Calls for King Charles to formally apologise for slavery after research shows crown’s role

Chris Osuh, The Guardian

Book The Crown’s Silence details how crown profited from and protected trade in enslaved African people for centuries

MPs, experts and campaigners have called on King Charles to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery, after research highlighted how the British crown and Royal Navy extended and protected the trade in enslaved African people for hundreds of years.

The king has previously expressed “personal sorrow” at the suffering caused by slavery and has spoken of committing to “finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure”. However, the British crown has never issued a formal apology.

The Crown’s Silence, a book published this week, details how monarchs from Queen Elizabeth I to George IV used the trade in enslaved people to boost crown revenues and defend the British empire.

It is believed that by 1807 the British crown was the largest buyer of enslaved people.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour Clapham and Brixton Hill MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, said “personal sorrow” did “not befit one of the single greatest crimes against humanity”.

“This isn’t about individuals but the monarchy as an institution,” she added. “What is needed is not simply an apology on behalf of the crown, but acknowledgment of this history and action to address its lasting legacy of global racism and inequality.

“An apology could be a basis for the honest conversation and transformation we need to have as a country around this issue in a swiftly changing world.”

The Runnymede Trust, which in September published Reparations, a report offering a blueprint for reparative justice, said King Charles offering an apology would be “a welcome, symbolic first step”, but must be supported by action.

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Read about enslavement across the pond in the US.

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