One of the beneficiaries of colonial looting, the British Museum, was opened on this day in 1759. The museum holds the largest collection of stolen artifacts & treasures from around the world- mainly the former British colonies. For example the sculptures of the Benin Kingdom.

Not sure what plans are considering this pandemic but Nigeria had planned to open a museum in which artifacts from this ancient kingdom will be exhibited. The upsetting part is that these will be shown on loan. Nigeria must loan treasurers stolen from them???

The museum is founded and thrives on theft. Though it opened in 1759 it was actually founded in 1753 after a physician, Hans Sloan, died. He worked in Jamaica and "collected" various animal and plant specimen from the island.

Man, there was a huge trading market going on during Sloan's time. Explorers (read: thieves) went around taking treasures and selling or bartering among themselves. By the time this guy died, he'd had thousands of goods- enough for a museum to open.

A sculpture from Australia. This museum began benefitting from genocide in Australia as early as 1770. Artwork such as this were like trophy items, symbols of conquest and murder. This is what these museums are: symbols of plunder and brutality.

And they have the audacity to talk about loaning things they stole.

Also let's not leave out archives. A lot of information on the so called frontier wars era are locked up in universities that side. To me a repatriation project must also include such material.