Charles III will not apologize for slavery during Caribbean tour — PBS NewsHour
Britain’s King Charles III will speak of slavery as a tragedy that has permanently stained British history during a nine-day tour of the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda, but will not apologize for it. As PBS NewsHour reports, palace representatives said the monarch will acknowledge the scale of past suffering and injustice amid demands for an apology and reparations.
At a youth event in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, Charles III said there is a need to acknowledge the great suffering and injustice of the past. At the same time, critics of the monarchy consider such wording insufficient. Brooke Newman, a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of a book on the British monarchy’s ties to slavery in the Americas, said that acknowledgment without dialogue with descendants of enslaved people does not move the issue forward.
Historical ties of the monarchy
In her book, Newman traces the British Crown’s ties to slavery from the end of the 16th century to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in the British Empire in 1833. According to her, in 1563 Queen Elizabeth I supported navigator John Hawkins’s plan to capture Africans and transport them to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean region. The queen provided him with a warship and received a share of the profits.
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Nearly a century later, Charles II granted the Company of Royal Adventurers of Africa exclusive rights to trade along the West African coast. The company, later known as the Royal African Company, expanded its activities into the trade in enslaved Africans. Its investors included Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, the future King James II.
Demands for reparations
Pressure on the United Kingdom and other states that profited from slavery has increased in recent years due to the shared position of Caribbean and African countries. In March, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling for restorative justice, including full apologies and compensation for the period of slavery and its lasting consequences. The United Kingdom abstained in the vote.
Craig Prescott, a constitutional law specialist at Royal Holloway, University of London, explained that the king speaks on behalf of the elected government in such matters. According to him, British government policy provides for acknowledging slavery as a shameful chapter of history, but not for paying reparations. Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission, called on Charles III to respond to the demands of Caribbean peoples not only as a monarch, but also as a person.
