Tag: slave

Direct ancestors of King Charles owned slave plantations, documents reveal

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Direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia, according to new research shared with the Guardian.
A document discovered in archives reveals that a direct ancestor of the king was involved in buying at least 200 enslaved people from the Royal African Company (RAC) in 1686.
Frances Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne Photograph: Creative Commons
The document instructs a ship’s captain to deliver the enslaved Africans to Edward Porteus, a tobacco plantation owner in Virginia, and two other men. Porteus’s son, Robert, inherited his father’s estate before moving his family to England, in 1720. Later a direct descendant, Frances Smith, married the aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon. Their granddaughter was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late queen mother.
The documents establishing these royal roots were found by the researcher Desirée Baptiste, while investigating links between the Church of England and enslavers in Virginia, for a play she has written.
The revelation follows the Guardian’s publication of a document earlier this month that linked the slave trader Edward Colston to the British monarchy. The latest discovery, which Baptiste made deep in the RAC archives, reveals a direct line up the Windsor family tree to the trafficking of enslaved Africans.
The RAC, which traded almost 180,000 enslaved people, was granted royal charters by successive English kings. In the newly published document, senior RAC officials, describing themselves as “your loving friends”, instructed the captain of a ship to deliver “negroes” to Edward Porteus.
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“You are with your first opportunity of wind and weather that God shall send after receipt hereof to sett sail out of the River of Thames on the Shipp of Speedwell and make the best of your way to James Island on the River of Gambia,” the instruction stated. It added: “ … our said Agent to put aboard the Shipp Two Hundred Negroes and as many more as he shall get ready and the ship can conveniently carry … and then proceed … to Potomac River in Maryland, and deliver them to Mr Edward Porteus, Mr Christopher Robinson and Mr Richard Gardiner.”
The will of Edward Porteus, another document examined by Baptiste, referred to “negroes”, whom he left to his son Robert. Edward Porteus also left to his wife, Margaret, “my negroe girl Cumbo”.
Virginia is a landmark state in the history of US slavery, because of an infamous landing of enslaved African people at Jamestown in 1619. Laws developed in the state to maintain slavery and crush uprisings included whipping, and dismembering people by cutting off a foot. A study of these laws states that: “A slave giving false evidence would … receive his 39 lashes and then have his ears nailed to the pillory for half an hour, after which they would be cut off.”
An uprising by enslaved people in 1663 in Gloucester County, where Porteus was based, was mercilessly put down, according to an account by the Colonial Willamsburg Foundation: “Several bloody heads dangled from local chimney tops as a gruesome warning to others.”
Earlier this month, in response to the Guardian’s reporting, Charles signalled for the first time his support for research into the links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said at the time that Charles took “profoundly seriously” the issue of slavery, which he has described as an “appalling atrocity”. Support for the research was part of Charles’s process of deepening his understanding of “slavery’s enduring impact”, the spokesperson said, which had “continued with vigour and determination” since his accession.
Race equality and reparations campaigners told the Guardian that while they mostly welcomed the support for research, they believed Charles must go further, and acknowledge the established history now.
A palace spokesperson said in response to questions about the Windsor family’s heritage in Virginia that they were unable to comment until after the coronation. A spokesperson explained that the media operation was under “intense pressure” dealing with global interest in the coronation.
Frances Bowes-Lyon. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London
However, last week the bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, issued an apology relating to the same Virginia family. A son of Robert Porteus by a second marriage, a lineage separate from the royal family, was Beilby Porteus, who was bishop of London for 22 years from 1787. In January, Fulham Palace Trust, which maintains the historic London bishops’ residence, published research on the Porteus plantations. It acknowledged that Bishop Porteus and a brother inherited their father’s large Virginia estate, and continued to profit from it as “absentee plantation owners and enslavers”.
Mullally marked the opening of a new Fulham Palace exhibition on transatlantic slavery and resistance by issuing an apology relating in part to Porteus. “I am profoundly sorry for the harm that was inflicted by my predecessors through their involvement with the transatlantic slave trade,” Mullally said in a statement. “It continues to be a source of great shame to us as a diocese.”

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In the play that Baptiste developed from her historical research, the lead character calls on Charles to apologise for the monarchy’s institutional and family involvement in transatlantic slavery.
“The Royal African Company document shows the current king’s direct ancestor trafficking newly arrived Africans, and profiting from the confiscated lives of enslaved people, like the ‘Negroe girl Cumbo’ left in Edward’s will,” Baptiste said. “This means the royal links to slavery are more than just institutional, they are in their family heritage.”
Prof Trevor Burnard, the director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull, said: “Charles has given an encouraging response to further research, and this new information shows that further research should be done, showing how extensive the links are of the royal family, aristocracy and all parts of Britain, to slavery.”
Do you have information about this story? Email investigations@theguardian.com, or use Signal or WhatsApp to message (UK) +44 7584 640566 or (US) +1 646 886 8761.
A staged reading of Desirée Baptiste’s play, Incidents in the Life of an Anglican Slave, Written by Herself, will be performed at Lambeth Palace Library on 27 April.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 27, 2023
Portugal should apologise for role in slave trade, says its president

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Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has said his country should apologise and take responsibility for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, the first time a leader of the southern European nation has suggested such a national apology.
From the 15th to the 19th century, 6 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic by Portuguese vessels and sold into slavery, primarily to Brazil.
But so far Portugal has rarely commented on its past and little is taught about its role in slavery in schools.
Rather, the country’s colonial era, which subjugated countries including Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde and East Timor as well as parts of India, is often perceived as a source of pride by most Portuguese.
Speaking on Tuesday at Portugal’s annual commemoration of the 1974 “Carnation” revolution, which toppled the country’s dictatorship, Rebelo de Sousa said the country should go beyond just an apology, though he did not offer up any specifics.
“Apologising is sometimes the easiest thing to do: you apologise, turn your back, and the job is done,” he said, adding the country should “assume responsibility” for its past to build a better future.
Rebelo de Sousa made the remarks after the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was in Portugal on his first visit to Europe since assuming the office, addressed the Portuguese parliament. Brazil gained independence from Portugal in 1822.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, (l) greets Augusto Santos Silva, president of the Portuguese parliament, on the last day of his state visit to Portugal on 25 April. Photograph: Bruno de Carvalho/Sopa Images/Shutterstock
He said the colonisation of Brazil also had positive factors, such as the spread of Portuguese language and culture.

“[But] on the bad side, the exploitation of Indigenous people … slavery, the sacrifice of the interests of Brazil and Brazilians,” he said.
Europe’s top human rights group previously said Portugal had to do more to confront its colonial past and role in the transatlantic slave trade in order to help fight racism and discrimination today.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 26, 2023
EC a slave of those in power; it can never take away Shiv Sena from me: Uddhav

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Khed: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday targetted the Election Commission over allotting the party’s name and symbol to the rebel faction and termed the poll body a “slave” of people in power.
Dubbing the EC a “chuna lagav” commission weeks after losing the party name and election symbol “bow and arrow” to the faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Thackeray said the poll body can never take away the party, founded by his father late Bal Thackeray, from him.
He said it was Bal Thackeray who stood with the Bharatiya Janata Party when it was politically “untouchable”, and dared the former ally to seek votes in Maharashtra only in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi without invoking the Thackeray senior.
“You (the Election Commission) have taken away the party name and the symbol from us, but you can’t take away Shiv Sena from me,” the former chief minister said pointing out a huge turnout at a rally, his first after losing the party name and election symbol.
“I have nothing to offer to you. I have come to seek your blessings and support,” he told the gathering.
Khed constituency in Ratnagiri district in the coastal Konkan region is the home turf of former Thackeray loyalist Ramdas Kadam, who has switched allegiance to the Shinde-led faction.
In a big blow to Uddhav Thackeray, the Election Commission last month allotted the name Shiv Sena’ and its poll symbol to the group led by Shinde who has the support of most of the MLAs of Shiv Sena.
Thackeray said he didn’t accept the EC’s decision.

“If the Election Commission is not suffering from cataract, it should come and see the ground situation. The EC is a ‘chuna lagav’ commission and a slave of those in power. The principle based on which the EC took this decision is wrong,’ he said.
Thackeray said the party has appealed in the Supreme Court.
He said the BJP was trying to finish off Shiv Sena brutally and cruelly but won’t succeed.
He said the move to destroy Shiv Sena was akin to the attack on the unity of Marathi people as well as Hindus.
“When BJP was untouchable in politics, Balasaheb Thackeray stood by that party,” the former chief minister said.
He said earlier sadhus and sants used to be part of the BJP but the party is now full of opportunists.
“The largest number of corrupt people are in BJP. First, they (BJP) accuse the people in the Opposition of corruption. However, those accused of corruption are then inducted into BJP,” he said.
Dismissing the criticism that he did not venture out of his house when he was the chief minister (November 2019-June 2022), Thackeray said, “I didn’t go out because of the COVID pandemic but I worked from home, and my work was praised during the pandemic”.
He said his supporters will decide whether they want him as the party president and not the Election Commission.
“People will have to decide whether they want me or Eknath Shinde. I will accept the verdict of the people but not of the EC. If people say they don’t want me, I will leave just like I had left ‘Varsha’ (the official residence of Maharashtra chief minister after resigning from the post”), he said.
Targetting BJP, he said like Eknath Shinde who “stole” my (Uddhav Thackeray’s) father, the BJP has “stolen sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Subhash Chandra Bose because that party has no icons to bank on”.
” When you see someone with a bow and arrow, he is a thief. Will you vote for him (a reference to Shinde)?” he asked the audience.
“Earlier, the BJP’s dais used to be full of sadhus and sants but now it is full of opportunists. I dare the BJP to seek votes in Maharashtra only in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and not Balasaheb Thackeray,” Thackeray added.
He appealed to his supporters to make BJP bite the dust in the elections in Maharashtra.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 5, 2023