“A Reckoning Is Coming”: King Charles Urged To Apologize For Historical Royal Links To Slave Trade
16.04.2023 - 09:39
/ deadline.com
King Charles and the UK government have been urged to make public apologies for historical links to the slave trade.
The call comes from British former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, whose ancestors owned at least a thousand enslaved people on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean.
In February, Trevelyan travelled to the island, where she read out a formal apology on behalf of her family, She also pledged £100,000 ($124,000) towards an educational fund to benefit those islanders descended from those exploited by the slave trade. This weekend, she told The Times newspaper:
“We’ve apologized, why can’t the King? Reckoning is coming.
“It’s important to acknowledge that Britain was a leading slave trader. Britain’s economic prosperity, and particularly the Industrial Revolution, was to some degree built on wealth accumulated through slavery.
“Apology is the first step, which is why it’s so significant that the British government and royal family haven’t apologized. Regret is expressed. I think it’s necessary to go further.”
Earlier this month, The Guardian newspaper published a document showing for the first time the official transfer in 1689 of £1,000 worth of shares in the slave-trading Royal African Company to King William III
Buckingham Palace responded by saying the new King will cooperate with a study of the monarchy’s ancestral links with transatlantic slavery.
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