Life
Movement for reparations grows
In 1782, the 70-year-old African woman, whose “master” had been killed in a war, made her case to the US Senate and House of Representatives:
“The face of your petitioner is now marked with the furrows of time, and her frame feebly bending under the oppression of years, while she, by the laws of the land, is denied the enjoyment of one morsel of that immense wealth, a part whereof hath been accumulated by her own industry, and the whole augmented by her servitude.”
She went on to press her claims for “the just returns of honest industry”, requesting “that such allowance may be made, out of the estate of Colonel Royall, as will prevent her and her more infirm daughter, from misery in the greatest extreme, and scatter comfort over the short and downward path of their lives.”
This petition, the first claim for reparations of which I am aware, came from a woman recorded only as “Belinda”. As if she was a dog or a cat, Belinda, whose African name was banned by law, had been given no surname by those who renamed her.