In the space of a few days, leading British companies and institutions have recognized their past ties to slavery, apologized to the black community in the UK and, for some, even promised financial compensation. These unprecedented positions are a direct consequence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which has sparked a vigorous national debate. Many activists and historians have called for recognition of the racist character of the former British Empire and have called for a "decolonization" of public space after the statue of the slave slave Edward Colston was brought down in Bristol, early June.
Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Bank, Bank of England (BoE) or the brewer Greene King have confirmed, since Wednesday June 17, that part of their founders or ex-administrators had benefited from the trafficking of blacks in the ex- British colonies, mainly in the West Indies. At the very beginning of the XIXe century Benjamin Greene, the founder of the pub chain, was one of the 47,000 beneficiaries of the compensation fund set up during the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833 to compensate shareholders plantations and slave owners.
A former governor of the central bank
The sums borrowed at the time by the Treasury (20 million pounds, the equivalent of 17 billion pounds today, or 18.76 billion euros) were fully reimbursed by the British taxpayer – the freed slaves, themselves, received nothing. Greene had collected the equivalent of £ 500,000 for three sugar cane plantations in the British West Indies. The Pub Chain "Will make a substantial payment for BAME communities (“Black, Asian and minority ethnic”) and in favor of ethnic diversity in the country's businesses ”, assured its CEO, Nick Mackenzie, at Daily Telegraph.
Simon Fraser, a founding member of the insurer Lloyd’s of London, received the equivalent of £ 400,000 after giving up possessions in Dominica. "We are sorry for the role played by Lloyd's in the slave trade. It was a terrible time in British history and in that of our company. " entrusted a spokesperson to Telegraph, also assuring him that the group would spend money on associations promoting the integration of minorities in the United Kingdom.
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