Belinda’s Petition: A Concise History of Reparations For The Transatlantic Slave Trade
by Raymond A. Winbush
Belinda’s 1782 petition was the earliest attempt by an African in America to seek damages for years of being enslaved in the newly formed United States.
“...The face of your petitioner is now marked with the furrows of time, and her frame feebly bending under the oppression of years, while she, by the laws of the land, is denied the enjoyment of one morsel of that immense wealth, a part whereof hath been accumulated by her own industry, and the whole augmented by her servitude.”
