Precis

The name Barbados conjures up imagery of white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters but away from the perfect postcards this island is grappling with the legacy of a brutal and bloody history.

Barbados was the first British slave society in the Caribbean.

It’s where the legal and economic model of ‘chattel’ slavery was ruthlessly perfected over hundreds of years.

Two years ago, the tiny nation cast off four centuries of British rule and became the world’s newest republic.

But for many Barbadians, taking control of their future now means reckoning with the injustices of the past.

This week on Foreign Correspondent reporter Isabella Higgins travels to Barbados where the demands for reparations are getting louder.

This small island is calling on powerful institutions like the British royal family, as well as the living relatives of past slave owners to make amends for the sins of their ancestors.

As Barbados forges its own way in the world and seeks justice for the historical atrocity of slavery, the question now is – who should pay?

Episode teaser.

00:10

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Barbados often looks too good to be true. Lured by crystal clear waters, many come for the ultimate Caribbean getaway.

00:13

DANE: "Pleasant good morning. We are heading over to the turtles of Carlisle Bay and then over by the shipwrecks."
People come to Barbados for three things: the rum, our sunshine and our oceans.

00:24

NATASHA: It's just beautiful, everything that I'm seeing. I'm able to look down and see a turtle. It's not something that you see in Georgia.

00:41

Music

00:52

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: It's idyllic on the water today, but centuries ago under British rule, this bay was at the centre of a cruel slave trade.

00:58

DAVID COMISSIONG: They kidnapped them and branded them with hot irons.

01:10

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: A bloody business model was born here. Landowners built lucrative sugar empires run on African slave labour.

01:12

CANE CUTTER: 400 years of free labour. We built all those empires. For free.

01:24

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Now, as the world's newest republic, it's demanding old colonial masters right the wrongs of the past.

MIGHTY GABBY: Britain, you listening?

01:30

Pay. You owe us and big time, apology and reparations.

01:42

MICHAEL CLARKE: Our folks are seeking to emancipate themselves, even if it means breaking with tradition, breaking with the establishment.

01:48

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: This small island in the Caribbean has started a global fight. It's prepared to take on the powerful institutions and individuals who made a fortune here for reparations.

01:56

Super: Isabella Higgins

But generations after slavery was abolished, can it convince them that it's owed a reckoning and repayment?

02:10

Done shot along beach. Title:
BARBADOS
Who Should Pay?

Music

02:17

02:24

Beach tourism GVs

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Once you're in Barbados you're on island time. It's no wonder tourism is the main money maker here. The economy is now dependent on visitors – and almost half come from Britain. It makes talk of reparations a tricky business.

02:28

Mighty Gabby walks on beach

Anthony Carter is the calypso king of Barbados, known here as Mighty Gabby. At 75, he's a national icon.

02:48

Mighty Gabby with Isabella on beach

MIGHTY GABBY: This is where I grew up as a boy, all of this beach.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: So this is a special place for you?

MIGHTY GABBY: Very much so.

03:05

My boyhood, I spent fishing, swimming, playing cricket.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: He isn't afraid of talking about slavery, and challenging Britain.

03:11

MIGHTY GABBY: We don't have hatred. We just want wrong things to be righted. But at the same time we are a very welcoming people.

03:21

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Gabby grew up on the island when it was still a British colony.

03:31

Archival. Barbados, sugar plantations, military, queen

For three centuries the country had lived under the crown, which once endorsed slavery. It wasn't until 1966, when he was a teenager, that Barbados became an independent nation, but kept the queen as its head of state.

And how do you feel about the British royal family now?

03:35

Mighty Gabby with Isabella on beach

MIGHTY GABBY: I'll tell you something. I've been one of the fortunate or unfortunate people to have actually met them. Personally. Like how you and I here talking. Met Elizabeth, her husband. I always felt that Elizabeth had quite a long time to apologise to us for slavery and to pay reparations. And she didn't.

03:54

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Last year, in the days after the queen died, Gabby sparked international uproar.

04:19

MIGHTY GABBY: I wrote a poem called 'Goodbye to Rubbish.' Is there anything wrong with speaking the truth? It's the truth. Elizabeth was not a great leader. Charles is behaving differently, it seems. Because the first thing he did, he said that slavery was a terrible thing. He admitted that. But he didn't say, we are going to pay reparations. So I'm looking forward to the day when that occurs.

04:27

Music

04:54

Isabella walks to bar, night

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The younger generation is prepared to carry on the fight.

05:01

Cyndi on stage at open mic night

CYNDI: "And I have the extreme pleasure of introducing one of my brothers in poetry..."

05:12

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: It's a regular open mic poetry night at a bar just back from the tourist beaches. In here, it's mostly locals.

05:17

CYNDI: "Put your hands together for Akeem 'Stoned with Cupid' Chandler Prescod.

05:24

Akeem on stage reciting poetry

AKEEM: "Yeah, now that's a fucking introduction… I hear all this talk about reparations but what we really looking to repair, maybe it's the broken family ties caused by generational genocide, now generalised in the media."

05:34

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Akeem Chandler Prescod is more comfortable than most riffing on reparations. He's a leading voice in the national conversation, urging young people to get involved.

05:52

Akeem interview in bar

AKEEM: Usually when we hear reparations, we think of money. It is so much more than money, and it's about enfranchisement economically. It's about building out the healthcare system. It's about education. It's for indigenous people as well.

06:06

Akeem on stage

"So again, I ask you, what does it mean to emancipate yourself fully? Because 1833 we free the body. But what about the mind and the shackles that bind us into servitude…"

06:19

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Akeem sees a future where European investment frees Barbados from a reliance on white patronage.

06:29

AKEEM: "So we emancipate ourselves from the plantation system only to live in the prison of tourism."

06:37

Akeem interview in bar

I think as a country we have to diversify our financial portfolio, it can't just be tourism per se.

06:51

Cyndi interview

CYNDI: Poetry in Barbados and spoken word poetry specifically is rooted in the African oral tradition.

07:00

Cyndi performing poetry on stage

"So give me black joy instead. I said give me black joy instead. Give me black accomplishment…"

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Cyndi Celeste is one of the organisers of this event, and a regular performer, too.

07:09

CYNDI: What are we feeling in this moment? Is it pride, is it fear?

07:21

Cyndi interview

Is it anger? Is it rage?

07:26

Bridgetown GVs

Music

07:30

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: In the capital Bridgetown, Cyndi once used her poetry to speak on behalf of her nation.

07:36

Archival. 2020 Black Lives Matter protest

PROTESTORS: "Black lives matter! Black lives matter!"

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: In 2020, Black Lives Matter swept the Caribbean. Protesters turned their anger on a statue that once stood in this square, British naval hero Horatio Nelson. As Nelson fell, Cyndi rose to sum up what the country felt in that moment.

07:46

Cyndi performs poetry at protest. Super:
CYNDI CELESTE
"HIStory"

CYNDI: "How can he occupy a space right at the centre of our seat of power without inciting public rage? We should be ashamed that we let this continue for so long."

08:12

Cyndi interview by river

The younger generation, like my generation and forward, is very in tune with the discussion of charting our own Barbadian identity. And having historically been stripped of that identity, what are we pouring into it and investing in it now?

08:27

Cyndi shows footage on phone

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Twelve months later, Cyndi was back in the square for an even bigger occasion, the day Barbados became a republic and said goodbye to the crown.

08:44

"Today, today... We finally raise the flag of a nation no longer clinging to colonial coattails for its identity."

08:54

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Those words are coming back to you, aren't they? Can you remember the moment?

CYNDI: Whoa, yes. Wow.

09:04

I would love to believe that people felt the air change the same way I did.

09:12

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: King Charles, the then Prince of Wales, is sitting in the audience. I mean, what's running through your head?

09:16

CYNDI: If we are proclaiming that we are a republic, we can't just write it down and be quiet about it, you know? And so it's going to make some people uncomfortable.

09:22

Prince of Wales speech

CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES: "From the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history, the people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: King Charles came very close

09:34

Cyndi interview by river

to saying an apology at that transition ceremony, but he didn't quite say it.

CYNDI: And I think that that's kind of the nature of the apologies that we've gotten.

09:52

Bridgetown people GVs

Music

10:00

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Building a future is difficult when this country still feels burdened by its past. Most of its 280,000 citizens are descendants of enslaved Africans. When slavery ended in 1834, it was slave owners who were compensated.

10:02

Isabella to museum

Barbados's museum holds the secrets of this dark history. The records here give a glimpse into the lives of the people who suffered under slavery.

10:24

Isabella meets with Kevin Farmer, looks at Newton journal

Kevin Farmer is the museum's deputy director, and an expert on its collection from that time.

10:40

KEVIN FAMER: So here's the Newton journal. The importance of this is for us immense. 

10:47

 ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: This was as an inventory log for one of the island's largest plantations. The stock it counts – enslaved humans. 

10:57

KEVIN FAMER: Obba, who's in the field gang at age 20, Celia, who's in the second gang at age 17.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: So a 17-year-old woman out cutting cane by hand.

KEVIN FARMER: Cutting cane by hand, yes.

11:06

Cutting cane, who's planting cane, who's weeding, doing the same work, manual labour, that men are doing, at the age of 17. And she is going to be in that job 'til she dies.

11:18

Here we have someone called Phil Francis who's passed at four months.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Just a baby.

KEVIN FAMER: Just a baby.

11:35

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: It's quite chilling the way there's just a giant black line through their name.

11:42

KEVIN FAMER: or us today, looking back, it just seems so inhumane.

11:47

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: From birth 'til death.

KEVIN FAMER: From birth 'til death.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: This was their life.

KEVIN FAMER: That was their life.

11:52

Kevin takes manual from bookcase

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Within the library is a book of even greater significance. This is a manual on how to run a slave plantation. The blueprint was replicated across the Americas.

KEVIN FAMER: Instructions for the Management of a Plantation in Barbados and for the Treatment of Negroes – This book is written by the influential planters of the day.

11:58

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: What does it tell us about how enslaved people were treated on plantations?

KEVIN FAMER: It does it in a rather benign fashion...

12:26

Kevin reads from manual

"I know from observation and experience that a certain degree of discipline is necessary in the government of negroes."

12:34

At best, the language of the book seeks to be benevolent. The operation of that benevolence is far from. It was oppressive, it was sadistic, it was torture. The reality is that most enslaved people, if they lived 15 or 20 years on a plantation and survived, they were lucky. Very early on, persons lasted no more than a decade.

12:41

Illustrations of slaves in book

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Working slaves to an early grave was the intention of planters. It was a financial calculation. They were cheaper to replace than keep alive… And these planters, what did they go on to do?

13:08

KEVIN FAMER: Edward Drax, whose family still owns a plantation in Barbados, his descendants are sitting MPs in the British house of parliament at this time.

13:24

Newspaper articles re Drax Hall

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Today, the Draxes are the only family on the island to have continuously operated a plantation since the start of slavery. British MP Richard Drax is the current owner. He's often described as one of the wealthiest members of the House of Commons.

KEVIN FAMER: James Drax brought sugar to Barbados.

13:34

Kevin interview

He was one of the first planters experimented with it. That the family's profits allowed them to still, up to today, 400 years later, have a plantation on this island. And the monies that they would have made had to be massive.

13:54

Isabella to meeting with Trevor Marshall

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: I'm meeting someone who knows more about the Drax plantation than just about anyone… "Hi, Trevor. Nice to meet you."

TREVOR: Right on. Nice to meet you, too.

14:15

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Thank you for taking us out to Drax Hall today.

TREVOR: My pleasure. My pleasure.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Let's start the journey out there.

14:26

Trevor and Isabella drive to Drax Hall

Trevor Marshall is a local historian who for decades has wanted to unlock Drax Hall's secrets.

14:38

TREVOR: They have not allowed anybody, any historian, white or black, to have access to their records. Here we are at the great, the fabulous, the enigmatic, and to some extent the mysterious, Drax Hall.

14:45

This is the place where the business model of using slaves on our tropical farms, which we call plantations, this is where it was created.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Richard Drax lives in England and won't give us an interview. So it looks like this is as close as we'll get, until something very unexpected happens.

15:07

Manager in car arrives

TREVOR: Can this guy get through here? Quickly.

15:32

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The manager gives us rare access to film inside the plantation yard.

15:40

Trevor and Isabella down driveway to Drax Hall

Music

15:47

Drone shot over Drax Hall

TREVOR: Ladies and gentlemen. Drum roll. Drum roll. You are looking at the oldest plantation great house in the western hemisphere.

15:53

Trevor and Isabella arrive at Drax Hall

It functioned as both a fortress and a dwelling place.

16:20

They call this the plantation yard. This is where the action took place. This is where canes were brought to be ground. This is where people were paid money in the post-slavery period. This is where people were flogged, disciplined.

16:34

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: This mansion was built around the 1650s. It's still at the heart of a working plantation today.

16:55

TREVOR: For me, as the descendent of slaves, this always brings home to me what slavery was like. It's my ancestors who built this, who constructed it, who provided the labour.

17:05

Drone shot over cane fields

Music

17:22

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: It's a strange feeling to be here in the fields of Drax Hall, the place where for almost two centuries slaves worked.

17:34

Isabella to camera in cane field

And when you're here, you get a sense for just how tough this existence must have been. It is hot, it is oppressively humid, when the sun hits your skin it just burns. And this is where for generations slaves spent much of their life, cutting this cane by hand.

17:42

Cane field

The wealth generated at Drax Hall hasn't flowed to many

18:09

Chris feeding chickens

who live in its shadows. Four generations of Chris Cox's family worked on the plantation as paid labourers after slavery ended.

18:12

Chris interview in home

CHRIS COX: When I went to work at the plantation, I was a young boy, fresh out of school. That was a hard job, cane cutting. That was, that was a very, very, very hard job. And you can still see things from the slave days. The had their hands in shackles. They had certain things that the slaves used to operate with that was still present in the plantation.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: And how did that make you feel, seeing that stuff?

CHRIS COX: Man, it was kind of tough, man.

18:25

Chris and Isabella in garden

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Chris grew up here, in a village originally created to house Draxes' slaves, and then later the workers the plantation employed.

CHRIS COX: This is a cherry tree.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: In the 1980s, the Barbadian government forced plantation owners across the island to sell land to their tenants at below market value. Some say it was a form of reparations.

18:57

Chris picking breadfruit

CHRIS COX: When I was younger, I would fly up in the tree, but not now. At my age I just get a stick.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Chris's father bought this plot from the Draxes. The family planted a kitchen garden to keep food on the table, like this breadfruit tree.

19:20

CHRIS COX: This is going to make a lovely meal.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Did you grow up eating this a lot?

CHRIS COX: Yes. This is one of the strong foods in Barbados. Some people even like it in chips.

19:52

Drone shot of village

Music

20:02

Rondelle with children

RONDELLE: "On your marks, get set, go!"

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Some living on the edge of the plantation still grow food out of necessity. Chris's niece, Rondelle, lives next door in a house also on the family plot.

20:07

Rondelle interview

RONDELLE: Bills, groceries, everything is tough, everything. You have to create a create kitchen garden, because the cost of living is so high, you got plant your food.

20:23

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: She's looking for work while raising a son who's almost three.

20:36

Rondelle plays with son in garden

CHRIS COX: People in this neighbourhood are just trying to survive. I tell you. My family

20:42

Chris interview

and other families in Drax Hall, we have made Mr Drax what he is today, and to the fact that he's so wealthy.

20:47

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Do you think the Drax family owes people in this community an apology?

20:57

CHRIS COX: I think people in this community need more than sorry, but they loving people in this community. Yes. For beginners, yes, that will help.

21:02

Trevor at Drax Hall

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Historian Trevor Marshall also believes the Drax family owe the island more than an apology.

TREVOR: Drax owes not just slaves, but Barbados, reparations.

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: He wants them to pay up, while also opening the plantation to the public.

21:14

TREVOR: The average Barbadian should be able to come in here and see the famous Drax Hall. The average Barbadian cannot come in here.

21:33

Drone shot over cane fields

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: There's been demands for reparations since slavery ended in 1834. But today, it's the official policy of the Barbados government. They've combined with 14 other Caribbean nations to make their case.

21:42

Comissiong in office

David Comissiong is the deputy chair of the National Reparations Task Force.

21:57

Comissiong greets Isabella

"Mr Comissiong, so nice to meet you."

DAVID COMISSIONG: "Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Barbados."

22:07

This is a conversation whose time has come. Reparations is about saying, look, you committed a crime during those centuries,

22:14

Comissiong interview in office

you profited from that crime. We were disadvantaged and impoverished and starved of resources because of that crime. Now is the time that you have to help repair some of the damage.

22:24

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Some people, when they think about reparations, might think it is simply a financial payment.

22:41

DAVID COMISSIONG: Reparations is about, first of all, an acknowledgement, an apology, a proper apology, and then a sitting with the victims, or the representatives of the victims, and working out a package of compensation.

22:46

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The task force recently worked up a plan to seek compensation from the Drax family.

23:05

Why should Richard Drax pay for things that his ancestors did centuries ago?

23:12

DAVID COMISSIONG: This was the slavery family in Barbados. The role of that family goes right through the history of Barbados. There are several British families now that have held up their hands and said, yes, we concede. And we say we must make reparation. Why doesn't that logic and moral conscience apply to the Drax family?

23:17

Man cutting cane

Music

23:45

Isabella driving to Codrington College

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: It's not just individuals who are being held to account. On Barbados's rugged Atlantic coast, a powerful institution is trying to make amends for its slave past. Codrington College is one of the Caribbean's most distinguished Anglican seminaries. It's finding a new voice.

23:57

People in seminary workshop

CONGREGATION: "We're together again, praising the lord… Something good is going to happen, something good is in my soul…

WORKSHOP LEADER: "We would've been brought miles across the Atlantic into something that we did not want for ourselves..."

24:26

Michael Clarke watches

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The college's principal, Michael Clarke, is hosting this workshop about blending Christianity with African spiritualities.

WORKSHOP LEADER: "We ask this to the power of the infinite son Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen and amen and amen."

24:51

Michael interview

MICHAEL CLARKE: It is a small step for us, especially here within the Caribbean, the church is perceived as part of that colonial machinery.

25:07

Codrington College exteriors

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: But the church doesn't just represent the religion of slave owners, it was one of them. These grounds were once a sugar plantation run by an Anglican missionary organisation. It was bequeathed the property from the Codrington family in 1710. It kept slaves here for over a hundred years.

25:15

Isabella at archival exhibit

This small exhibit at Codrington College brings together some of the old archives and records from this place. There are photographs of wooden houses that slaves would have lived in. And it even talks about just how many slaves were here. It says Christopher Codrington's will provided that 300 slaves be regularly maintained on his estates. 

25:41

Michael interview

MICHAEL CLARKE: Right now we're looking right across the Atlantic Ocean. Our nearest neighbour would be the African continent. And from the days of enslavement, the Codringtons it appeared they had their own slave ships, so they would have brought them in at their bay here, which is Concept Bay.

26:07

View over ocean

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The Anglican church first apologised for its role in Caribbean slavery in 2006. Can you tell me what it felt like when you had to be the one to give an apology here?

26:28

Michael interview

MICHAEL CLARKE: How do you, as the descendant of a slave, apologise to other descendants of slaves for enslaving them? Are you supposed to be doing it on behalf of the institution?

26:43

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: Last year, the church apologised again, and promised a 190 million dollar fund to invest in communities affected by slavery. Did you feel like an apology changed anything for the people here?

26:56

MICHAEL CLARKE: It is good to have the apology, but it's almost like it's, you know, as we say in Barbados sometimes, too little, too late. I think we have, we have come to a place where we no longer wait for emancipation. Our folks are seeking to emancipate themselves, even if it means breaking with tradition, breaking with the establishment.

27:10

Comissiong interview. Super:
David Comissiong
NATIONAL REPARATIONS TASK FORCE

DAVID COMISSIONG: Everybody has to face that moral question. The Anglican church has posed it very clearly. It was a sin, and we acknowledge it, we apologise for it, and we, we must do something to help repair the damage. And that moral question is being posed to the British government.

27:34

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: The British government have shown that they're quite unwilling to negotiate on this issue. What makes you think that will ever change?

27:54

DAVID COMISSIONG: You have important British companies and institutions like the Bank of England saying, yes, we were involved, and we apologise. Lloyds of London. The pressure is building on the British government.

28:01

Bridgetown GVs

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: David says the royal family needs to be held to account, too. King Charles is supporting research examining the monarchy's links to slavery.

28:19

DAVID COMISSIONG: I think Charles is trying to send a message to his government that the time has come for you to get on board. I expect that the royal family will, sooner rather than later, make apology and pay reparations.

28:30

Isabella at Newtown plantation

Music

28:50

ISABELLA HIGGINS, Reporter: There's one more place I need to visit before leaving the island. This was the Newton plantation. A few decades ago a mass slave burial site was discovered in this field.

28:58

Isabella to camera in field

I'm thinking about what I read in that ledger. The babies who died here, the 17-year-old girl who will work in these fields cutting cane for her whole life. You stand here and you think about what a harsh and inhumane existence it must have been. And the reason they were here was because they were born black.

29:26

Cane fields

Music

29:55

Comissiong interview /Beach shots

DAVID COMISSIONG: We are a remarkable people. I mean, we are people who placed in one of the most evil and barbaric societies. Our people held onto their intrinsic humanity. We are going to make a success of the Republic of Barbados, reparations or no reparations, but we know what is due to us. We know what was taken from us.

30:12

Credits [see below]

30:38

Out point

30:59