Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer 

December 11, 2023 – European countries owe the descendants of the enslaved across the Americas up to $131 trillion in reparations for slavery and the immediate post-slavery period according to a new report that quantifies Trans Atlantic slavery from the Brattle Group. 

Commissioned by the University of the West Indies, the summer 2023 report used the cost of labour during the slavery period, and the average life expectancy of working residents during the period, with several interest rates, the highest of which was 2.5 percent. These were measured against quantifiable harms like loss of life and uncompensated labour, loss of liberty, personal injury, and the enslaved people’s mental pain and anguish to arrive at the final numbers. 

The overall breakdown awarded to the entire region including Central America and the United States for the various quantifiable harms of enslavement is as follows: 

Forgone Earnings (unpaid labor).   $54,930 trillion 

Loss of Liberty                                $10,986 trillion

Personal Injury.                               $6,042 trillion

Gender-Based Violence                  $11,793 trillion

Mental Pain and Anguish.               $24,047 trillion

Colonial Share of Wealth Disparity $22,931 trillion

Payment to Enslavers                     $12 trillion

Total.                                                $131 trillion

The Brattle Group found that individually the Caribbean was owed the following totals 

• Antigua and Barbuda            $1.3 trillion 
• The Bahamas                        $127 billion
• Barbados                               $4.9 trillion
• British Virgin Islands              $136 billion
• Cuba                                      $6.7 trillion
• Dominica                                $ 877 billion
• Dominican Republic               $3.1 trillion
• Grenada.                                $1.4 trillion
• Haiti                                        $8.6 trillion
• Jamaica.                                 $10.2 trillion
• Puerto Rico (U.S.).                 $551 billion
• Saint Kitts and Nevis.             $ 1.6 trillion
• Saint Lucia.                             $ 106 billion
• Trinidad and Tobago               $757 billion
• Virgin Islands (U.S.)                $688 billion

The researchers maintained too that not only were there harms that could never be quantified but the length of time descendants had been waiting for reparations also factored into the valuations. 

 “Given the centuries over which this compensation has been

delayed, any compensation for the time value of money or labor will be significant and dominate the estimation.”

Of the 19.9 million Africans harmed by either being directly sold into slavery, being born into slavery, or dying in the middle passage each would be owed just over 6 million USD each.