International Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade

This article compares German Holocaust reparations with reparations regarding slavery and the slave trade in the United States and beyond. I review many historical reparations measures (proposed and realized) making them comparable in 2016 U.S. dollars. Based on slave-ship manifests, I investigate how reparations for the slave trade may be distributed. I propose that European slave-trade reparations could be used in Africa and the New World to indemnify the descendants of the formerly enslaved. Total and per-recipient amounts provide a wide range for possible negotiations. They range from only US$71.08 per recipient demanded by James Forman in 1969 to US$3.6 million per recipient actually paid by the descendants of Haiti's enslaved to the descendants of their former oppressors. The German example suggests that a political solution can be worked out if the representatives of the perpetrating side reach out to the representatives of the victimized side for negotiations.