisive politics of national grievance
Daniel Hannan Telegraph 19 October 2024
Who dictates how we see the past
Nigel Biggar Spectator 15 June 2024
EXPLAINERS
How would slavery reparations work?
Harriet Marsden The Week 24 October 2024
Time has come for reparations dialogue, Commonwealth heads agree
Chris Mason BBC 26 October 2024
WATCH
Congressional hearing on reparations, Coleman Hughes vs Ta-Nehisi Coates
YouTube, June 2019
IN DEPTH
The case against reparations
Wide et al Policy Exchange 1 February 2025
Considering the Case for Slavery Reparations
Thomas Grennes Cato Institute Winter 2023
The Brattle Report
Patrick Robinson 8 June 2023
Against Reparations
James Heartfield Letters on Liberty June 2023
What reparations for slavery might look like in 2019
Patricia Cohen New York Times 23 May 2019
BACKGROUNDERS
Task Force: Blacks are owed hundreds of thousands
Lil Kalish Cal Matters 26 September 2022
Adolph Reed on why talk about reparations is counterproductive
Fabiola Cineas Vox 12 September 2022
The cost of reparations
Fabiola Cineas Vox 8 September 2022
Why we need reparations for Black Americans
Rashawn Ray and Andre M. Perry The Brookings Institution 15 April 2020
What to know about calls for reparations for Britain’s legacy of slavery in the Caribbean
Kenichi Serino and Justin Stabley PBS 16 September 2022
Black Americans’ poor health outcomes is proof of wildly overdue unpaid tab for slavery
Mary T. Bassett Boston Globe 4 October 2022
Poland launches its €1.3tn claim for wartime reparations from Germany
Raphael Minder and Barbara Erling, Financial Times 3 October 2022
The case against slavery reparations
Promise Frank Ejiofor Spiked 19 August 2020
The reparations racket
James Heartfield Spiked 25 September 2019
If Glasgow University is serious about slavery reparations, it would pay those still affected
Claire Heuchan Huffington Post 23 August 2019
Japan, Korea and the messy question of how to pay for historic wrongs
Victoria Kim Los Angeles Times 17 August 2019
While the US debate heats up, why won’t the UK even talk about reparations for slavery?
Kuba Shand-Baptiste Independent 17 July 2019
Reparations and the victim mentality
Christian Watson Spiked 23 April 2019
H.R.40 – Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act
116th Congress 1 March 2019
ORGANISATIONS
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
Caribbean Community Secretariat
National Commission on Reparations
AUDIO/VISUAL
Coleman Hughes talks to Quillette’s Jonathan Kay about his reparations testimony
Quillette Podcast 22 June 2019
Coleman Hughes testifies against reparations
C-Span 19 June 2019
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Danny Glover make case for slavery reparations
C-Span 19 June 2019
The morality of empire
Moral Maze BBC Radio 4 18 July 2012