“We don’t ask for trinkets”: they demanded compensation for slavery from the British King Charles III

Caribbean countries are preparing official letters demanding that the British royal family apologize and make reparations for slavery, writes The Guardian.

National reparations commissions in the region will also call on Lloyd’s of London and the Church of England to demand financial payments and restorative justice for their historical role in the slave trade.

The commissions plan to send letters to institutions by the end of the year, The Telegraph reports.

Speaking to a newspaper in Grenada, Arlie Gill, a lawyer and chairman of the island nation’s reparations commission, said: “We hope that King Charles will return to the issue of reparations and make a deeper statement, starting with an apology, and that he will provide Royal family resources for restorative justice. He should allocate some money. We are not saying that he should starve himself and his family, and we are not asking for trinkets. But we believe we can come to the table and discuss what can be done for restorative justice.”

Arlie Gill added that the responsibility to provide redress lies “at all levels: banks, churches, insurance companies such as Lloyd’s, and the universities and colleges that benefited.”

Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that the direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia.

Research by playwright Desiree Baptiste uncovered a document instructing the ship’s captain to deliver enslaved Africans to Edward Porteous, owner of a Virginia tobacco plantation, and two other men. Porteous’s son, Robert, inherited his father’s estate before moving his family to England in 1720. Later, a direct descendant, Frances Smith, married the aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon. Their granddaughter was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother.

The Guardian also discovered documents linking slave trader Edward Colston to the British monarchy.

In response to The Guardian’s report, King Charles III announced for the first time his support for research into the links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said at the time that the king took the issue of slavery “deeply seriously,” which he described as a “horrific atrocity.”

Support for the research was part of Charles III’s process to deepen his understanding of the “long-term impact of slavery”, which has been “continued with vigor and determination” since his accession to the throne, the spokeswoman said.

However, the monarch has not yet made an official apology for Britain’s active participation in the slave trade, writes The Guardian.

An estimated 3.2 million enslaved Africans were transported around the world by the vast British shipping industry between 1640 and the early 19th century.

Lloyd’s of London, which has been the industry’s global insurance hub, said it “deeply regrets” its involvement in the deal.

“This is part of our shared history that has caused enormous suffering and continues to negatively impact Black and ethnically diverse communities today,” the company said on its website.

Leading figures in the Church of England also owned enslaved people, and it has previously admitted that the predecessor of its modern investment fund, Queen Anne’s Bounty, invested significant sums in the South Sea slave trading company in the 18th century.

“There is no doubt that those who made the investment knew that the South Sea Company was trading in enslaved people and this is now a source of real shame for us, for which we apologise,” said Gareth Mostyn, chief executive of the Church Commissioners. , in a BBC radio commentary earlier this year.

Adrian Odle, a lawyer and chairman of the commission, told The Telegraph that British institutions are compromised by the guilt of their ancestors, saying that “every property the royal family owns smacks of slavery.”

He will insist on bypassing the UK government, which has so far been reticent to the idea of ​​reparations, with official letters to be prepared and delivered by December.