Sonita Alleyne speaking at the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent | Photo: United Nations
Fotograpiya | via Art Newspaper | ‘The time of appealing for stolen treasure is over’: Cambridge University master tells UN that restitution debate has changed. In 2019, Jesus College announced the UK’s first Benin Bronzes repatriation to Nigeria. Sonita Alleyne became Master.
“The time of Africa bargaining for, begging for and buying back its stolen loot is over,” said Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College at Cambridge University, in a lecture at the UN office in Geneva earlier this week.
Alleyne spoke at the 32nd session of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent yesterday (4 May) about Jesus College’s October 2021 Benin Bronze homecoming.
The college was the first UK university to return Okukor, a Benin bronze cockerel presented by a student’s father in 1905, to Nigeria. The Jesus College Fellows’ decision makes me proud as Master. Alleyne said he was proud of the bronze’s direct repatriation.
Students and a working group researching the college’s history of slavery and colonial cruelty prompted the college to return the cockerel to Nigeria in November 2019. The group decided that “there is no doubt” that British colonial forces seized the bronze straight from the royal court of Benin—later integrated into Nigeria—during a punitive campaign in 1897.
In her speech, Alleyne said, “The tone has shifted… [Africa] expects its cultural property to be returned. “In the last 18 months, UK institutions like Aberdeen University and the Horniman Museum have joined with American institutions and national leadership from France, Belgium, and Germany to return single and whole Benin Bronzes. Real action.”
She claimed restitution was partly due to “the agency, scrutiny and determination that more diverse communities and leadership bring to institutions”. According to a college statement, Alleyne told UN delegates that investigation into the college’s history of slavery and colonial atrocities was ongoing. A report will be released later this year.
The UN Working Group visited Jesus College in January to discuss reparatory justice and African chattel slavery. The panel will make conclusions and recommendations for a report to the 54th UN Human Rights Council session in September.
