Guadeloupe: Anti-colonialist organizations demand reparations for descendants of slave owners

Pro-independence and anti-colonialist organizations in Guadeloupe announced on Wednesday, April 30, that they intend to demand "material and financial" reparations from the descendants of slave owners on the Caribbean island.

These organizations want to "urge the descendants of slave owners to engage in a process of apologies and reparations related to slavery and colonization," said independence and anti-colonialist activist Luc Reinette at a press conference.

They announced that they would send letters to the descendants of the families they believe owe them.

In 2021, CNRS researchers compiled a list of former slave owners in the French colonial empire, along with the amount each of them received.

April 30 marks the anniversary of the 1849 "Compensation Act" for slave owners in the colonial empire, in Réunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Senegal and Nosy Be, as well as in Sainte-Marie, Madagascar.

After the abolition of slavery in April 1848, the French state paid money to these owners as compensation for the loss of slaves, considered at the time as "patrimonial property."

The settlers then threatened to leave the territories: the French state paid them 126 million gold francs, in the form of immediate payments and an annual annuity of 6 million gold francs, over 20 years, according to historians.

"Today, that means more than 3.5 trillion euros," says Jean-Jacob Bicep of the Popular Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe.

"We talk about the high cost of living, monopolies in all economic sectors, and land ownership, but we always find the same large families," he recalls.

He also denounces "the castes cut off from the peoples of the territories" which are said to be at work among the "békés and the Blanc-Pays".

"We see a movement taking place in the Caribbean: in Barbados, there have been apologies from former colonists, and the former colonial powers are beginning to discuss the issue of reparations," Luc Reinette emphasizes.

"The issue is regularly addressed at the UN. In France, there's radio silence," he laments, when asked about the timing of this request, which comes two weeks after Emmanuel Macron announced a commission of historians to examine Haiti's debt.

Legal avenues have been explored, Guadeloupean activist organizations point out: "We sought reparations from the French colonial state, but it is not the only one that owes us reparations," declared Jacqueline Jackeray, president of the International Committee of Black Peoples. "There can be no reconciliation without justice," she adds.