To think descendants of slave owners should visit former plantations?

[rowernoke]

Particularly if their family still has wealth earned through the atrocities of the slave trade and slavery?

For example, Laura Trevalyan visited former plantations in Grenada and met with local people to understand the role her ancestors played in the slave trade. She was so moved by this that she is now sponsoring education initiatives for those affected.

We are ALL decedents of slave owners, every single one of us. And we are all decedents of slaves

I think if you're profiting somehow, then yes you are. Morally at least. Sometimes it's good to look at it from the other person's point of view and then see what you think

My ancestors were likely poorly paid workers whose part in the slave trade was to make the chains whilst being paid a pittance (which went back to the boss anyway as payment for the house they had to live in) with no hope of improving their lot in life...

Should I be forced to pay those slaves back more than my ancestors would ever hope to own?

I don't think rich people should be forced to go to see atrocities "in the flesh" as it were before deciding they should use their vast wealth to help others... I think they should realise they can help people without needing to see these place. But that's a pipe dream

No, but in that case should they benefit from the sins financially? Why does it only work one way?

Apparently, most ethnically English people have a small percentage of Scandinavian DNA, presumably from distant Viking ancestors.

Do you mean just the Atlantic slave trade owners or the slave trade on the continent of Africa that was taking place before the Atlantic slave trade started?

www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/history-transatlantic-slave-trade#:~:text=Slavery%20existed%20in%20Africa%20before,as%20alcohol%2C%20beads%20and%20cloth.

Would descendants of the Barbary States like to reflect upon what their ancestors did? Didn't think so and they made European slave owners look like saints. Barbary pirates castrated their slaves so there'd be no descendants.

Honestly move on. Why does everyone now view the past through a modern lens. Why are modern standards applied to the past.

ALL - as do most of the world, actually

What do you mean it only works one way?

I would like reparations for the way my recent ancestors were treated. Forced to leave school at 12, working in Mills, coal mines, contracting terrible diseases, dying before they reached 40. Living in poverty and squalor, noo heating, no hot water, no flushing toilets. No welfare state, no national health. Watching their infants die of horrible childhood illnesses, contracting TB .
Yep!! I'll have some.of that!! Here's my bank details

Like many people whose family is from Yorkshire, my DNA is 40% Scandinavian (from the Viking settlement that was a much greater thing than the pillaging, etc) As you say, how far back are we going?

I mean the OP talks about a Trevelyan. If she's related to Trevelyan of the stolen corn could the OP please tell her we'd like Michael back!

You said that no-one is responsible for their father's sins. So should they benefit financially from their father's sins? If yes, then why if they should bear no responsibity for them?

The rest of the world are vikings? Um, you might want to fact check that! 🤣

But what do you mean by 'profiting'? Very, very people can trace wealth they have today directly back to slave profits, without the picture being complicated by multiple additional factors.

And what about many countries causing damage right now and doing no soul searching? Let's also start making a plan to educate their future generations for the wrongdoings of their ancestors today? Social media will help 🤔

Here you're mixing up up moral arguments with inheritance laws.

Laughing at what you don't understand. I specialise in genetics. Everyone in East and West Europe, Everyone in Russia, Everyone in Africa, probably everyone in North America and central America, and most likely South America and Asia too

I agree with you and sorry to wander off topic but I don't think Germany and Japan have acknowledged their past in the same way. Some in Japan have actively resisted confronting their actions in WWII and they're not some fringe movement, they're in government. And there are also some influential lobby groups that still believe that Japan's Imperial Army 'liberated' East Asia.

There's been a campaign to censor school textbooks to remove references to war crimes for example. It took 50 years for the Japanese government to acknowledge the use and abuse of sex slaves during WWII but some conservatives/nationalists have since tried to revise the official apology and have managed to get references to them removed from some textbooks.

Many individual politicians made statements of apology but the government didn't pass a resolution expressing remorse for Japan's actions until the 1990s. Yet even though it's now official policy when a former PM visited the Nanjing Massacre memorial in China in 2013 he was called a traitor by politicians at home for doing it.

I'm not having a dig at Japan's people in the slightest and to be fair, polls suggest the Japanese public is much less nationalistic than their politicians. But look at the symbolism of German Chancellor Willy Brandt dropping to his knees at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial more than 40 years earlier. No Japanese leader would have done that.

Going back further imagine being a poor child or an orphan? Do we also need to find out ancestors of Workhouse owners? Do they owe anything?

I think those with Greek ancestry should apologise and pay for the atrocities meted out during Alexander the Greats rampage through Europe and India. Have they no fucking shame?

The problem with this is how it would be executed over multiple generations of inheritors. Who pays what?

This.