King Charles is beginning his nine-day Caribbean tour today, October 27, but not everyone is interested in another round of royal ceremonies, schoolchildren waving flags and speeches about Commonwealth friendship.

Caribbean leaders and campaigners want something considerably more meaningful: a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and a serious discussion about reparations.

Unfortunately, the British government has already ruled out both a formal apology and financial compensation. Charles is expected to acknowledge the horrors of slavery, but he will not be offering the apology many Caribbean nations have been requesting for years.

Charles will begin his tour with solo visits to the Bahamas and Guyana before Queen Camilla joins him in Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has made it clear that recognising slavery as an atrocity is no longer enough.

Guyana’s President Wants King Charles to Apologise

In reporting published on October 26, the Associated Press examined growing demands for reparations and the increasingly complicated relationship between Caribbean nations and the British monarchy. President Ali has called for Britain to move beyond expressions of regret towards a formal apology and reparatory justice.

Meanwhile, campaigners in the Bahamas are questioning why their country continues to recognise the British monarch as its head of state. As the Associated Press reported:

“The royals are coming, and the Caribbean wants to be heard.”

The report details calls for slavery reparations, a formal apology and greater independence from the former colonial power. The Bahamas National Reparations Committee has criticised plans to have children welcome a monarch whose institution has historical ties to the exploitation of their ancestors.

Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, who chairs the committee, has also questioned what the monarchy continues to represent to the Bahamian people. The debate is particularly relevant because the Bahamas, unlike Guyana, still recognises Charles as its head of state. Guyana became a republic in 1970, seven years after gaining independence from Britain.

Britain Had Money to Compensate Slave Owners, but Not the Enslaved

One of the most extraordinary aspects of Britain’s history of slavery is what happened after the government finally abolished slavery across most of its colonies.

Under the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, the British government allocated £20 million to compensate slave owners. Not the people who had been enslaved. The slave owners.

The British state recognised that wealthy individuals and institutions would suffer financial losses when they could no longer legally claim ownership of human beings. So the government arranged compensation for those losses.

The formerly enslaved received no comparable financial settlement for generations of forced labour, violence and exploitation. And today, nearly two centuries later, the British government maintains that financial reparations are not an option. That is a profound historical injustice in action, one that continues to be perpetuated by the British monarchy’s refusal to support reparations.

Britain found the money to compensate those who profited from slavery, yet its government continues to dismiss financial reparations for the descendants of enslaved people as politically and financially unfeasible.

Of course, developing a modern reparations programme would involve complicated questions about responsibility, eligibility and what meaningful compensation should look like. But those difficulties do not explain why Britain refuses to engage seriously with financial reparations.

The Caribbean is not asking Britain to pretend that slavery happened yesterday. Caribbean leaders are asking Britain to acknowledge that the wealth it extracted through slavery and colonialism created lasting consequences that continue to affect their communities today.

The Royal Family Was Not an Innocent Bystander

There is also a tendency to discuss Britain’s involvement in slavery as though the monarchy was merely a distant observer. Historical records tell a different story. Members of the royal family helped support and finance the expansion of the English slave trade.

King Charles II granted a charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa in 1663. Its successor, the Royal African Company, received a royal charter in 1672 and became one of the major institutions involved in trafficking enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

Charles II and his brother James, the Duke of York, had direct connections to these enterprises. The monarchy’s historical involvement is not simply a matter of association with a country that participated in slavery. Members of the royal family were directly connected to organisations that profited from the trafficking of human beings.

Charles III has acknowledged the importance of examining this history, and Buckingham Palace supported research into the monarchy’s connections to slavery. That is not enough. Acknowledgement and historical investigation should lead somewhere.

There is only so much value in repeatedly describing slavery as one of history’s darkest chapters without addressing the demands of communities whose ancestors suffered under that system and whose descendants continue to live with the consequences of that profound historical injustice.

King Charles Cannot Apologise Because the Government Says No

Buckingham Palace maintains that a formal apology and reparations are matters for the British government. Constitutionally, Charles cannot independently commit public funds to compensation. But constitutional constraints do not absolve the monarchy of its historical responsibilities.

For decades, Charles championed environmental protection, lobbied ministers and used his influence to advance causes he believed in. Although becoming King brought stricter expectations of political neutrality, his position still carries considerable influence.

Why, then, should reparatory justice be any different?

Nobody expects Charles to personally negotiate a compensation settlement. But he could encourage meaningful dialogue about reparations, support greater transparency about the monarchy’s historical involvement in slavery and advocate for confronting its lasting consequences within his constitutional limits.

The monarchy had direct connections to institutions that profited from slavery. The British state later compensated slave owners but offered nothing comparable to the people it had enslaved. The monarchy cannot simply dismiss its historical responsibilities by treating reparations as government business.

Charles has spent decades demonstrating his commitment to causes he considers important. The question now is whether that commitment to meaningful change extends to reparatory justice, or whether Caribbean nations must settle for another carefully worded expression of regret.

Discover more from Feminegra

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.