Reparations for Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History

Ana Araujo, Howard University

Abstract

This is the first book to present a narrative history of the demands of financial, material, and symbolic reparations for slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. It explores a myriad of written primary sources in several languages, including abolitionist pamphlets, parliamentary debates, petitions by former slaves, newspaper articles, congressional bills, as well as public discourses by black activists and politicians in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The book draws from a transnational approach, associating social and cultural history, in order to grasp a transatlantic system that interconnected three continents for more than three hundred years. The various chapters examine the multiple dimensions of the demands of financial, material, and symbolic reparations, including the period of slavery, the emancipation era, the postabolition period, and the present.