This article was first published by Stuff.
Two Auckland sisters want New Zealanders to think about how the country was colonised by Europeans with fortunes made from the labour of slaves from Africa.
Kate Thomas and Aidee Walker have returned from Jamaica, where they made a public apology on behalf of their family who are descended from a Scottish slave owner with a notorious history of hanging his slaves.
The sisters made an emotional apology to the people of Jamaica on behalf of the clan Malcolm of Argyll from Scotland who owned and ran sugar plantations and estates on the Caribbean island, which was heavily reliant on slave labour.
Thomas, who works in the social impact sector, previously led the Spark Foundation for six years and her actor and director sister Walker is currently a contestant in Celebrity Treasure Island. Walker has worked on the shows One of Us Is Lying, Step Dave, Outrageous Fortune, Kid Sister, and The Convert as well as directing Mystic, Westside, and The Brokenwood Mysteries.
They began their journey into their family past about 18 months ago - and it all began with a DNA test.
Walker said she only did the DNA test as her partner was interested. He is Māori and his test showed zero English DNA and he is over 90% Polynesian.
“I came back with mostly Scottish and Irish, a little English and a few others in the mix... and Nigerian! I told the family straight away and most people laughed or dismissed it but Kate [her sister] didn’t.”
It ignited their curiosity about members of their Scottish clan. They discovered one of their ancestors, John Malcolm, owned more than 2000 slaves in Jamaica and had 10 or so large sugar plantations.
“A few family members mentioned they had a great grandfather who lived in Jamaica and that he had been ‘naughty’ with his housekeeper,” Walker said.
It turned out the housekeeper was Mary Johnson and they had five children together. Johnson is the sisters’ fourth great grandmother.
The DNA test and further research showed the sisters had found themselves in the position of being descendants of both slave owners and the enslaved, too.
“Now, we know that she [Johnson] was likely the daughter of an enslaved woman and therefore born into slavery herself,” Walker said.
Johnson had five children with John Malcolm, including their third great-grandfather, Neill Malcolm.
Thomas added there were many children born to male enslavers and female enslaved during this time.
“The stories of rape and sexploitation are horrific. Sometimes the mixed race children born to enslavers got slightly elevated positions within the system, for example as overseers, cooks, errand runners or housekeepers. They still weren’t free, they were considered the property of the enslavers,” Thomas said.
Most of the enslaved Jamaicans came from West Africa - the region of modern day Ghana and Nigeria, “so it all started to make sense in relation to the DNA results,” Walker explained.
For four hundred years slave traders forcibly took African people to the “new world” of the Americas and Caribbean to work in what is known as “chattel slavery”. The slaves and their children were able to be bought, sold and forced to work without wages.
Rising sugar prices made the slave trade increasingly lucrative and as a result the demand for African labourers grew. After Britain abolished slavery in 1833, their government compensated plantation owners for the loss of what had been considered their property.
The path to apology
Thomas and Walker did their research online and came upon a group called the Heirs of Slavery, individuals and families who discovered their ancestors facilitated or profited from transatlantic slavery.
Thomas contacted former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan after reading about her family’s apology in Grenada last year. In 1835, the Trevelyans shared £29,000 as “compensation” for owning 1004 enslaved people on the Caribbean island of Grenada.
The slave trade contributed to the global expansion of European powers, including Britain, through resources gained by exploiting enslaved people, and it helped finance Britain’s colonial advancement around the globe - including, of course, in New Zealand.
It was Trevelyan who connected the sisters to Professor Verene Shepherd from the University of West Indies. She was a vital contact for the sisters.
“We started zooming almost weekly to make plans and through Professor Shepherd, we met Jamaican historian Oshane Robinson who grew up in Hanover, the province where our family owned all of their plantations, and he knew a lot about the Malcolms. Then things became very real,” Walker said.
According to research, the sisters’ ancestor John Malcolm was complicit in the 1824 Argyle war, a riot and uprising of enslaved people in which six men were executed for fighting for their freedom.
It wouldn’t be long before the sisters were taken to the place in Jamaica where the hangings took place.
The Malcolms’ journey to New Zealand
Thomas and Walker’s ancestor who came to New Zealand was Neill Malcolm (born 1825) in Hanover, Jamaica, on one of those estates. He came to Aotearoa in 1850.
Records show he was the son of the Scot John Malcolm, who had slaves executed for rebelling, and Mary Johnson, who was his “housekeeper” in Jamaica and later died in Scotland.
A house was built in Scotland by John, for Mary and the children, according to a family story Thomas found in NZ Genealogy magazine.
“The wider Malcolm family weren’t in the least bit happy about this, and insisted that no windows could look to the castle. This demand has racist undertones to me,” Thomas said.
He left money for her in his will and the will noted that she was the mother of his “reputed” children, Walker said.
Thomas then found birth and christening records of their children which noted that the children were either “Mulatto or Quattro” (outdated terms for mixed-race) and that Mary Johnson was their mother.
One of those children, Neill Malcolm, was the man who came to New Zealand in 1850.
Neill was British educated and had been admitted to the bar at the Inns of Court in London. When he turned 21 he inherited a large sum of money .
“It was from wealth created from enslavement. We think it was about NZ$600,000 in today’s terms,” Thomas said.
“We’re led to believe he was a bit of a ‘rake’, and had a trustee who made some very bad investments on his behalf. We believe he needed to be bailed out by the wider Malcolm family, who very likely encouraged him to move abroad. Let’s also be honest that there could well have been a bit of racism in the mix too. He was young, about 24-years-old, when he arrived in New Zealand.”
Thomas told Nationwide Radio, a station in Jamaica, that nations like Australia and New Zealand were colonised with slave money.
“New Zealanders probably don’t think that there’s a relationship with the transatlantic slave trade, but there is a history and there is a connection to the wealth created by the British government that helped to colonise New Zealand”.
The proceeds of slave ownership and compensation enabled a lot of descendants of enslavers to move to places like New Zealand and Australia, Thomas said.
“We have so many people that have descended and benefited from enslavers.”
“Our Scottish family were in Jamaica for nearly 100 years,” Walker said.
That was at least three generations of enslavers, Thomas added.
The enslaved and Jamaica were left in tatters after years of trauma and abuse, Walker told Stuff when asked why the apology was important to the sisters.
“We are the direct descendants of enslavers and the enslaved.”
Their public apology to the people of Jamaica read: “Our history is intertwined with your history and your history is intertwined with ours”.
The public apology for hangings on behalf of the clan Malcolm of Argyll from Scotland
“Very early on we pondered who an apology would serve. Would it just make us feel better?” Thomas asked.
“Prof Shepherd was very clear that apology was an important first step in the reparatory process. That it was important for Jamaicans to hear from us”, Thomas said.
Both Shepherd and Trevelyan of Heirs of Slavery were instrumental in their apology process, Thomas said.
Shepherd is a social historian and was until July the director of the Centre for Reparation Research and holds other positions including on United Nations committees.
The whole apology process became Jamaican led. The first step in the CARICOM 10- point reparation plan is apology “so it was an absolute no brainer” Walker said.
Walker and Thomas packed their bags and went to Jamaica to make a public apology for the actions of their forefathers on August 1.
The sisters spoke at a gathering of ancestors of the enslaved at Jamaica’s Emancipation Jubilee in Saint Ann.
Organised by the Jamaica National Commission on Reparations, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust and the country’s ministry of culture it acknowledged the wrongs of slavery in the Caribbean country and recognised the role of individuals who benefited from the colonising and enslaving of humans.
“We had no idea how it would be received,” Walker said of the apology that was read in front of a large crowd and signed by themselves and some family members.
“Although there were many video apologies from the UK (including the Church of England and the Guardian newspaper), we were the only people who were there in person and I think that meant a lot to the people we spoke to.”
The sisters took to the stage for their public apology.
“We, the undersigned, apologise for the actions of our ancestors, Clan Malcolm of Argyll Scotland, for their role in the enslavement for Africans within Jamaica.”
They acknowledged the “deep suffering and injustice inflicted upon your ancestors by our forbears, and we recognise the lasting impact of these atrocities on Jamaica. Chattel slavery was and is a crime against humanity.”
“We acknowledge the wealth created by our ancestors through the chattel enslavement of your ancestors, and the injustice of financial compensation paid by the British government to the enslavers. The enduring and damaging legacy of this injustice continues to the present day,” they said.
“We apologise most sincerely to the surviving descendants of the enslaved from Clan Malcolm plantations for the continuing impact on their daily lives, their health and their wellbeing.
“The legacy of the British government chattel enslavement of Africans extends to New Zealand.
“The economic benefits derived from chattel slavery contributed to the financial and imperial strength of Britain, which in turn supported its colonisation activities worldwide, including New Zealand.
“We take this opportunity to also let you know that we will be asking the New Zealand government to acknowledge these historical links to injustices that took place in the wider Caribbean.
“We share a history as descendants of both enslavers and the enslaved. Our history is intertwined with your history, and your history is intertwined with ours.”
“We stand here also as a descendant of Mary Johnson, our fourth great grandmother who is of African descent and a housekeeper in the Malcolm family.
“We are deeply upset to know so little of Mary’s life circumstances and experience, but wish to honour her memory through our actions.
“I would like to thank you all very much for welcoming us here to Jamaica and for this incredible experience.”
The apology was signed by the sisters and New Zealand family members.
An editorial published in the Jamaica’s The Gleaner newspaper about the sisters’ apology concluded the actions of the New Zealanders was indeed a small step along a long, winding path to justice.
“Useful as this may be, what is necessary now is a meaningful social justice programme which will make a compelling case for those on the sidelines,” the editorial said.
“The CARICOM Reparations Commission must deliver on its promise to ramp up advocacy and move beyond apology to action.”
The documentary
Walker is a television director and is making a documentary with Jamaican film-maker Gabrielle Blackwood about the process of the family apology.
The video at the top of the story is raw footage showing Walker and Thomas being shown the place at Argyle Estate in Jamaica where their ancestor executed six enslaved men who were fighting for their freedom.
“It was a very overwhelming experience and we were lucky to be welcomed and looked after so well when we were there,” Thomas said.
Walker is using her fee from appearing in Celebrity Treasure Island to part-fund the documentary.
Walker and Thomas said they wanted to document the experience for their extended family, many of whom they are yet to meet. Of those they had made contact with, not many family members were interested in being involved, Walker said.
“It’s hard to comprehend what we were doing and I knew if you could see it play out, it would feel more real and less fairytale. But soon it evolved into a much bigger conversation around apology and repair - how to act on these things so that it can be impactful and make a real difference.”
We want to reach family in Scotland and New Zealand through Britain, but also to alert New Zealand and Australia to the fact that we have so many people who have descended and benefited from enslavers, Thomas said.
- Stuff