The United Kingdom Government should apologise to the Caribbean countries for their past slavery and pay compensation, as the members of the Labour Party in Parliament have claimed. Mr Clive Lewis has put the issue on the table when Rishi Suna has asked the prime minister to start negotiations in the countries where British slavery has been established.

The lawsuit comes when the issue of slavery is boiling: in February 2023 two former members of the former slave family Trevelyan apologize to the Caribbean island of Grenada and donate £100,000 to the University of the West Indies, a university funded by fifteen Antilles governments.

The one who takes this step, Laura Trevelyan, a BBC journalist in New York, receives in a documentary his visit to Grenada. He knew he was a descendant of the slaves: in 2013 the UK Government made public the data of those who received damages for their “losses” when slavery was banned. I mean, people could find out whether or not their ancestors had enslaved people. In the case of the Trevelyan family, he paid 34,000 pounds, three million more today. He raised awareness of the murder of Geogre Floyd, an African-American who decided to undertake, he explains.

The appearance of the Trevelyan family on 27 February in the UK has been famous and has served to shed light on the subject. But it is only a gesture of an aristocrat family. The efforts made by the Caribbean countries for their reparation go further: the Reparation Commission created in 2021 in the Gremada itself. “I think we have to demand that the descendants of those who became enrich from slavery recognize the harm done to enslaved Africans and their descendants,” said Commission President Arley Gill.

They have called on the UK Government to apologize, including to the house of kings. “The family of kings played a very important role in selling slaves and slavery in general. They have to take responsibility,” Gill said. And, indeed, this demand is not new, as members of this family have found protests on various visits to Caribbean countries, demanding that they accept their role in slavery and guarantee their reparations.

Slave taxes until 2015

Gill’s claims for reparation aim to assert the dignity of his ancestors. But the roots of slavery go further, although it's an issue abolished almost 200 years ago. “If someone has any blank privilege, that’s me, descendant of the Caribbean slaveholders. My social and professional situation, 200 years after abolishing slavery, has to be linked to the situation of my ancestors, who used the money they earned to add wealth and climb the social ladder,” explained Laura Trevelyan.

Trevelyan’s reading is not wrong, as although slavery was abolished in 1833, the United Kingdom has been rising and falling with its losses until 2015. “William Gladstone was the slave father of the victimizing prime minister and a distant relative of David Cameron. It’s no coincidence that the richest British families are exslavery,” adds Trevelyan. When it was abolished, the government pledged to compensate the slaves with over 46,000 requests. The government spent 20 million pounds on these families, 40 percent of the total government spending at the time.

This spending was so big for the government that the British have continued to pay for almost 200 years. Bristol Post announced that on 1 February 2015 the debt payment ended at that time. “This means that anyone who has paid any tax before February 1, 2015 has paid the debt of millions of pounds paid to British slaves in 1833,” reporter Tristan Cork summarized.