Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
Gov’t of Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua’s government has lashed out at the world famous Harvard University saying the time has come for it to begin making reparation payments to the island for the millions it made during the colonial era from the trans Atlantic African slave trade.
Speaking on a weekend radio program, Prime Minister Gaston Browne argued that the university has a direct connection and link to Antigua and Barbuda having benefited from free slave labor that helped the school to establish its early wealth and its general foundations.
He spoke as a team from Harvard’s & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative was on the island in recent days to research the university’s links with Antigua and to try to trace and identify the descendants of enslaved individuals who were attached or linked in any way to plantations a planter named Isaac Royal Jr. who had invested and had owned the Royal plantation that is listed as the financier of some very early programs at Harvard’s law school.
So far researchers say they have found evidence of more than 250 people who had worked without pay as slaves by people and institutions linked to Harvard and dozens of living descendants.
Touching on the subject on the radio, PM Browne was strident in his administration’s position on the issue, noting that the famed school is culpable and should begin making payments rather than making symbolic offers of short term academic courses while avoiding payments for historical injustices.
“We are not asking for favors. We are seeking justice for the people whose suffering built Harvard into what it is today. Harvard University, particularly its Law School, was established with funding from slavery on Antigua’s plantations. Our ancestors worked for centuries without pay, and their labor fueled Harvard’s early development. It’s time for them to acknowledge this with meaningful action,” he said.
Local and international media reports had indicated that Browne had as far back as 2019 written to the university’s administration demanding reparations but it is unclear what became of this.