The British University of Cambridge admits: This is how we benefited from the slave trade

Britain's Cambridge University said on Thursday it has benefited from the proceeds of slavery throughout its history, promising to increase scholarships for black people and fund more research into the slave trade.

The admission - published in a long report on the university's website - comes as a series of leading institutions, such as the Bank of England and the Church of England, re-evaluate the central role that slavery played in enriching Britain, and how they benefited from the injustices associated with slavery.

Donations of slavery money

The university - which was founded nearly 8 centuries ago - said that an investigation it requested did not find any evidence that the university itself owned any slaves or enslaved farms directly, but it showed that it obtained "great benefits" from slavery.

The investigation report stated that the benefit came through donors to the universities who earned their money from the slave trade, and that the university invested in companies that participated in this trade, and received fees from families who own farms in which slaves worked.

The researchers concluded that colleagues from Cambridge colleges cooperated with the East India Company, while investors in the Royal African Company also had links to Cambridge, both of whom were engaged in the slave trade.

The university also received donations from investors in both companies, and also invested directly in another slave-trading company, the South Sea Company. “This financial participation helped facilitate the slave trade and brought very significant financial benefits to Cambridge,” according to the report. Prepared by a group of academics at the prestigious British University.

The report, "The Legacies of Slavery," said, "Such financial participation helped facilitate the slave trade, and brought very large financial returns to Cambridge." In addition, a number of Cambridge College graduates owned slave plantations in the Americas.

He added that while prominent abolitionists such as William Wilberforce were educated and campaigned at Cambridge, their entire legacy needed further study, and prominent members of the university also advocated the intellectual foundations of the slave trade.

The university considered that it - without a doubt - had "benefited economically from colonial exploitation, which was based on slave labor, as did the state as a whole, and the economic legacy of this gain continues in some respects."

Historical errors

The university report stated that it commemorates several personalities without mentioning their involvement.

The statue of William Pitt the Younger, the university's parliamentarian who was prime minister at the end of the 18th century, does not indicate his efforts to stop slavery abolition or to restore slavery in post-revolution Haiti.

Meanwhile, The Fitzwilliam Museum was founded with money and artwork inherited from an official belonging to the South Sea Company.

In response to the report, the university said that the museum would hold an exhibition on slavery and power in 2023, while the Cambridge Museum of Archeology and Anthropology recommended the return of pieces it had from the Boys Bronze collection, which was looted during a violent military campaign in the 19th century from an area that later became part of from present-day Nigeria.

One Cambridge college brought back other pieces from the Boys Bronze collection last year, and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland did the same.

Other British institutions are also looking into their collections.

The Bank of England said in August that it had removed artworks depicting former governors with links to slavery.

Cambridge said it would also set up a center dedicated to slavery legacies research, deepen ties with universities in the Caribbean and Africa, and increase postgraduate scholarships for black British students as well as students from Africa and the Caribbean.

"We can't correct the mistakes of history, but we can start by acknowledging them," said Stephen Taub, vice president of the university, commenting on the report.

Empire and the slave trade

In 2013, historical documents were revealed about the extent of Britain's involvement in the slave trade, and about British families who became rich by obtaining compensation estimated at billions of dollars at today's prices from that trade after its abolition in the 19th century.

The British newspaper, The Independent, quoted Dr. Nick Draper from University College London, who had seen the compensation documents, as saying that one fifth of the wealthy Britons in the era of Queen Victoria, who ruled Britain between 1837 and 1901, collected all or part of their wealth from the trade. The kind.

Between 1800 and 1810, British ships transported about 3 million slaves who then lived a life of forced labor (Getty Images)

The newspaper added that there are wealthy families in all parts of Britain who have been enjoying even today from the proceeds of that trade that has gone to them.

The slave trade was a major source of wealth in the British Empire, as slaves were harnessed to work in the sugar trade in the West Indies, and the cultivation of cotton in North Africa, and the wealth from that trade was not limited to the slave masters alone, but there were those who invested in transporting Africans to enslave them.

Between 1800 and 1810, British ships transported about 3 million slaves who then lived a life of forced labor.

In 2018, the former Crown Prince (currently King) Charles III acknowledged his country's role in the slave trade, considering it one of the horrific atrocities that "left an indelible stain on the history of our world," and said in a speech in the state of Ghana - which was a major center for the detention of African slaves. Before they were shipped away across the Atlantic - "the deep injustices of the past can never be forgotten".

Britain abolished the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, but the complete abolition of slavery did not come until another generation later.

Movement against the symbols of slavery

Two years ago, a bronze statue of slave trader Edward Colston (died 1721), 125 years after it was built, was brought down by angry protesters near the Bristol River port in southwest Britain, which was one of Britain's most important slave trade ports.

Demonstrators demanded the removal of a historic monument to British leader Winston Churchill, who is accused of espousing white racist views and of being responsible for brutal policies in India, the "jewel in the crown" of the former British Empire.

In contrast, the authorities of the British capital in 2020 removed the statue of the famous slave trader Robert Milligan, who owned ships in the 18th century and worked in the slave trade, and the decision was taken in response to petitions calling for its removal, which indicates that institutions can make important decisions in this context. .