Caribbean historians want Richard Drax to pay reparations – but now Barbados plans to buy his land for homes
A Conservative politician is making millions off of slavery 190 years after slavery was abolished in Britain and its territories.
Tory Richard Drax comes from a filthy rich family notorious for having established the model for slave-based sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the 1620s. Even by the standards of a slave-based economy, the record of the Drax family was appalling.
The Barbados plantation was worked by up to 327 slaves at a time, with the death rate for both adults and children high. Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the 20-state Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) Reparations Commission and vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, estimates that as many 30,000 slaves died on the Drax plantations in Barbados and Jamaica over 200 years.
Thanks largely to their their ill-gained riches, the Drax family owns a 700 acre walled estate in Dorset which includes a deer park. And apparently they are getting even richer.
Despite threats to make Richard Drax pay reparations and seize his family’s plantation – described by one historian as a “killing field” of enslaved Africans – the government is now planning to pay market value for 21 hectares (about 15 football pitches) of his land for housing. The move has angered many Barbadians, especially those who say the Drax family played a pivotal role in the development of slavery-based sugar production and the Barbados slave code in the 17th century. This denied Black Africans basic human rights, including the right to life. Critics have called the planned deal an “atrocity” and said this is “one plantation that the government should not be paying a cent for”. Trevor Prescod, MP and chair of the Barbados National Taskforce on Reparations, said: “What a bad example this is. Reparations and Drax Hall are now top of the global agenda. How do we explain this to the world? “The government should not be entering into any [commercial] relationship with Richard Drax, especially as we are negotiating with him regarding reparations.”
It's baffling why the Barbadian government would enter into such a deal.
Drax, the MP for South Dorset, travelled to Barbados to meet prime minister Mia Mottley. It is understood he was asked to hand over all or a substantial part of Drax Hall plantation. If he refused, legal action would follow. Mottley’s spokesperson said the current Drax Hall purchase was not linked to reparations and the government “constantly acquires land through this process”. Mottley has pledged to build 10,000 new homes to meet demand on the island, where there are 20,000 applications for housing. A senior valuation surveyor said the market value for agricultural land with an alternative use for housing would be about Bds$150,000 (£60,000) an acre. At this price, the 21 hectares could net Drax Bds$8m (£3.2m). The land would be for 500 low- and middle-income family homes, which would be for sale.
I'd just grab the land and pay Drax a token £1 just so he legally can't claim he wasn't compensated at all for the transfer.
Barbados poet laureate Esther Phillips, who grew up next to Drax Hall, said the planned deal was an “atrocity” and a case of the victims’ descendants now compensating the descendant of the enslaver. “He should be giving us this land as reparations, not further enriching himself … at the expense of Barbadians. As Barbadians, we must speak out against this.”
And with the reported thousands of deaths during the 200+ years of slavery at the Drax plantation, how many people will be comfortable with the idea that their new home is built on what was essentially a forced labor camp which became a model for regional slavery? Isn't the Drax property on Barbados a large cemetery?
