'A Life Of Misery’:Africans Seek Reparations For the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Matilda McCrear was just two when she was kidnapped in 1860 along with her mother Grace and three sisters by slave traders in present-day Nigeria. They were forced onto Clotilda, the last slave ship to transport Africans to the United States. The ship docked in Alabama in July 1860, more than 50 years after Congress outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1808 – though slavery itself was abolished in 1865. 

The 110 men, women, and children on board were sold to slaveholders. McCrear and her family were bought by Memorable Creagh, a wealthy plantation owner. Although they tried to escape with the hope of returning home to unite with McCrear’s two brothers, they were recaptured. 

McCrear and her family’s attempt to escape, Dr Hannah Durkin noted, ‘brings to light the miserable treatment that they endured even as young children and shows how profound was their sense of dislocation and desperation to return home.’ She is a researcher at Newcastle University and uses genealogical data and a newspaper interview to document the experiences of McCrear, the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade, who died in Alabama in January 1940 at age 83. 

McCrear was not alone. Between 1501 and 1867, around 12.5 million Africans were captured, forced onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean in ‘brutal conditions’. They were enslaved, abused, and forced to work on sugar, rice, cotton, and tobacco plantations. 

A personal account

While an estimated two million people died during the journey, also known as the Middle Passage, about 10.7 million people survived. The majority of those captured were from West and Central Africa and were chained together in groups for the journey. 

Olaudah Equiano experienced this harsh treatment firsthand, which he described in his autobiography, ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.’ Born in present-day southern Nigeria, Equiano was enslaved at age 11; however, he bought his freedom from his master in 1766.

When they boarded the ship, Equiano said they were put down below deck to endure an intense stench. Additionally, Equiano explained that the place was crowded and the air was unfit for respiration, which caused sickness among the slaves and eventually led to the death of many.

‘One day, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together, preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would have done the same if they had not been prevented by the ship’s crew, who were instantly alarmed,’ Equiano wrote in his book published in 1789. 

While the first two drowned, Equiano said the crew got the other, whom they ‘flogged unmercifully for attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner, we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade.’

Equiano himself endured severe beating and had considered jumping into the water but could not because the crew watched them closely. He wrote that ‘the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty.’

For over three centuries, the enslavement of Africans supported economic growth in Europe and created ‘generational wealth for Europeans and white Americans’, according to one Equal Justice Initiative’s report.

Considering the scale and cruel nature of the transatlantic slave trade, the United Nations General Assembly on 25 March 2026, voted to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as ‘the gravest crime against humanity.’ The resolution, backed by the African Union, was proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama. While 123 countries voted in favour, the United States, Israel, and Argentina voted against, and 52 countries abstained, including the United Kingdom and members of the European Union.

‘[The resolution] is the first step. You have to recognise [the transatlantic slave trade] as something that's really detrimental,’ Nathan Nunn, a professor of economics at the Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, told FairPlanet. ‘The transatlantic slave trade is definitely the largest forced movement of people that's occurred in human history.’ 

Demand for reparations

Although slavery has been abolished, the practice persists in some parts of Africa, wreaking havoc on lives in Mali and putting the lives of an estimated 149,000 Mauritanians at risk, most of whom are often forced to work across the agricultural sector without pay.

Nunn explained that slavery was part of the African societies even before the transatlantic slave trade commenced. For example, the Arab Muslim slave trade, also known as the trans-Saharan slave trade, started around the 7th century and spanned over 1,300 years with millions of Africans trafficked through the Sahara and the Indian Ocean to the Arab world.

However, the transatlantic slave trade is widely known, said Nunn. 

‘Transatlantic slave trade seems to be the best known amongst the four slave trades experienced in Africa, especially in terms of scale which is the largest compared to other slave trades,’ he explained. ‘The scale was enormous, completely unprecedented; and the treatment [of enslaved Africans] was really harsh and brutal.’ 

Experts argue that the transatlantic slave trade had a significant impact on African economies. For Nunn, the regions in Africa heavily affected by slavery are now the poorest, with per capita incomes significantly lower.

‘[Transatlantic slave trade] led to economic poverty,’ he told FairPlanet. ‘Those parts of Africa that [had] the most people that were enslaved, are the parts of Africa that have the lowest per capita income.’ 

McCrear sought justice. In her 70s, she travelled 15 miles to the county courthouse in Selma, Alabama, to seek compensation for her enslavement. But her plea was dismissed. Africans are now beginning to seek reparations to help the continent recover from the legacy of slavery. For example, a 2025 survey conducted by the Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF) involving 1,861 respondents from 57 African countries and the diaspora, found that 70.3 per cent of Africans support demanding reparations from former colonial powers.

‘It is therefore necessary now, that the demand for reparations be as loud as it possibly can be. The African people deserve justice for all the years of unprovoked imperial domination,’ said Humphery Quaye, head of the PPF, a Ghana-based organisation coordinating and supporting progressive movements across Africa and the diaspora.

But Nunn argued that reparations will only be a one-time action and so won’t be enough to cover the Western countries’ impact in contributing to the ‘underdevelopment’ of the continent.

‘If you give reparations, that won't be enough… and as effective as sustained help that affects the growth trajectory of the countries that were hurt,’ he said. ‘What if [they] really help and then allow the countries to start on a different trajectory that's steeper, that could be more beneficial?’

Correcting ‘structural inequalities’ 

While the calls for reparations are beginning to gain traction, there is also a ‘growing backlash’ and resistance from world powers that enslaved Africans. Some European countries have argued against being held accountable for historical wrongs. The Netherlands in fact, is the only European country to have issued a formal apology for its role in slavery.

Meanwhile, Quaye believes that recognising the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity will strengthen Africans ongoing struggle for liberation, unity, and global justice, as well as correct ‘structural inequalities’ rooted in the exploitation of Africans.

‘These events still affect the continent in several ways. They cannot easily be forgotten and the impacts cannot easily be erased, not now, possibly not ever,’ Quaye told FairPlanet. ‘The crimes committed against African people are not merely historical episodes but foundational injustices whose consequences still influence economic, political, and social realities today.’