235 years after the uprising against slavery, the fight has moved to reparations
Key Takeaways
- About 12.5 million Africans were forced aboard slave ships, with around 10.7 million surviving to disembark across the Atlantic.
- Britain paid £20 million to enslavers after abolition, worth roughly £16.5 billion by one modern comparison, while formerly enslaved people received no compensation.
- A major economic study estimates $100–131 trillion in reparations for harms caused by transatlantic chattel slavery and its continuing consequences in the Americas and Caribbean.
- In March 2026, the UN General Assembly declared the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans the “gravest crime against humanity,” with 123 countries voting in favour, three against and 52 abstaining.
- The reparations debate has moved beyond remembrance to practical demands, including financial compensation, formal apologies, the return of cultural property and measures addressing the continuing effects of slavery.
“What we are asking for through reparations is not simply a cheque. We are asking for the head start that was never given.”
That is how Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist Crystal Cummings described the case for reparations to Global South World.
Her argument comes as the question of reparations for slavery gains renewed international attention in 2026, more than two centuries after an uprising by enslaved people helped change the course of the transatlantic slave trade.
On the night of August 22 into August 23, 1791, enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose against the system that had stripped them of their freedom.
The uprising marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution and played a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. More than two centuries later, August 23 is observed as UNESCO's International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.
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But in 2026, remembrance comes with another question: What is owed to the people and societies that continue to live with the consequences?
The scale of what happened is difficult to reduce to a single number. SlaveVoyages, one of the world's leading databases on the transatlantic trade, estimates that about 12.5 million African men, women and children were forced aboard ships bound across the Atlantic between 1501 and 1866. About 10.7 million disembarked. Researchers estimate that roughly 41,000 voyages departed Africa carrying enslaved people.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has argued that even the language used to describe those millions matters.
“Truth begins with language, with the power that words hold to shape consciousness, to shift perspective, to propel action,” Mahama told a UN event on reparatory justice in March.
“There is no such thing as a slave. There were human beings who were trafficked and then enslaved by people who believed they could own those human beings as chattel, as their personal property.”
From human lives to trillions of dollars
Those people were transported primarily to the Caribbean and the Americas, where their labour became part of economies built around commodities including sugar and other agricultural products.
Centuries later, economists have attempted something much more difficult: putting a financial value on the damage.
A 2023 Brattle Group study prepared for The University of the West Indies and The American Society of International Law's Second Symposium on Reparations Under International Law estimated $100 trillion to $131 trillion in reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery in the Americas and Caribbean.
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The researchers calculated between $77 trillion and $108 trillion for harms during enslavement and another $23 trillion for continuing post-enslavement harms. Their calculations covered an estimated 19 million people, including Africans transported across the Atlantic and people subsequently born into slavery. They also acknowledged that some harms could not be given a meaningful financial value.
But compensation has been paid before
The idea of attaching money to the end of slavery is not new.
When Britain abolished slavery across much of its empire in the 1830s, its government approved £20 million in compensation for enslavers for the loss of people who had legally been treated as their “property”.
The Bank of England says the payment was an unprecedented addition to Britain's national debt outside wartime.
The people who had been enslaved received no compensation. Instead, many were required to continue working without wages under an “apprenticeship” system following emancipation.
University College London (UCL) estimates the £20 million paid to enslavers would be worth about £16.5 billion in today's money using one modern-value comparison.
That history adds another dimension to the modern reparations debate. The question is not simply whether governments have ever compensated people for the abolition of slavery, but who was considered entitled to that compensation.
In 2026, the debate reached the UN
On March 25, the United Nations General Assembly voted 123-3, with 52 abstentions, for a Ghana-led resolution recognising the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity.”
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Argentina, Israel and the United States voted against it.
Before the vote, Mahama told the General Assembly that countries had gathered to “affirm truth and pursue a route to healing and reparative justice.”
The resolution is not legally binding and does not force countries to make financial payments. But it calls for discussions on reparatory justice, including formal apologies, restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition. It also calls for the return of cultural property to countries of origin.
Its adoption moved an argument long championed by African and Caribbean countries further into international diplomacy.
The Caribbean is also pushing ahead. In July, CARICOM leaders approved a revised Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, intended to guide the region's reparations campaign.
CARICOM argues that wealth generated through enslaved African labour helped develop European empires while Caribbean societies were left dealing with the long-term consequences of slavery and colonialism.
What happens after reparations?
Cummings, who is also the founder and publisher of Africa-Caribbean Insights, argues that reparations should address the barriers that have prevented descendants of enslaved people from accessing opportunities to build wealth.
That could mean investment in education, access to capital, entrepreneurship, land and housing opportunities and skills development, creating pathways for people to build businesses and generational wealth.
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The real measure, she argues, would be what society looks like afterwards.
“A society with a larger and more economically empowered middle class, more thriving businesses, greater access to quality education, stronger household purchasing power and greater economic mobility,” she told Global South World.
"The ultimate measure of reparations should be whether they help transform people from recipients of compensation into creators of wealth, opportunity and prosperity for generations to come.”
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
