‘More mainstream’: In the UK, push for slavery reparations gains momentum

Bristol, United Kingdom – Malik Al Nasir’s research into a slave trading family for his doctorate was not only an academic project – it was deeply personal. The author and poet, who is of mixed heritage, discovered that his ancestors were not only among the enslaved people the Sandbach Tinne dynasty profited from but also the traders themselves. Sandbach Tinne & Co monopolised much of the Demerara sugar trade in the 19th century. Its influence and impact stretched far across the British Empire, and in the UK, the family’s wealth and legacy is visibly seen today in institutions, businesses and legacies in British cities including Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol. The company stopped trading only in 1975. Al Nasir’s PhD award-winning work at the University of Cambridge uncovered missing parts of his history connected with his father’s birthplace in Demerara in today’s Guyana. Malik Al Nasir, a poet and researcher, found that some of his ancestors were slave traders while others were enslaved people [Suyin Haynes/Al Jazeera] “It was important to me because I had to know who I was and how their barbaric trade of enslaved Africans shaped my life,” he told Al Jazeera. “[They] also shaped the lives of...