Steve Cushion. The Drax Family Dynasty and the Business of Slavery: Reparations for Enslavement as a Trade Union Issue. Seminar Recording
Steve Cushion is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London – Institute of the Americas.
The Drax family pioneered the plantation system in the 17th century and played a major role in the development of sugar and slavery across the Caribbean and the US. They were able to generate extraordinary wealth through the cultivation of sugar by enslaved Africans.
Richard Drax, Member of Parliament for South Dorset, has recently been in the news as the Government of the Republic of Barbados is considering legal action against him to recover the Drax Hall Plantation and seek further reparations for enslavement.
David Comissiong, Barbados’s ambassador to CARICOM, has said of the Drax family:
“You can’t simply walk away from the scene of the crime. They have a responsibility now to make some effort to help repair the damage”.
At the well-attended seminar on Monday 23rd January Steve Cushion discussed some of the history of slave owning members of the Drax family back to the seventeenth century and drew attention to how many had sat in Parliament.
He noted that the Richard Drax MP refuses to allow historians access to the family archives in Dorset and that similarly visitors are not welcome as his Barbados Estate. Phil Marfleet from Dorset Stand Up To Racism spoke in the discussion about the campaigning work that was being done in the area around Drax and the call for reparations
Link to recording of the seminar
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