As King Charles marks one year of his reign, the grave sins of the past seem to be catching up to the monarch.
As the debate over slave trade begins to take space, Charles is likely to get under pressure to issue an apology and make reparations on the matter by the Caribbean nations.
National reparations commissions in the region are drafting formal letters, which are to be sent out at the end of this year, addressed to the British royal family, and will also approach the Lloyd’s of London and the Church of England, via News.com.au.
Arley Gill, a lawyer and chair of the reparations commission, said in Grenada, that they are “hoping that King Charles will revisit the issue of reparations and make a more profound statement beginning with an apology.”
Gill added that they expect that Charles 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,” Gill stated.
In April, The Guardian published a report which revealed that "direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia."
In the document, historian Brooke Newman showed that in 1689 King William III had been given 1,000 pounds of shares in the Royal African Company (RAC) which was involved in the transportation of thousands of slaves from Africa to the Americas.
Previously, Charles had supported the research into the British monarchy’s historical links with transatlantic slavery after he dubbed it as “appalling atrocity.”