Compensation

There is a tiny little island some twenty miles up the Sierra Leone River. You would think, judging by its size, that this island would be of little importance, if any at all. But it is a hugely important site in the history of Sierra Leone.

Of course, on the scale of geological time, the history is a short one. Very short. But, in modern terms it is a long one. Three hundred years. In those three centuries, the island’s fortunes waxed and waned and waxed and waned again.

The basis of those fortunes was slaves. The island, Bunce Island, to keep to its modern name, is only 13 acres in size. But it was from this island that thousands of Sierra Leonean Africans were shipped to slavery in America and the Caribbean. To bring about this feat, European slavers built a structure, which they called a “factory” for processing the human crop, the merchandising of which was to create vast wealth for the participants in the trade.

And of course, in order to protect their assets, the slavers’ factory was also built as a fortified castle. That, however, did not prevent it from being attacked by rivals and it being razed to the ground from time to time. Think of the modern trafficker and his distaste for competition and you’ll get the picture. But, in the end, the Brits prevailed, as they often did in those good old superpower days.

       Britain prevailed also when it came to ending the evil trade in the early 19th century, and so Bunce Island entered its final phase of decline. But it has never ceased to capture the imagination and has become a must-see heritage site for visitors as well as Sierra Leoneans interested in remembering. So, it was not a surprise when the novelist, the late Graham Greene, visited the island when MI6, the British Intelligence outfit posted him to Sierra Leone during World War II. What was surprising to me is Greene’s recollection of his visit in which he had expressed sympathy for the slavers who had been buried in the “crumbling little cemeteries,” as he called them, on the island. It didn’t make sense at the time I read it. Here was this “liberal” man who should have been able to rise above the level of the European functionary exercising seigniorial rights in the land where his masters were pulling all the strings. All empathy for the perpetrators and none for the victims. It was puzzling.

          Seven decades on, the matter was to be clarified, now that it has been revealed that Greene’s family did own slaves up to the time of abolition in the 1830’s, when those who held slaves demanded, and got, substantial compensation from the British government for giving up their human possessions. Greene is of course among distinguished company, as the list of present day inheritors is a virtual Who’s Who of today’s British establishment: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

But the question that remains a-begging in many minds is who, among the central players, are yet to be compensated?

For which, read “victims.”

Tell Fren Tru