King Charles could be facing another major turmoil in his rule of monarchy just as preparations are underway for the crucial Caribbean tour in autumn.
Buckingham Palace had announced last week that the monarch and his wife Queen Camilla will be travelling to The Bahamas, Guyana and Antig8ua and Barbuda. The Caribbean have not been too kind for the royals, given the 2022 PR disaster that Prince William and Kate Middleton suffered.
Just as the Firm may have hoped to smooth things out in the region for the royals, the uncomfortable discussion surrounding slavery reparations have emerged once again.
It was revealed that Jamaica’s Culture Minister, Olivia Grange, is leading a delegation to London which will formally lodge a historic slavery reparation with the King. The filing of the petition would be the first time a Commonwealth nation will be pursuing the case formally.
Jamaica, which was a British colony until 1962, was a hub for the transatlantic slave trade with as many as one million Africans transported to the Caribbean island between the 1500s and the 1800s.
The request has been made to the King “in his capacity as head of state of Jamaica and from whom we expect protection”, Grange said, noting that the “historic day” on 6 September1781, when a slave ship departed West Africa for Jamaica with 442 enslaved Africans and 142 were killed.
In recent years, the UK has denied to make any reparations which puts the monarch in a difficult dilemma to make a statement.
A programme has been organised to coincide with the petition filing, which Grange called it a “milestone moment in Jamaica’s history”.
“As members of the Commonwealth, our citizens are exercising their right to petition the King to ask him to refer the issue of slavery reparations to the Privy Council,” she said. “We look forward to a positive programme of engagement around this issue.”
2026-09-05 10:31:00
