of approaches and telephone calls suggesting that the editorial on slavery in Bermuda should be repeated.

As Bermuda moves along in the consideration of race and race relations, it is time to give some consideration to slavery in Bermuda. First of all we doubt that there are more than a very few white people in Bermuda today who do not deeply regret slavery itself and the debilitating legacy slavery has had over the years in Bermuda. There will be a few whites who do not regret slavery just as there are a few unenlightened people in other countries who still believe in the Ku Klux Clan and in Adolph Hitler. And, indeed, just as there are a few black Bermudians who believe that all white people are devils.

Be all that as it may, it is time in Bermuda to apologise to all people, to the rest of the world and to civilisation for ever having been a part of the evil of slavery.

It is not uncommon to hear it said that slavery in Bermuda was not as cruel as some other places, especially those places with large plantations to be worked. That seems to be true, but slavery was slavery no matter how it is excused or explained, the epitomy of man's inhumanity to man. There is and can be no excuse no matter what the origins and no matter what the race of the slaves. It is true Emancipation came in Bermuda some 30 years before it was law in the United States, thanks to its abolition by Britain, but that is cold comfort. The real question is why Britain ever allowed slavery to exist at all.

The sad historical fact is that there were slaves in Bermuda owned largely, although not exclusively, by white people. There are Bermudians today who are descended from those slave owners even though it seems that the majority of today's white Bermudians are not descended from slave owning Bermudians. In that way today's black Bermudians are similar, many of them are not descended from people enslaved in Bermuda although they may well be descended from slaves held in the West Indies and other places.

The truth is that the history of Bermuda cannot be changed. The evil of slavery is part of that history. Just as most of us as individuals regret either incidents or periods in our lives, so there are periods in the history of most countries which right thinking people would like to erase. Sadly that is not possible. Slavery was Bermuda's darkest time, the most damnable, the most obscene. It is a rebuke for yesterday, a sorrow for today and a lesson for tomorrow.