Beatings, brandings, suicides: life on plantations owned by Church of England missionary arm

[Judi Lynn]

Desirée Baptiste and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
Sat 25 May 2024 11.20 EDT

Documents from Lambeth Palace archives show how one of Justin Welby’s predecessors approved the purchase of enslaved people for the notorious Codrington sugar estate

Revealed: how Church of England’s ties to chattel slavery went to top of hierarchy

Desirée Baptiste and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
Sat 25 May 2024 11.20 EDT

In the 18th century an enslaved mixed race woman named Quasheba escaped from a sugar plantation where she was held captive on Barbados. There are no records of Quasheba’s fate, but the horrific conditions from which she fled in 1783 are well-documented. She is simply recorded in official papers as “run away”.

Other enslaved people on the same plantations killed themselves in the face of violence, punishment and tyranny. People transported from west Africa were forced “under the whip” to harvest canes and carry them to the mills to be crushed and boiled. Many were branded with hot irons.

The sugar estate, known as the Codrington plantations, generated an estimated £5m a year in today’s money and covered 763 acres. It was owned and overseen by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), the missionary arm of the Church of England.

The Codrington estate is now one of the focal points in a public debate about the Church of England’s links to chattel slavery, in which people were traded as personal property.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/25/beatings-brandings-suicides-life-on-plantations-owned-by-church-of-england-missionary-arm

[Deep State Witch]

1. At Least They're Addressing It

Not like the Catholics, who are still pretending that colonization was a good thing.

[WhiteTara]

2. no wonder I hate religion and "god"

[brush]

3. When will the discussion turn to reparations, and how soon that will be rejected out of hand.

like it happens every time here in the US?

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R