Reparations for Slavery – Should Kamala Harris Pay?

I have commented here before about Kamala Harris’ supposed ancestor, a well-known slave owner in Jamaica named Hamilton Brown. Kamala’s paternal great-grandmother was Brown’s daughter, according to the listings on Findagrave. She was called “Miss Chrishy.” Her full name was Christiana Brown. She was born in 1888, and died in 1952:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/272680546/christiana_brown

Hamilton Brown owned an enormous number of human beings, close to 500, scattered across multiple plantations.

Over the period 1815-1843, Hamilton Brown was recorded as owning the following plantations:

• Grier Park Estate (1815-1832) 124 slaves 
• Antrim Estate (1816-1832) 159 slaves
• Minard Estate (1819-1839) 128 slaves 
• Colliston (1825-1839) 108 slaves 

He also leased a number of other plantations (Beverly, Little River, Retirement, Runaway Bay and Unity Valley) and was an attorney (agent) to several others including Queenhithe. 

https://irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/ancestor-database/hamilton-brown-esq

Who knows how many slaves worked on the plantations he leased. There might have been 1000 or more in total. Brown was such an influential figure in Jamaica that a town, Brown’s Town, was named for him. It remains so today.

Speculation about this line of descent is not hard to find. But I was shocked by one source in particular, Kamala Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris. He wrote an article, still online as of this writing at Jamaica Global Online. I challenge each of you to go and read it. The astonishing part to me is the pride in the tone of the writing:

I find no sense whatsoever of shame or sadness for the family’s possible slave-owning past. There are slave owners in my own ancestry, to my dismay. I can never speak of them without expressing my regret. Times were very different, of course, but to be proud of their “plantations” would never cross my mind.

In the article he wrote, Donald Harris’ proclaimed his father to have been known as “Maas Oscar,” clearly a colloquialism meaning “Master.” This illustrious character lived until 1974:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/272680343/oscar_joseph_harris

Much has been made of the fact that the genealogical evidence for the claim that Kamala Harris’ family descends from Hamilton Brown is thin, and that is true. As a professional genealogist, I must agree. There is, however, enough evidence that PolitiFact included this quote from a British professor of slavery and emancipation in an article about the issue:

“[Trevor] Burnard, who wrote a book about Jamaican slave overseer Thomas Thistlewood, told us that if Kamala Harris’ father says he’s a descendant of Hamilton Brown, “I would be inclined to believe him.”

It wouldn’t be unusual for Harris to have “some slave owner heritage,” Burnard said. “That would be extremely normal for members of Jamaica’s middle class, especially the educated elite, which is where Kamala Harris comes from.””

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/aug/14/looking-claims-kamala-harris-descendant-slave-owne

This is the part of this story that disturbs me. The fact that Harris’ father Donald was proud of his belief that his family traced back to this man, Hamilton Brown. The casual assumption that people would be impressed that Donald’s father was called “Maas Oscar.” That a town was named for his ancestor, the slave owner, was supposed to be cool.

That was what struck me. That to be “elite” in Jamaica for the Harris family meant being proud of slave owning heritage. This says a lot about Kamala Harris’ background that she might rather we didn’t know.