# Charity commits £7mn in reparations for Barbados slavery links

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2023/09/12/charity-commits-7mn-in-reparations-for-barbados-slavery-links/
- Published: 2023-09-12T08:28:00+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**A Christian charity with its headquarters in London is to pay £7mn in reparations
to communities in Barbados because of its past links to slavery.**

[USPG](https://www.uspg.org.uk/) (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is committing
to a long-term project, [Renewal & Reconciliation: The Codrington Reparations Project](https://www.uspg.org.uk/our-partners/renewal-and-reconciliation/)
in partnership with Codrington Trust / Church in the Province of the West Indies(
CPWI), in Barbados. USPG has pledged 18mn Barbadian dollars (approximately £7mn),
which will be spent in Barbados over the next 10-15 years to support this work.

The project will cover four key areas in collaboration with the descendants of the
enslaved: community development and engagement; historical research & education;
burial places & memorialisation, and family research. Work will begin in the Spring.

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USG and Codrington Trust / Church are working together because in 1710, The Society
of the Propagation of the Gospel (the charity’s former name) received a bequest 
from Sir Christopher Codrington for two plantations in Barbados, which included 
a population of enslaved African men, women, and children. From then until 1838 
SPG owned and ran the estates through local managers, and from 1712 to 1838, the
Codrington Estate was managed as a plantation business.

Commenting, Rev’d Duncan Dormor, General Secretary of USPG said:

> “USPG is deeply ashamed of our past links to slavery. We recognise that it is 
> not simply enough to repent in thought and word, but we must take action, working
> in partnership with Codrington where the descendants of enslaved persons are still
> deeply impacted by the generational trauma that came from the Codrington Plantations.”

Archbishop Howard Gregory, Primate and Metropolitan of The Church of the Province
in the West Indies, said:

> “It is our hope that, through this reparations project, there will be serious 
> reckoning with the history of the relationship between The Codrington Trust and
> USPG, but also a process of renewal and reconciliation that will be healing of
> the pain of the past.”

In related news, earlier this year, the Church Commissioners (which support the 
work and mission of the Church of England) published a full report into its own 
historic links to transatlantic chattel slavery, [announcing a funding commitment](https://fundraising.co.uk/2023/01/12/church-commissioners-announce-100mn-funding-commitment-in-response-to-slavery-link-findings/)
of £100mn in response to the findings.