Caribbean nations plan to sue the Windsors directly for slavery reparations

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For years, Caribbean countries have been discussing how to go about the task of seeking reparations. This was never merely an intellectual exercise – there is a wealth of evidence and direct links to the slave trade and the powerful European institutions which still exist today, from banks to companies to the grand aristocratic families to the Windsor clan. The British royal family was intimately involved with the transatlantic slave trade, as were many British institutions. So instead of trying to adjudicate reparations from government to government, Caribbean nations are now going through the legal channels to demand reparations directly from the people who benefited from slavery.

Caribbean nations are to formally demand slavery reparations from the Royal family, The Telegraph can reveal. Lloyds of London and the Church of England are also set to be approached with demands for reparative justice for their role in the slave trade and plantation system. National reparations commissions in the Caribbean want to bypass the British Government and pursue financial payments directly from British institutions with historical links to slavery. It is understood that formal letters are being prepared to put the case for reparations to these institutions by the end of 2023.

The shift in strategy, from pursuing government agreements to seeking institutional reparations, is inspired in part by Laura Trevelyan, the former BBC correspondent, who has given £100,000 to atone for her family’s ancestral slave holdings, illustrating that arrangements can be made below the state level.

Speaking to The Telegraph in Grenada, Arley Gill, a lawyer and chair of the island nation’s Reparations Commission, said: “We are hoping that King Charles will revisit the issue of reparations and make a more profound statement beginning with an apology, and that he would make resources from the Royal family available for reparative justice. He should make some money available. We are not saying that he should starve himself and his family, and we are not asking for trinkets. But we believe we can sit around a table and discuss what can be made available for reparative justice.”

He added that the duty to offer reparations lay “at all levels, banks, churches, insurance companies like Lloyds, and universities and colleges that benefited”.

Research by Desirée Baptiste, the writer and researcher, recently revealed that the King is the direct descendant of Edward Porteous, a merchant who used slave labour on tobacco plantations in Virginia. The Royal family as an institution also played a direct part in founding the slave-trading Royal African Company, from which it earned a return, and the Palace has said it will support further research into the family’s links to the trade.

[From The Telegraph]

It was just last year – just sixteen months ago!! – when Prince William threw a tantrum in Jamaica about how he wasn’t going to apologize for slavery, and instead told an audience “I want to express my profound sorrow, slavery was abhorrent and it should never have happened.” He only said that after the Prime Minister of Jamaica called William and Kate into his office and fired them live on camera. Even back then, there was real anger that no one in the royal family would even apologize for slavery, much less begin the work of reparations. Anyway, I hope all of these Caribbean countries sue the pants off of the Windsors, the banks, the colleges, the museums, all of them.

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King Charles III, Prince William, royals
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