Compensate Jamaica for slavery?

I see that the Jamaican Prime Minister has chosen the visit of Prince Harry to wax eloquent about Britain compensating Jamaica for the slave trade.

Perhaps she overlooks the fact that it was Britain that actually abolished the slave trade in 1807 (followed by the US in 1808). This was not just the British trade. It was the whole lot. Because the Royal Navy really did rule the seas it could enforce the ban on ships of any flag, and did. Slaving was equated with piracy and carried the death penalty. For 50 years the RN operated vigorously against slavers.

It banned slavery altogether in 1833.

But this trend had started many years earlier with the historic judgment of Lord Mansfield in 1772 which ruled that as soon as a slave set foot in Britain he became free.

And if we are to accept the principle of compensation for slavery nearly 200 years ago, how about the 1 million-plus Europeans taken as slaves by the Barbary pirates? Or the estimated 100 million taken in the eastern Africa trade over more than 1000 years, centred on Zanzibar?

Ought we to not be seeking relief for the thousands of slaves in Africa today (200,000 in Sudan alone)?

So, Sista P, look where your train of logic takes you.

And another thing.

Were it not for slavery, where would you be today? Begging in Sierra Leone without your hands? Sowing mealies with just a hoe? You might care to read ‘Africa: dispatches from a Fragile Continent’ by Blaine Harden. He is an Afro-American and former bureau chief for the Washington Post in sub-Saharan Africa. Seeing the state of Africa, he is thankful that his forbears were taken as slaves.

Something to ponder, Sista P.