William Gladstone’s family to apologise for slavery links
This week, the family of one of Britain’s most renowned prime ministers will go to the Caribbean to apologize for the country’s historical role in slavery.
Six of William Gladstone’s descendants will gather in Guyana on Thursday to mark the 200th anniversary of an enslaved people’s insurrection that historians think cleared the path for abolition.
Enslaved Africans working on his father’s sugar estates in the Caribbean sponsored William Gladstone’s education and career as a 19th-century politician recognized for his liberal and reformist governments.
In addition to issuing a formal apology for John Gladstone’s ownership of Africans, the Gladstones of the twenty-first century have pledged to pay reparations to finance additional research into the impact of slavery.
When the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833, the British government set aside a £20 million fund (about £16 billion today) to pay planters.
Early in his career, William testified in parliament in defense of his father’s role in slavery, and he also assisted in calculating how much compensation his father would receive.
Over 2,508 enslaved Africans in Guyana and Jamaica were owned or mortgaged by John Gladstone. He was awarded about £106,000 after his freedom, which was a large figure at the time.
In August 1823, the Demerara uprising erupted on one of his properties. It was led by Jack Gladstone, an enslaved man compelled to bear his owner’s name, and his father, Quamina, a kid imported from Africa.
Demerara, a British colony that ultimately became part of Guyana, was home to approximately 13,000 Africans. Conditions for the enslaved were very harsh there. The plantations were the richest in the British empire, with an enslaved individual in Demerara being worth twice as much as one in Jamaica.
When the revolt was repressed, more than 250 enslaved Africans were slain, and another 51 were sentenced to death. Many of those convicted were tortured, decapitated, and their heads were impaled on poles as a warning to others. The body of Quamina was hung in chains outside one of John Gladstone’s plantations.
“It is an example to others and means a great deal on the anniversary of such an important event,” Eric Phillips, chair of the Guyana reparations committee and vice-chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, said of the Gladstones’ visit to apologize.
