King Charles III faces ongoing scrutiny over Britain's historical role in slavery as he tours the Caribbean LONDON -- For Britain’s royal family, slavery is the issue that won’t go away. As King Charles III tours the Bahamas, Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda over the next nine days, he will be repeatedly reminded that he is the inheritor of a throne that presided over the enslavement of millions of Africans who were shipped to the Caribbean and North America, where they worked for the profit of their owners and, ultimately, the British Empire. Facing demands that Britain apologize and pay reparations, palace officials say Charles will reiterate previous comments that slavery was an “atrocity that forever stains our history,” while stopping short of an apology.
But the language suggested by the palace won’t silence the monarchy’s critics, said Brooke Newman, the author of “The Crown’s Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas.” “That is hollow,” Newman said, referring to Charles’ expected comments. It doesn’t allow for any kind of conversation with descendants, and it absolutely does not move this issue forward. And so people are frustrated because they’re being essentially told by the government and by the king that this matter is off the table.” In 464 heavily footnoted pages, Newman, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, details the monarchy’s links to slavery from the late 1500s through the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire 26 years later.
British monarchs did more than just preside over an empire where enslaved Africans were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to labor in the sugar, tobacco and cotton fields of the New World, Newman argues in her book. As early as 1563, more than 40 years before England established its first colony in North America, Queen Elizabeth I supported sea captain John Hawkins’ plan to raid Portuguese ports on the coast of West Africa and transport captured Africans to Spanish colonies of the Caribbean. In return for lending Hawkins a Royal Navy warship, the queen received a share of the profits.
Almost 100 years later, King Charles II gave the Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa, later known simply as the Royal African Company, exclusive trading rights to the west African coast. The company quickly expanded from commodities such as gold, hides and ivory into the trade in enslaved Africans. The king and his brother, the Duke of York, who later became King James II, were among the company’s investors.
Pressure for Britain — along with the United States, Portugal, Spain and others who profited from slavery — to pay reparations has increased in recent years as Caribbean and African nations united behind the issue. The United Nations General Assembly in March approved a resolution calling for reparatory justice, including a full apology and compensation both for the period of enslavement and for continuing harms such as reduced economic opportunity, lower income levels and shorter life expectancy for Black people in the Caribbean and the Americas. The U.K. abstained from the vote.
Charles won’t apologize during his Caribbean tour because he speaks on behalf of the elected government, not for himself, said Craig Prescott, an expert on constitutional law and the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London. But Charles must also think about how his comments will be received in the Caribbean and throughout the Commonwealth, which he heads. The Commonwealth is an association of 56 independent nations, many of which are in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean and were once part of the British Empire.
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