King Charles backs research probing monarchy’s ties to slavery – National | 24CA News
King Charles has given his help to analysis that may study the British monarchy’s hyperlinks to slavery, Buckingham Palace stated on Thursday, after a newspaper report stated a doc confirmed a historic reference to a transatlantic slave dealer.
The Guardian stated an archive doc found by historian Brooke Newman confirmed that in 1689 King William III had been given 1,000 kilos of shares within the Royal African Company (RAC) which was concerned within the transportation of 1000’s of slaves from Africa to the Americas.
The lately found doc was signed by Edward Colston, a slave commerce magnate whose historical past grew to become broadly identified after protesters pulled down a statue to him in Bristol, southwest England, and threw it within the harbour throughout 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
“This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously,” Buckingham Palace stated in a press release.
The problem of the British Empire’s slavery hyperlinks and requires potential reparations from the monarchy has been rising within the Caribbean the place Charles stays head of state of plenty of international locations together with Jamaica and the Bahamas.
Buckingham Palace stated the royal family would assist to help an unbiased analysis challenge trying into any hyperlinks between the monarchy and slavery in the course of the late seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, by permitting entry to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.
The Palace highlighted a speech Charles made to Commonwealth leaders final June, when he stated: “I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.”
That course of had continued with “vigour and determination” since Charles succeeded his mom on the throne final September, it stated.
There had been a protests and requires an apology for slavery when Charles’s eldest and now inheritor Prince William went on tour together with his spouse to the Caribbean in March final 12 months.
“Given the complexities of the issues it is important to explore them as thoroughly as possible,” the Palace assertion stated. “It is expected that the research will conclude in September 2026.”
(Reporting by Michael Holden; enhancing by Barbara Lewis)
