King Charles Opens Caribbean Tour, Acknowledging Slavery's Shadow
Seven Lights
King Charles arrived in the Bahamas on Tuesday to begin a nine-day tour of the Caribbean during which he will confront demands for a royal apology and reparations for slavery, and will address a Commonwealth summit that has placed the legacy of the slave trade formally on its agenda.
The 77-year-old king, who is undergoing cancer treatment, was greeted in Nassau by Governor-General Dame Cynthia Pratt and Prime Minister Philip Davis. He then attended a youth rally at Clifford Park, the site he last visited as Prince of Wales in 1973, when he marked the Bahamas’ independence after some 300 years of British rule.
Charles said at the rally that some of what is best in Bahamian culture today — “the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most bright” — had been born out of the islands’ painful past, in remarks reported by the Guardian and France 24. “It is only right that we should acknowledge the great suffering and injustices of the past in these islands and beyond, even as we rejoice,” he said. He has previously called slavery an “appalling atrocity.”
Protesters lined a road near Clifford Park demanding reparations, with one woman crying “Pay us what you owe us!” Members of the Rastafarian community took part in the demonstration. Support for confronting the question runs high among younger Bahamians, with 60 percent of those aged 18 to 24 backing a meeting on reparatory justice in one poll.
Buckingham Palace has declined to commit to an apology, and the British government has balked at financial compensation. Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said ahead of the heads of government meeting, scheduled from November 1 to 4 in Antigua and Barbuda, that reparations would be on the table and that it “wouldn’t hurt” for the king to apologize. Jamaica filed a petition in a London appeals court last month to advance its own push for reparations.
Charles will make solo visits to the Bahamas and Guyana before Queen Camilla joins him for the final leg. Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, said the king’s recognition of slavery’s “darkest days” was a step, while noting his government expects more. The tour closes with the summit, where the king has confirmed he will discuss slavery’s legacy with Commonwealth leaders.