International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition: A reflection Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission (ABRSC)

Today – August 23 – is recognized since 1998 as the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave
Trade and its Abolition as designated by UNESCO – to memorialize the European transatlantic slave trade.
The date marks the birth of the Haitian revolution in 1791 which not only led to the creation of the first
Black independent nation in our hemisphere but also played a major role in the abolition of the crime
against humanity that trafficked African human bodies between  Africa ,  Europe ,  the Americas , and
the  Caribbean .
The European transatlantic slave trade was a major international commercial operation, with great
financial investments by and profits to Governments, royal families, and thousands of private
entrepreneurs. It is estimated that of the approximately 2.3 million enslaved Africans who were
disembarked in the British Caribbean between the 17th and early-19th centuries, only six hundred and
sixty-five thousand (665,000) could be counted at abolition in 1834. Here in Antigua, only twenty-eight
thousand (28,130) of the one hundred and forty thousand (140,000) transported here remained in 1834.
Commemoration of this day forces us to reflect not only on the inhumanity of the trade and slavery itself
but on the obvious genocide committed against African peoples as revealed in the major reduction in
African populations.
ABRSC calls on our peoples to also reflect on the reasons for the abolition of both slavery and the slave
trade and to recognize the pivotal role played by our rebelling and revolting ancestors against their
bondage. It is estimated that – on average – there was one major revolt every two years in our region.
Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, Sir Hilary Beckles conceives of the period between
1638 and 1838 as the ‘200 Years War’ – one protracted struggle of revolts and plots launched by Africans
and their Afro-West Indian progeny against slave owners’
We note also that here in the Caribbean the mass enslavement of Africans was preceded by genocide
against indigenous populations. Today – the global struggle for reparatory justice demands more than the
remembrance suggested by UNESCO and calls for both European repentance for and repair of the immense
inter-generational damage inflicted on African peoples – whether on the continent or in the diaspora, and
the indigenous peoples of our region.
Today is not a day of celebration. It is one which calls for collective recognition and solemn reflection on
the immense historical wrongs committed by Europe. It is one which calls for commitment to the struggle
for reparations and reparatory justice that must, as far as possible, wipe out all the consequences of the
illegal acts of the genocide of indigenous people, the slave trade, and slavery. It is a call for our right to
unimpeded development
Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission (ABRSC)
23 rd August 2023