The Blackwash
Making cultural & historical commentary on social issues. Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour!
The Blackwash
Exposing slave beneficiaries: Codrington & Betty’s Hope
Smart reparations transforms an abstract concept into tangible justice. While traditional reparations discussions often stall due to their scope, targeting specific beneficiaries of slavery creates measurable, achievable goals that directly connect past exploitation to present wealth.
The Codrington family's ownership of Betty's Hope plantation in Antigua represents a perfect case study. From 1674 until 1944—yes, within living memory—this British family extracted enormous wealth from the labor of 1,539 enslaved people. When slavery was abolished, they received £25,000 (£2.5 million today) in "compensation" for losing ‘property’. This money, along with generations of plantation profits, funded their grand Doddington Park estate in Gloucestershire, which they sold in 1983 for over £1 million.
The wealth transfer is meticulously traceable. The family later sold their plantation archives—documents that rightfully belong to Antigua—for substantial sums when the Antiguan government couldn't afford them. Today, Betty's Hope stands as a museum, but restoration funds come from Germany and the US, not Britain or the Codringtons who morally owe this debt.
As the podcast concludes: you can't choose how you come into this world, but you can choose how you live in it. Will the Codringtons help repair the damage their ancestors caused?
Sign the petition at repair campaign to show solidarity with those whose labor built British wealth but who never saw its rewards.
Hello and welcome to the Black Wash. This episode is called Exposing Slave Beneficiaries, part 2, the Codringtons and Betty's Hope in Antigua. If you missed Part 1 of Exposing Slave Beneficiaries, the Lindley Family and the Island of Badasol in the Grenadines, check it out on my YouTube channel, kane kawasaki. I've decided to do part two because of the impact of the first video. If you're unaware, the attraction from part one helped in the lobbying of moving the island of balasol from private owned by the lindley family to public owned by the government of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Through me exposing the Lindley family, they went public for the first time for a published article in the Searchlight newspaper and weeks later, after years of stalemate, they had reached an undisclosed settlement with with the St Vincent government. A victory, but the battle is not over. What this victory showed me is the power behind my theory Smart reparations Smart as in, smart targets, remember Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant or realistic and time related Takes me back to education. Can anyone else relate?
Speaker 1:The reason why I use this method is because the topic of reparations is so vast At times it's hard to quantify and contextualize. Often a grand financial figure is given and it scares Britain, the media, the taxpayer and the European governments. Often, the talk of reparations is met with ''it was so long ago, get over it. It wasn't my ancestors, etc'. What Smart Reparations does? It takes the vast and it makes it specific, in turn answering a lot of those questions. What if I told you the Codrington family owned a plantation up until 1944? What if I told you there are people still alive today who worked on that plantation? What if I told you that that money made from the plantation was used to build a grand British estate that still stands today, introducing part two of Exposing Slave Beneficiaries the Codringtons and Betty's Hope? So let's get specific.
Speaker 1:Close your eyes and picture yourself in Antigua in the Caribbean. You know they have 365 beaches right, a different beach for every day of the year. You know their sister island, barbuda, actually has pink sand right. I visited Antigua for the first time earlier this year. What I loved was the beaches, the clear water, the preservation of history, the sunshine. The preservation of history, the sunshine, the relaxed driving culture. What I didn't love was the mosquitoes, although it wasn't the worst I've experienced. Being a little bit more specific, let's go inland to Betty's Hope, a former plantation which has been masterfully restored and preserved. On that plantation you'll see two giant restored mills, ruins of a great house and a small museum. Today it's managed by the Museum of Antigua. However, between 1674 until 1944 it was owned by the Codringtons. Yes, the British family owned the plantation for 270 years and to this day the family's legacy continues, as the name Betty is the name of Christopher. Codrington's daughter, also Barbuda's only village, codrington's daughter, also Barbuda's only village, is called Codrington.
Speaker 1:In 1833, following the Slavery Abolition Act, the British government agreed to compensate the slave owners for their loss of quote-unquote property. The Codringtons owned 2,192 enslaved people across multiple states and countries, including Tobago, grenada, etc. However, for the specifics of this smart reparations claim, I'll solely be focusing on Betty's hope. In Antigua and Barbuda alone they had 1,539 enslaved people. To emancipate those lives, they were compensated £25,000 approximately. To make this measurable, according to the Bank of England inflation calculator that would be £2.5 million in today's money. Be 2.5 million in today's money, moving away from compensation and moving to assets.
Speaker 1:In 1792, as the great nephew of Sir William Codrington, christopher Codrington inherited 4,240 acres and 108,000 pounds and valuable West Indian plantations. In 1796, he spent 68,000 on building Doddington Park in Gloucestershire and supposedly a further 60,000 on the interior. He spent 78,000 on land and legal fees and a further 50,000 between 1814 and 1819. It says sums of this extent were met by the sale of investments and from plantation profits. The Doddington estate comprises of 300 acres of landscape park with woods and lakes and lodges and a house and an orangery and a church etc.
Speaker 1:Doddington Park remained in the Codrington family for 187 years. It was open to the public in the 1950s due to the increasing financial pressures on the Codrington family of maintaining such an estate. In the 1970s, to attract more visitors, an adventure playground, a carriage museum and a railway had been built to attract families. It worked for a while but a spanner was thrown into the works when the local council denied planning permission to build a pleasure park in 1982. In the wake of that decision, the then owner, sir Simon Codrington, said that every generation of the Codrington since the 16th century has fought tooth and nail to keep the estate, with Sir Simon and his wife being reduced to occupy only a single bedroom and kitchen in the house with an electric fire for heating. To that I say I'm sorry, sir. Knowing what your ancestors did in order to acquire Doddington Park, I feel no sympathy for you To add to my lack of sympathy. Eventually, the estate was put up for sale in October 1983 and had sold for an undisclosed price, with offers over 1 million having been sought previously. So let's take that number. Similarly, using the Bank of England inflation calendar, that's 3.3 million in today's money. So that puts us at 5.8 measurable million pounds. Random side note today James Dyson yes, dyson the Hoover currently resides at Doddington Park. Okay, back on track. For those who don't like the term reparations, which literally means repair the nations, how about my term colonial compensation? How about my term colonial compensation?
Speaker 1:In the late 1970s, the Codringtons sold their archives yes, sold, not donated. The archives documented three generations of the family and their relationship with agriculture and slavery in the West Indies. Reporting on the announcement of the sale, the Times described the collection as probably the single most important collection of West Indian estate papers. Not surprisingly, news of the sale of these papers reached Antigua and Barbuda. The Antiguan government offered £30,000, arguing that the least the Codringtons should do is give them the papers at a knock down price, especially considering what they represented to the people of the island, let alone what the Codringtons did to the people's ancestors. Sir Simon Codrington, however, needed the money and in the Sotheby's sale on the 15th of December 1980, the archive went to the highest bidder. The Barbuda papers went to an anonymous purchaser for 115,000. The country of origin was not revealed, however. We later learned he was a Swiss-based financer with interests in Antigua. Thankfully, the Swiss investor donated the papers to the people of Antigua and Barbuda. But the Codringtons still made £484,000 from the sale of their archives in today's money. So that puts the repair, the reparations, the colonial compensation at around £6.2 million. Yes, from this one family and this one plantation. And we're not done yet.
Speaker 1:More relief came in 1944 as the Betty's Hope Plantation and adjacent Codrington-owned lands were finally unloaded by the British-owned Antigua Syndicate Estates Limited, originally called Gunthorpe Sugar Estates, who were also slave traders. For it they were given 49,000 in 1944, which in today's money is 1.8 million, which puts the colonial compensation at 8 million for Betty's Hope alone. And that could go on Betty's Hope. I've covered the specific, the measurable.
Speaker 1:Let's look at what can be achieved. For example, the large water catchment was restored with funding from Germany and excavations of the great house from the US. That should have been paid for by the Codringtons and or Britain. A plaque in the museum says. In 1990, the Betty's Hope Trust was formed to develop this site into an open-air museum. As a private non-profit organisation, it relies on support from the public. Volunteers cut back the bush and funds were donated to restore one mill. Future plans include fencing, planting sugar cane and other forms of crops. Replicas of slave houses will be built and more ruins restored. This could be achieved with reparations in turn. This would create more jobs and tourism, which would fall under the carrycom 10 point plan of reparations.
Speaker 1:Number four cultural institutions. So that is what could be achieved. But is it realistic? I say yes because it's traceable, so much so I feel as if the codringtons are playing in our face. Let me explain, because their present day heirs still bear the same first and surname as their enslaver ancestors. Yes, born in 1988, christopher Codrington. Just like his enslaver ancestors, they're not even trying to distance themselves or remove themselves from the legacy and the power and the toil and the torment behind the name.
Speaker 1:Death in 1710. In his will he left 10 000 pounds and 6 000 pounds worth of books to the christopher codrington library in all souls college in oxford, england, which is equivalent to 2.3 million in today's money. So that puts the library due to Codrington's ownership of slaves, and a plaque was placed outside his statue commemorating the enslaved workers who were held on his plantations. For atonement, three fully funded graduate studentships at Oxford were also set up for students who were ordinarily residents in, or are nationals of a Caribbean country and who identify as black or mixed black ethnicity. £6 million of the college's endowment is now set aside on a permanent basis to produce the income that funds these studentships. So if educational institutions are acknowledging and atoning for, why can't the British government and why can't the Codringtons? So some atonement has been acknowledged. However, financially it still falls short of the 10 million. In addition, no Codrington has ever stepped forward.
Speaker 1:I often say you don't choose how you are born or how you come into this world. However, you decide how you live in this world. Codringtons, help us lobby the UK government for repair. Repair the nations, reparations. Stand alongside with us. To the general listener if you've got this far in the podcast, please visit repair campaign and sign the petition to show solidarity. They're looking for three thousand signatures and it's not just for us in the present but it's also for the past, our ancestors, some of the names from the Betty's Hope Plantation, who we're standing in solidarity with Betty Congol, maleta, jane, also referred to as Red Jane, nani, ibo, mimba, which is a variation of the name Amma and a can name born on a Saturday, and Koshiba, born on a Sunday. And lastly, the name Rat.
Speaker 1:Final thoughts I've looked at the present day Codringtons at their company's house, etc. Does it seem like from their company's house that they can afford 10 million pounds? It doesn't seem so. However, what they could do is help lobby the British government. As I said earlier, you can't choose how you come into world, but you can choose how you live in this world. Thank you so much for listening. This has been the Blackwash.