The USPG is to pay £7m in reparations to communities in Barbados because of its past links to slavery. The Church of England mission society last month announced it would pledge 18m Barbados Dollars to be spent over the next 10 to 15 years as part of a long-term project, Renewal & Reconciliation: The Codrington Reparations Project.
The project will work with descendants of slaves in four areas: community development and engagement; historical research & education; burial places & memorialisation, and family research. The project is set to kick off in early 2024.
In 1710, The Society of the Propagation of the Gospel (the charity’s former name) received a bequest from Sir Christopher Codrington for two plantations in Barbados, which included a population of enslaved African men, women, and children. From then until 1838 SPG owned and ran the estates through local managers, and from 1712 to 1838, the Codrington Estate was managed as a plantation business.
The Rev. Duncan Dormor, General Secretary of USPG said: “USPG is deeply ashamed of our past links to slavery. We recognise that it is not simply enough to repent in thought and word, but we must take action, working in partnership with Codrington where the descendants of enslaved persons are still deeply impacted by the generational trauma that came from the Codrington Plantations.”
Archbishop Howard Gregory, Primate and Metropolitan of The Church of the Province in the West Indies, stated: “It is our hope that, through this reparations project, there will be serious reckoning with the history of the relationship between The Codrington Trust and USPG, but also a process of renewal and reconciliation that will be healing of the pain of the past.”
