Church of England apologises for part in slave trade -08/02/06

From Ekklesia

The Church of England has voted to do what British Prime Minister Tony Blair has refused to do, and apologise to the descendents of victims of the slave trade. An amendment "recognising the damage done" to those enslaved has been backed overwhelmingly by the Church's General Synod. Debating the motion, Rev Simon Bessant, from Pleckgate, Blackburn, described the Church's involvement in the trade, saying, "We were at the heart of it."

The amendment was supported by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, who has linked slavery with ongoing discrimination and racism. Dr Williams said the apology was "necessary". He said: "The body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time, it exists across history and we therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors and part of what we can do, with them and for them in the body of Christ, is prayer for acknowledgement of the failure that is part of us not just of some distant 'them'."

During an emotional meeting of the Church's 'parliament' in London, Rev Blessant explained the involvement of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the slave trade. The organisation owned the Codrington Plantation in Barbados, where slaves had the word "society" branded on their backs with a red-hot iron, he said. He added that when the emancipation of slaves took place in 1833, compensation was paid not to the slaves but to their owners. In one case, he said the Bishop of Exeter and three colleagues were paid nearly £13,000 in compensation for 665 slaves. He said: "We were directly responsible for what happened. In the sense of inheriting our history, we can say we owned slaves, we branded slaves, that is why I believe we must actually recognise our history and offer an apology."

The synod passed a motion acknowledging the "dehumanising and shameful" consequences of slavery. It comes ahead of commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which will be marked next year. The debate heard from descendants of the slave trade including the Rev Nezlin Sterling, of Ealing, west London, who represents black churches. She told the synod that commemorations of the 200th anniversary would revive "painful issues and memories" for descendants.

There is evidence that Christians in the first few centuries after Christ freed their slaves, and even bought them in order to give them their liberty. However following the move of the church to alignment with government in the forth century under the Roman emperor Constantine, the church often endorsed or ordered slavery, urging only that slaves were treated humanely. When the Bishop of Le Mans transferred a large estate to the Abbey of St. Vincent in 572, ten slaves went with it. In the early ninth century, the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés listed 25 of their 278 householders as slaves. Pope Gregory XI excommunicated the Florentines in the Fourteenth Century, and ordered them enslaved wherever taken. In 1488, King Ferdinand sent 100 Moorish slaves to Pope Innocent VIII who presented them as gifts to his cardinals and other court notables.

Renewed opposition to slavery was however evident within the church several centuries before the abolition of the transatlantic trade. Anabaptists at the time of the Reformation urged the recognition of human equality, and an end to slavery, as did Christians at the time of the English civil war. Their actions, along with the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment, is often credited with laying the foundations for the eventual abolition of the slave trade. Evangelical Anglican William Wilberforce led the campaign for abolition although other Evangelicals and Anglicans in the wider church opposed the ending of the transatlantic trade. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has consistently refused to apologise for Britain's part in the transatlantic slave trade despite calls for Britain to do so from such figures as Rev Jesse Jackson in the US.