Antigua’s government is very upset at Harvard University for its piecemeal approach and apparent reluctance to make reparations payments linked to its role in benefiting from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The cabinet in the Eastern Caribbean island thinks that the school has been skimping on the financial responsibilities to Antigua, from which it had its early start through the plantation system.
A less-than-impressed Prime Minister Gaston Browne took to public radio in the past week to lambaste Harvard for what he termed as a mere symbolic financial gesture toward the island rather than sitting down to formally discuss reparations with authorities.
The link between Antigua and the university has been making headlines in recent days because a team from Harvard’s “The Legacy of Slavery Initiative” was on the island to research the university’s links with Antigua and try to trace and identify the descendants of enslaved individuals who were attached or linked in any way to plantations. A planter named Isaac Royall Junior, who had invested in and had owned the Royall plantation, is listed as the financier of some very early programs at Harvard’s law school.
So far, researchers say they have found evidence of more than 250 people who worked without pay as slaves for people and institutions linked to Harvard, as well as dozens of living descendants.
Touching on the subject on the radio, Browne was strident in presenting his administration’s position on the issue, noting that the school is culpable and should begin making payments rather than symbolic offers of short-term academic courses while avoiding payments for historical injustices.
“We are not asking for favors. We are seeking justice for the people whose suffering built Harvard into what it is today,” Browne said. “Harvard University, particularly its law school, was established with funding from slavery on Antigua’s plantations. Our ancestors worked for centuries without pay, and their labor fueled Harvard’s early development. It’s time for them to acknowledge this with meaningful action.”
Local and international media reports had indicated that Browne had written to the university’s administration demanding reparations as far back as 2019, but it is unclear what became of that effort.
As Browne steps up his campaign for meaningful reparations, the “Harvard Crimson” newspaper recently reported the school has ramped up links with Antigua in general and plans to continue doing so.
So far, teams have visited at least five plantations on the island, complete with building structures dating back to the 1830s when sugar was the king crop in the West Indies, and plans other phases of research and investigations into what officials say is a horrible past.
Browne has been one of the more strident Caribbean leaders in demanding payments from former European slave-trading nations and institutions associated with slavery. The island has a military national reparations commission working with the umbrella regional body. That body, through Caribbean governments, has already sent demand payment letters to European capitals, while also retaining a British law firm to determine the strength of the regional case. The preliminary verdict is that governments should move ahead because the evidence of European culpability is overwhelming.
Antigua’s interaction with Harvard is coming at a time when other Caribbean nations are pressing for payments and doing away with remaining vestiges of colonialism.
Trinidad’s parliament, for example, recently approved eliminating images of the original sailing ships of Christopher Columbus from its coat of arms and replacing them with the steelpan, the national musical instrument, while preparing to remove statues of Columbus from prominence in the city. Barbados did likewise in the runup to its switch to a republic three years ago.
