On Our "Virtual Route 99" (W-End Edition): On Our World (Courtesy the Guardian of London)

 

02/06/2026 How long can the west withstand demands to take reparative justice seriously? In this month’s newsletter: addressing the division over reparations, placing heritage at the forefront in Manchester and reckoning with Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica

Aamna Mohdin   Good morning. Welcome back to the Cotton Capital newsletter. Did you miss us? A lot has happened since I wrote my last Cotton Capital newsletter in the summer of 2023. Reparations, once treated by many western governments as a fringe demand, have now moved steadily towards the centre of global politics. Over the coming months, Cotton Capital will take you through the people, institutions and political movements reshaping debates around enslavement, colonialism and repair, and the growing global pressure forcing former imperial powers to confront histories they have long preferred to keep buried. A deeply divided world In March, the United Nations voted to describe transatlantic trafficking as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called reparations “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”. The vote marked a huge symbolic victory for campaigners and further galvanised a movement that shows little sign of slowing down. The resolution had been proposed by the president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama (pictured top), who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.” The vote also revealed a world deeply divided on the question of reparatory justice. At least 123 states, including much of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Arab world, backed the resolution. But the western bloc, including Australia, Canada, the UK and EU member states, abstained, while Argentina, Israel and the US voted against it.  Beating around the bush … Keir Starmer in Samoa in 2024. Photograph: William West/AP For many African and Caribbean nations, the vote was seen as another step in a long international campaign for acknowledgment, apology and repair. But western resistance has remained firm. During debates at the UN, several countries argued that because the transatlantic slave trade was not formally illegal under international law at the time it took place, there was no legal basis for compensation today. But, as critics have long argued, such reasoning reduces one of the largest crimes in human history to a technicality. The UN vote reminded me of Keir Starmer’s ill-fated trip to Samoa in 2024. Starmer was the first sitting British prime minister to visit a Pacific island nation, hoping to strengthen Commonwealth ties and project a renewed global Britain. Instead, the trip became dominated by calls for justice over slavery and colonialism. Starmer’s blunt insistence that reparations were “not on the agenda” went down like a lead balloon, while the silence of the then-foreign secretary David Lammy, who had previously spoken openly about the legacies of slavery as a backbencher, on the matter echoed loudly. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said reparations for his country’s role in the enslavement of African people is an issue that should be addressed, though stopped short of making clear proposals. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, currently leading in several opinion polls, has taken a more confrontational approach, announcing it would deny visas to people from countries seeking slavery reparations from Britain. Reshaping the debate  Major shifts … Chris Osuh (left), the Guardian’s community affairs correspondent based in Manchester. Photograph: Ruby Ramelize There have also been major shifts within the Guardian. In 2023, the Scott Trust launched its Legacies of Enslavement programme, including the Cotton Capital series, and apologised after acknowledging that the founder of the Manchester Guardian and his financial backers profited from the enslavement of African people in Jamaica and the US south. Three years on, the Scott Trust says it has made “significant progress”, including hundreds of community engagement meetings, expanded coverage of the global Black diaspora, and initiatives aimed at improving diversity within journalism. We have also hired eight new correspondents across the Black diaspora. Ebony Riddell Bamber, the programme director, reflects on the experience of asking people what repair might look like here. “We have learned that repair means economic justice, through retention of property and land, or access to education,” she writes. “It means preserving and uplifting our culture and history; it means responding to the links between climate and environmental devastation and enslavement; it means being in community with one another, locally and globally.” Over the coming months, Cotton Capital will explore the political battles, historical reckonings and moral questions reshaping debates around slavery, colonialism and reparatory justice. For now, I leave you with a question that has lingered since my last newsletter: as demands for reparations grow louder across the global south, how long can western powers continue to insist the issue belongs to the past?

Editor’s picks Gullah Geechee people set out to keep their family land. Unclear titles and surging taxes are pushing them out | Melissa Hellmann UK slavery reparations must be top issue at Commonwealth summit, says former Caribbean leader | Natricia Duncan UK stole 25m years of life and labour through slavery in Barbados, says report | Paul Lashmar and Natricia Duncan France overturns law classing people as property – 178 years after it abolished slavery

Regional spotlight Each month we’ll bring you an update from the three regions where the Guardian is working with descendant communities in the UK, US and Jamaica  Cottonopolis … the Royal Mills in Manchester. Photograph: brinkstock/Alamy Manchester | A huge part of our history involves walking, marching, moving. So, when thinking about relevant ways to tell the story of Manchester, I latched on to the idea of heritage walks. Quite a few already exist in this city. However, from the ones I had encountered, I thought there was an opportunity to fill a gap where the story of Manchester – Cottonopolis – could be told in a compelling way. Greater Manchester Moving has hosted a walking and wheeling festival through the month of May for 10 years. When I asked if they would partner with me to create four new heritage routes for the city, the alignment in our values was undeniable. We joined with community representatives to select four individuals and couples who would go on a journey with us to respond to themes set for the routes and the festival – Heritage in Action and Celebrating Connected Communities. I am intrigued to discover what the response to our new heritage routes will be. As a proud Mancunian, I have a passion for telling the truth about what it means when we say that Manchester was the first industrial city in the world. It is a complicated truth – but we have to own it if we want our civic pride to have any kind of validity. Keisha Thompson, the Legacies of Enslavement’s Manchester programme manager  Amassment of wealth … Success plantation, Jamaica. Photograph: William Richards/The Guardian Jamaica | When Hurricane Melissa demolished the Gurney’s Mount Baptist church in Jamaica’s north-western parish of Hanover last year, it extinguished a beacon of the community, its pastor, Rev O’Neil Bowen, said. Standing for centuries as a symbol of resistance and endurance, the church and its congregation have endured through uprisings – in particular, the famous 1831 slave revolt led by the Black Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe – and earthquakes. “This church is a beacon in the community, a place for people to gather for social events, to worship and [to have] funerals,” he said, adding that the sight of the demolished building is “disheartening for many”. Cold Spring village, and many of its neighbouring communities in Hanover, where residents are still rebuilding after the catastrophic destruction of Hurricane Melissa, were once plantations owned by Europeans who amassed wealth from centuries of trafficking and enslavement of African people. One of the Guardian’s 19th-century funders co-owned a plantation, Success, in the area. Today, members of the Gurney’s Mount Baptist church are worshipping in a centre that is a fifth of the size of the church. “We are really eager to get back into the space. We have not been able to host any funeral services,” Bowen said. The church, which is part of the Jamaica Baptist Union, is hoping to attract funding through the organisation’s hurricane relief appeal. Natricia Duncan, Caribbean correspondent  Deepening understanding … a dawn ceremony organised by Gullah Geechee community elder Sandra Boyd. Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP Sea Islands | Over the past year we’ve listened and learned, and now we are grateful for the opportunity to continue collaborative work with descendant communities in shaping our response. We look forward to returning to our communities to share and validate the information gathered and support community meetings that enable resource-planning, sharing and learning. A key objective in the next phase of our work is to identify and move money to local partners to deliver on community priorities for restorative justice and repair. Our next step is to deepen our understanding of the community based work that aligns with the programme objectives and identify the organisations best positioned to lead and expand that work through collective action. Angel Parson, US south-east programme manager

What we’re enjoying  An illuminating read … the book Heiresses by Miranda Kaufmann. Photograph: Oneworld Publications This month I’ve been reading Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, by the historian Miranda Kaufmann. Much of the focus in discussions on the transatlantic slave trade tends to be on male enslavers and institutions, but not much has been written about the women who also played a role, profiting from enslavement through marriage and, in some cases, owning enslaved people after inheriting vast Caribbean sugar plantations. Kaufmann homes in on nine women, including Jane Austen’s “stingy” aunt Jane Cholmeley and Frances Dalzell, the mixed heritage daughter of a formerly enslaved woman in Jamaica who inherited her own plantation and enslaved people and married into Scottish aristocracy. It is a sobering, forensic and illuminating read. Angela Foster, assistant editor Heiresses by Miranda Kaufmann is published by Oneworld Publications. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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