What if Washington wanted one of our islands? Chagos and Emancipation’s unfinished business

As we reflect on August 1, and Emancipation, imagine an island with a church, a cemetery and children running beneath coconut trees. Families have lived there for generations and their dead lie within earshot of the sea. Then, in distant capitals, men unfold a map and decide that the island is strategically indispensable. Its people are told, perhaps not in words, but unmistakably in policy, that their homes obstruct security, their...