A Cambridge University college spent £120,000 in its unsuccessful attempt to remove a monument from its chapel to a 17th century benefactor who had an extensive role in the slave trade, it appears.
Writing in the Guardian, Sonita Alleyne, president of Jesus College, defended the decision to fight the cause and criticized the church’s “old” and costly process that ended in the college’s defeat.
The disputed memorial was the subject of a three-day ecclesiastical court hearing in February in which the college was asked to obtain permission from the Diocese of Eli to remove the plaque from the church wall, where it was deterring community members from worship, and move it to another location in the college.
Allen, the first black master at Uxbridge College, said that after research revealed the extent to which Tobias Rosstat had been involved for 30 years in the transatlantic slave trade, the vast majority of colleagues voted in favor of seeking permission to move the memorial.
“I felt this was pretty straightforward,” writes Alleyne. From an ethical point of view, Rosstat’s activities helped finance the slave factories along the West African coast. The ships made it possible to transport tens of thousands of enslaved women, children, and men through the middle passage. This has resulted in these people working to death in the killing fields of the Caribbean and the Americas.”
But last month, the Constitutional Court ruled that opposition to the memorial was based on a “false narrative” about the scale of Rosstat’s rewards from slavery and ordered that the memorial remain in the chapel. Since then, Jesus College has decided to reject an appeal, but has called on the Church of England to find a better way to address issues of racial injustice and contested heritage.
“There was no doubt, we had to fight the issue,” Allen said. “By doing so, the college would have spent around £120,000 on an old process that it had no choice but to follow, dominated by lawyers, and poorly designed to resolve sensitive issues of racial justice and contested heritage. The Church must develop something better than this .”
Allen said, during the process, that she felt that the Rosstat memorial was given more weight than the 150,000 Africans who helped convert them into slavery. “After considering the judgment, I believe this process is unable to account for the lived experience of people of color in Britain today.”
She compared the row in the state of Rosstat to the opposition to the admission of female students to the university. “Only two generations ago, female students were accepted for the first time,” she said. Opponents cited 483 years of male-only arrival among other harsh criticism. Their arguments proved untenable. Buildings were reoriented and new arrangements and traditions created. As a result, the college is more academically fair and exciting today.”
She added, “I am proud to be the master of an institution like Jesus College. The quiet deliberations and conversations initiated by colleagues in May 2019 did not stray from difficult topics or this course of action. It’s part of our walk towards justice. It is important to Jesus College, and it should matter to the Church of England.”
Several prominent figures in the Church of England, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have expressed their support for Allen and the relocation of the memorial.
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