By Emenike Pio – In 2022, the Church Commissioners for England said it had learned from research it commissioned that Queen Anne’s Bounty, a predecessor fund of the Church Commissioners’ £10.1 billion endowment, had links with transatlantic chattel slavery.
The Church of England may be forced to beg its wealthy donors to cough-up an extra £900m to compensate Black people for its role in the slave trade.
The Oversight Group, a black-led independent body, has overruled the Church of England’s initial compensation offfer of £100m and instead urged the CoE pay £1 billion to readdress the evils of slavery.
The independent Oversight Group, which was appointed last year, also said delivery of the £1bn compensation package be accelerated quicker the nine-year period initially planned.
In a statement, the Oversight Group recommended: “Recognition that £100m initially earmarked by the Church Commissioners is not enough, relative to the scale of the Church Commissioners’ endowment or of the moral sin and crime of African chattel enslavement, and that the organisation, in partnership with others, should target an initiative of £1bn and above.”
Its second recommendation stated: “That the timeline for the delivery of the fund should be accelerated and delivered faster than the nine years originally envisaged.”
The Oversight Group also urged the Church of England to formally and publically apologise for its role in destroying traditional African belief systems and for propagating the falsehood that Black people are not made in the image of God.
“Church of England to fully acknowledge and apologise for the harms caused by its historic denial that Black Africans are created in the image of God, for its deliberate actions to destroy diverse African religious belief systems and to facilitate work that builds the spiritual connection of Africa and the African diaspora with the Gospel and the diverse spiritual practices of African forebears.”
The research found that in the 18th century, Queen Anne’s Bounty invested significant amounts of its funds in the South Sea Company, a company that traded in enslaved people. It also received numerous benefactions, many of which are likely to have come from individuals linked to, or who profited from, transatlantic chattel slavery or the plantation economy.
The Church Commissioners continue to manage a £10.1 billion endowment to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England. One parishioner said: “Asking the C of E to pay £1bn is like asking it to pay its tithe, which would be 10 per cent of its current £10bn endowment.”
Funds from the Queen Anne’s Bounty funds were subsumed into the Church Commissioners’ endowment when it was created in 1948, perpetuating the legacy of Queen Anne’s Bounty’s linkages to African chattel enslavement.
Following the publication of the research, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, who is also Chair of the Church Commissioners, said: “I am deeply sorry for the links with transatlantic chattel slavery that the Church Commissioners has identified. This abominable trade took men, women and children created in God’s image and stripped them of their dignity and freedom. The fact that some within the Church actively supported and profited from it is a source of shame. It is only by facing this painful reality that we can take steps towards genuine healing and reconciliation – the path that Jesus Christ calls us to walk.”
In response to the 2022 report, the Church of England tasked the Church Commissioners consultation group to discuss compensation and an apology.
Sooner after, the Church Commissioners announced that it would address the past wrongs by committing £100 million of funding over the next nine years commencing in 2023, to a programme of impact investment, research and engagement.
In July 2023, the Church Commissioners for England announced that members of the Oversight Group will advise the Board on how it establishes the new impact investment fund and grant funding programme that is being set up in response to its research findings of historic links to transatlantic chattel slavery. The Right Reverend Dr Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon, was announced chair of the Oversight group and Geetha Tharmaratnam, Chief Impact Investment Officer of the WHO Foundation, named the Vice-Chair.
In its final recommendations this week, the Oversight group also called for new impact investment fund be called the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice. The Oversight Group recommended that the programme should be ultimately owned and run by Black communities and for the impact investment and spending programme to start operating later in 2024.
Bishop Rosemarie continued: “This work and the Fund matter because the legacy of African enslavement continues to have a significant impact on communities today and inequalities persist till this day.”
The Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners has warmly welcomed the It said in a statement: “In seeking justice for all, we must continue to work together remembering that all are created in the image of God,” said the Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chair of the Board of Governors. “The Oversight Group’s independent work with the Church Commissioners is the beginning of a multi-generational response to the appalling evil of Transatlantic chattel enslavement. My prayer is that this work will stimulate further visionary and practical co-created action.”
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