Barbados: Who Should Pay?
Anglican charity offers £7m in slavery reparations to Barbados
Having once been the first British slave society in the Caribbean, Barbados declared independence from the Commonwealth in 2021. Newly independent, the world's youngest republic is calling on powerful British institutions to give reparations for Britain's involvement in the island's bloody past.
75-year old Anthony Carter grew up on Barbados when it was still a British colony. He believes that the British royal family have not done enough to apologise for slavery. "We don't have hatred. We just want wrong things to be righted" he says. But reparations do not just mean a cash handout, as Akeem Chandler Prescod argues: "it is so much more than money, and it's about enfranchisement economically. It's about building out the healthcare system. It's about education." Barbadians' appeals for reparations are being heard by some institutions, including Codrington College, a slave-owning Anglican seminary established on the island during colonial times. Last year, the church apologised, and promised a $190m fund to invest in communities affected by slavery. David Comissiong of the National Reparations Task Force says this is just the beginning: "You have important British companies and institutions like the Bank of England saying, yes, we were involved, and we apologise. Lloyds of London. The pressure is building on the British government."
FULL SYNOPSIS