King Charles has confirmed he will discuss the legacy of slavery at a summit with Commonwealth leaders as he begins his Caribbean tour. The king arrived in the Bahamas on Tuesday to a ceremonial welcome and attended a youth rally at Clifford Park, the site where the country officially gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1973. His arrival comes as a poll suggested strong support among young people and Labour voters in the UK for a dialogue on slavery reparations.
The poll, conducted by More in Common last week and published by the reparatory justice movement Repair Campaign, found that 40% of Britons supported a meeting on reparatory justice, while 19% were undecided. But Repair Campaign elder and former St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Ralph Gonsalves pointed to disaggregated data showing that support was considerably higher among younger people, with 60% of those aged 18-24 and 51% of those aged 25-34 backing a meeting on reparatory justice. The poll also suggested that a majority of all ages who voted Labour (58%) and Liberal Democrat (57%) in the last election favoured a meeting.
The findings come as the UK faces intensifying pressure from Caribbean leaders to apologise for its role in slavery and agree to a structured dialogue on reparations. This should prompt him, like the Dutch prime minister, to give a full formal apology,” Gonsalves told the Guardian. He also urged King Charles to apologise and help establish mechanisms for a dialogue, adding that he was disappointed with the King’s maiden speech in the Bahamas, which he described as “falling far short of what he had said before”.
Charles acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery”, describing it as something “which forever stains our history, when he attended the ceremony marking Barbados’s historic transition to a republic in 2021. A year later he described how he was on a personal journey of discovery and was continuing to “deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact”, in a speech at the opening of a Commonwealth summit hosted by Rwanda. In his speech in the Bahamas on Tuesday, Charles said: “Some of what is best in Bahamian culture today, the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most bright, was born out of darkness.
Charles’s nine-day tour, which includes a solo state visit to Guyana, will culminate in presiding over the Chogm gathering, hosted by Antigua and Barbuda. But a statement from the Bahamas National Reparations Committee said the king’s comments on Tuesday “fall short of what justice requires”. Our culture is a testament to the power of the human spirit, not simply a reaction to the worst examples of it.
His comments fall short of what justice requires – a full and formal apology – and they do not speak to the steps needed to remedy the wrongs committed in the name of the crown he wears.” Dr Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, the committee’s chair, told the Guardian that while she appreciated the king’s attempt to “connect with Bahamian culture” in his speech his words felt “like hollow platitudes”. She added: “I am very proud of my Bahamian people and the beautiful spirit and hospitality that they shared. My critique is not an attempt to rain on their parade.
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