Have the British ever returned any valuables "obtained" during colonialism?

Factual Questions
61

Yes. I’ve read 1491 and have a certain skepticism about the extent of this. I don’t recall reading, for example, that the Inca Empire or the Aztecs were either already decimated or became decimated after contact. Not to say they did not have epidemics, some serious - but the concept that they killed off 90% of the population (rather than the Spaniards enslaving them to their purposes) seems to be a detail lacking in history. Plus many of the declined civilizations - mound builders of the Mississippi, the cliff dwellers of the southwest - appear to have failed due to climate change a century or two before the arrival of the Europeans.

Similarly, there is nothing mentioned in the records of the Iroquois nations, a widespread organized group, that they were horribly decimated at about the time the white man arrived. The horrid death of 90% of the people during a short time and the disruption implied would certainly be something memorable and mentioned over the next centuries by them. By the time the Europeans were taking over their lands in the 1700’s, they were a well established populous group with decent agricultural cut-and-burn spreads around each village, despite contact for almost 100 years.

More interesting was a discussion I saw about the smallpox epidemic along the northwest coast from Vancouver to Alaska in the late 1800’s. The records seem to indicate the problem was subsistence lifestyles. A small village would become infected all at once, with nobody able to provide food or water to the feverish - so almost all died, probably of ancillary causes like exposure and dehydration aggravated by smallpox fever. In villages where there was someone already immune - a previously exposed villager or a missionary - the death rate was a lot less, sometimes no worse than the 10% mortality rate in European outbreaks. It wasn’t the bad immune systems, it was lack of any immunity to specific diseases and so lack of support structures.

So… the truth lies somewhere in between.

62

On reflection, I suspect the biggest confounding factor here is that it’s easy for me to say that I think the Elgin Marbles should be returned - such a thing has no real impact on me. Sure, I’ve visited the museum and seen them, but returning them would not impact me, personally in any tangible way. If the item being proposed for return was the land upon which my home is built, or something less concrete like the monetary value of profits made by my long dead ancestors by means of slavery or colonialism, it immediately seems less reasonable to me that I should just let go of a thing that seems like it has belonged to me always.

63

Well this thread took a turn.

For the record, I think the Parthenon Marbles (I think the term ‘Elgin’ is out of favour, for obvious reasons) should be returned.

64

There are proposals for a mutually beneficial compromise.

This is from ‘The Parthenon Project’

https://www.parthenonproject.co.uk/

It all seems quite reasonable, but I guess it depends on the internal political dynamics of each country.

Blockquote

FOR THIS DEAL TO BE ACHIEVED, WE BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

The British Museum should continue to have a world-leading collection of ancient Greek artefacts

The British Museum is a “museum of the world” and Ancient Greek artefacts have an important role to play. We propose a cultural partnership that would include rotating exhibits of significant artefacts yet unseen in London. An agreement could be reached whereby a new exhibition would be staged every few months in the gallery where the Parthenon sculptures are currently displayed. These would induce fresh interest each time a new visiting collection is announced. The first could be of Mycenaeans artefacts, the next from Classical Greece, then an exhibition on Philip II and Alexander the Great, another on the Hellenistic world, the next of Greek culture in the east and so on.

The Acropolis Museum becomes the permanent home of the entire reunified collection

A cultural partnership is established between the UK and Greece

Technology must be harnessed for educational purposes

The British Museum Act 1963 should be reviewed

A “joint venture” between the British and Acropolis museums should be established

Blockquote

65

The case of the Benin Bronzes was a clear cut case of plunder following a punitive military raid which was a reprisal.

The Bronzes afterwards ended up in many countries and there is an international initiative to return ownership…and come to an agreement with Nigeria for loaning parts of the collection.

I think the big museums are quite keen in exchanging parts of their collection for special exhibitions with other museums around the world. These can generate great public interest and be real money spinners. It also positively raises the cultural profile of the country from which the objects originated.

However, I guess this favours objects that have some glamour and value as trophies. The paying public might not be so keen on paying to see exhibitions of more mundane objects of cultural significance.

66

There are some examples of the repatriation process in this document that advises museums on how to go about it. Some museums have collections of material donated by military officers and colonial staff and I guess they are keen to develop a well thought out repatriation policy.

It looks like it is down to individual institutions to formulate policy.

67

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver talked about this subject yesterday. Link to YouTube video of the segment.

68

Here is a bit more about the case of the stolen Cambodian statues.

The villains that time was the Cambodia government, when it was under the control of the Khmer Rouge, and an international art dealer, Douglas Latchford, who sold looted statues to major museums.

There are clearly cases where the government of country or some military faction decides to sell the cultural artifacts that fall under its control.

What should be the policy of art institutions in the rest of the world that find they appear on the international art market?

The very existence of art institutions and collections creates a demand that encourages items being moved from their place of origin.

Why, indeed, do these institutions exist in the first place?

Should their collections be sanitised to ensure that the items they contain were all obtained legally or returned to…whoever can make the best claim?

Perhaps technology will come to the rescue. Eventually all objects will be scanned and made available for all the world to see. Just don the latest VR headsets and walk around a virtual museum. Then let the lawyers figure own who owns the intellectual property rights to charge fees and subscriptions…oh wait!

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Deleted - sorry

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Those are pretty different adjectives. “Gruesome” doesn’t really carry any implication of morality or correctness, just grossness. A kidney transplant is “gruesome,” because it involved cutting people open, but most people wouldn’t consider the doctor doing the transplant to be “depraved.” Which is the point Riemann was trying to make. These days, doctors sometimes cut up dead bodies and sew bits of them into living people, in the hopes of giving them longer, healthier lives. The Victorians sometimes cut up dead bodies, and ate bits of them in the hopes of having longer, healthier lives. There’s no apparent moral different between these practices. There’s an enormous practical difference, because one practice actually works, and the other doesn’t, but morally, they’re equivalent acts.

Of course, the Victorians were using stolen mummies, which is morally different than using voluntarily donated organs, but that doesn’t inform the morality of their eventually end use, only how they were obtained.

71

This is just precious! Try to criticize Lincoln and Churchill for their racism - and the argument give is that you should judge them with the prevailing morality during their lifetimes.

Bear in mind that cannibalism was considered depraved in the Victorian era and entire tribes were eliminated based on the slightest hint of cannibalism. But white people’s own cannibalism should NOT be judged by the prevailing morality during their lifetimes. Rather it should be judged by the context of medical advancements in today’s time.

Talk about privilege ! Go ahead circle he wagon

72

I’m sorry, where did I say anything about Lincoln or Churchill?

73

John Oliver’s show last night covered this subject. It’s not just the Brits, the practice of holding on to known stolen artifacts happens in other countries as well. Museums all seem to use the excuse that the countries the artifacts would be returned to are not capable of keeping them safe, even in the face of their own failure to protect their ill gotten acquisitions.

I can’t understand the concern over cultural appropriation while outright cultural misappropriation in the form of outright theft continues.

74

Perhaps it is because the subject is politicised by groups within states that emerged from colonialism. There is always political mileage in blaming the woes of the country on historic injustice and demands for reparation.

There is clearly an ethical and moral case to be made for addressing the looting that went on. This is a subject that should concern the states and institutions that hold collections. They seem to be getting the message that they need to develop appropriate policies. The UK Arts Council document is an indication of this.

But there is wider issue of the international art market tacitly encouraging misappropriation and theft.

It would not represent much progress if art works were returned, only for more to take their place.

Some countries have very loose controls over the export of art works that are important to the heritage of the country. They may have laws in place, but they have to be enforced sufficiently. That was clear from the interview with the dealer from Nepal that export rules are not difficult to avoid.

Shaming international institutions into returning some high profile items is not the whole answer.

Nonetheless, working out what they have in their collections and where it came from should be an important part of their work.

It does make me wonder what should be done with all the Roman artifacts and those of other ancient empires. Modern states often do not match the divisions of the ancient world. They may not even be functioning states.

I am sure the art world is awash with the loot from the war zones of Iraq and Syria.

There is an international resolution signed up to by many states. But that does not cover any work obtained before 1970.

The 1970 Convention states that there should be the establishment of national inventories.

This is a commentary on the progress over the past fifty years.

So where is the UK in this?

Aha! A new Charity Act 2022 is making its way to become law. This provides for a legal way for the UK Charities to return items and removes an important obstacle to restitution in cases where there is strong ethical and moral case.

This was instrumental in the return of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria by the Horniman Museum and other UK institutions.

However, it sounds as such restitution will be exceptional rather than a common occurrence. Items with high cultural value rather than the rather odd collections of stuff that end up in museums.

Progress of a kind, I guess.

75

Terrible pun. I’m telling your mummy.

76

Not terrible, well placed and clear.

Thank you for that thoughtful and educational response @filmstar-en. I hope others read it and look at John Oliver’s piece on the subject.

77

Reading the history of the Kohinoor diamond, it’s a mystery who it should belong to. Perhaps we can trace it back to a particular monarch, but odds are monarchs don’t dig for gems themselves. At a certain point a sale is final.

The issue with Cambodian statues - if I recall an article a while ago, the problem was not that the Cambodian government was selling them off, but that certain members of the egalitarian Khmer Rouge were not above making secret side deals to enrich themselves - so stolen by a member of the government and sold illegally.

78

I just watched it. The Benin bronzes are an excellent type subject. However, one thing confused me- that guys saying he had to go all the way to London to view any of the Bronzes, while the third largest collection is located in several museums in Nigeria (principally the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos).

But the Elgin Marbles are not a good type example. Nor were they stolen as Oliver claims. They were bought. (Okay from the totally corrupt Ottoman Empire, but they were the legal government at the time). He does point out that the British Museum are barred by actual law from returning them. But Oliver goes on to say “Laws can be changed!”- right after talking about Truss and her Tory government, who are about as likely to return them as the GOP is to embrace a Constitutional Amendment protecting a woman’s right to choose. Get real Oliver. Stop blaming the Museum. They can not do anything.

But there is a question- right now the Taliban runs Afghanistan, and they are busily destroying or digging up and selling ancient cultural treasures. Can the Taliban demand all the artifact they stole back? Can the next government? Since the Legal Government of Cambodia was the Khmer Rouge, and they sold off precious artifact- can the current government go “Nope, just kidding! Give them back”.

The Marbles were build by the Nation of Athens, which no longer exists. The current government of Greece has no historical line from the City State- Athens being conquered many times before the current government. Macedonians, Romans, Visogoths, Aragon, Ottoman Empire, etc.

So, just who has the right to ancient treasures?

Many GIs took home looted Nazi Memorabilia. Can the Germans demand it all back?

Yeah. It passed through many hands. Mostly looted, but often given as a gift or sold.

79

Now if you are a politician in the business of creating a national identity you need a history, a story that that tells of an ancient noble people doing great things. Then suggesting there is a direct line from that greatness to your own political party. Historical myths provide contemporary legitimacy to a nation state and present day to rulers.

There have been a lot of nation states that have been created since decolonisation and a demand to forge a distinct national identity around historical relics that may have long been removed by colonisers or simply sold off to collectors. So the Greek state claims the glories Classical Greece. The Egyptian state claims the Pharoes. They want stolen items returned to their own new mueums. Especially if they are glamorous and shiny. There is always scope for negotiation here, museums thrive on temporary exhibitions and bringing together items from different collections. Deals can be done.

Moreover, there is also a political tension within nation states, especially those that have been created by mass immigration. Between the government and indigenous peoples. The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all have increasingly assertive First Nations who are demanding political recognition. Those are mature states that have had a couple of hundred years of constitutional development and that process continues.

But there are many states that are still developing and whose territory may cover areas occupied by ancient kingdoms. Nigeria, for example, is a huge country with several language groups. The Benin Bronzes are from one part. The case for the Benin Bonzes relies on the larger Nigerian state. That relationship is entirely dependent on the internal relations of the country which has seen civil war in the past.

In Iraq and Syria there have been civil wars where one faction decided that the ancient history of the region did not suit their political purposes, so they destroyed it.

This is not new. A huge amount of the greatest treasures of England were destroyed during the Reformation. Lots of vandalism and book burning because of the new fundamentalist Protestant religion and a state trying to eliminate any symbol of devotion to the Pope’s religion rather than the King. So they had to go.

Sometimes cultural objects reinforce and political status and are revered. Sometimes they become associated with the old Regime and are the targets for destruction. A bunch of redcoats making off with them to put in a museum may have saved them albeit for the wrong reasons.

The Acropolis in Athens was used as target practice by the Ottomans, who were not admirers of Greek culture. They could have been destroyed. They were saved because of the reverence for the classics that emerged during the Renaissance in Christian Europe. Why else go to the effort of transporting these old stones? Greek independence from the Ottomans was encouraged by the legacy of Classical Greek education in the rest of Europe and especially England. Byron, the champion of Greek independence, was not happy with Elgin. He even wrote a poem about it. So this is an old argument.

Storing collections in other countries seems to me to be a wise cultural insurance policy if we want to preserve the past in the form of objects that have significant cultural value. They should not remain locked away, but regularly displayed in museums around the world. An international Benin bronze exhibition would certainly raise the cultural profile of Nigeria far more than if they remained permanently in that country. Again political and financial considerations become important. I do wonder what cultural treasures there are in these countries that are not made famous by notorious examples of colonial looting.

80

I bought a car from someone who stole it. The real owner passed away and his children are arguing over which one owns it now so that means the car is mine now forever.