The King, slavery & reparations

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0:49The New Statesman.

0:54Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband have been playing the steel drums. The king has been showing off his dance moves, again. That's right, Britain has sent its delegates to the Caribbean. But rising above the music are the growing calls for Britain to apologise for its role in the slave trade, and to open the conversation on reparations. I'm Olly Dugmore, and today we're bringing you a bonus episode of The Exchange. I'm joined now by Brooke Newman, historian and author of The Crown's Silence, The Hidden History of Slavery, and the British Monarchy.

1:30Brooke Newman, hello. How are you? I'm doing well. Yeah, we're very glad to have you with us. This Sunday, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit will begin in Antigua and Barbuda, and there have been many calls to discuss reparations for slavery, but that is not on the agenda. And I'm quoting here now, my understanding from informed circles is that Britain was vehement not to have that matter on the agenda. The British officials were even raising the prospect that if it is on the agenda, the Prime Minister of Britain wouldn't go. That's from Ralph Gonsalves, a former Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

2:08An FCDO spokesperson has said, we categorically reject that, this completely untrue accusation. As this summit nears at the weekend, just kick us off. What are your thoughts about the conversation that's very much alive, particularly from the Caribbean nations before the summit starts? No, I think that momentum has been building all of 2026. And I'm not surprised there's been a last minute alteration as far as Prime Minister Burnham is concerned. And it's because of the fact that there's so much global, economic, and just political, I think, insecurity in the world. And Britain has a role to play.

2:50I mean, especially in the world that Trump has been forging in the last few years. And so I think that to make sure that these ties with the Commonwealth remain strong, but particularly in the Caribbean and in the realms that still have Charles as head of state, we're really thinking about how can we maintain these relationships. And by saying an apology is off the table, reparations are off the table. What they're really saying is we are not willing to engage you on an issue that is of profound historical and national significance. It's something that your subjects, the key subjects in these realms, are very, very interested in and want to see a response to.

3:33And so I think that the current moment is key for the British government to reconsider this particular stance that they've taken. But I also think it's a moment for the king as well. I mean, he has been in a lot of ways constricted in terms of what he can do because of his constitutional position. And whether it's a Tory government or a Labour government, you know, the British government is opposed to a formal apology, opposed to reparations. But because of that, you know, Charles has not been able to really acknowledge the role that the institution that he is the head of played. And so I think that this is a really important moment in British history and even in sort of global, the global movement for reparations.

4:16And we could see some real changes in the future. But I think people are really very cautiously optimistic right now, especially in the Caribbean. I do want to talk to you about that history and the role that the crown, the royal family perhaps played. Before we do talk about that, just one more question on this current moment, because as you said in your answer there, it's anticipated that Prime Minister Andy Burnham and indeed King Charles will be greeted with protests on Sunday in Antigua and Barbuda. Burnham is reportedly open to an apology. King Charles has spoken of, quote, his personal sorrow, but obviously hasn't apologised.

4:53Prince William actually has used the same word, sorrow, on his own visit to the Caribbean. What does sorrow say? And perhaps most importantly, what doesn't it say? Yes, that's a great way to phrase it. Thoreau is essentially a personal feeling. It's an emotional response to something that is institutional and affected millions of people, and it's insufficient. And so in my book, one of the things that I talk about at the very end in the epilogue is that Prince Albert in 1840, he issued what I call the first royal statement of regret for slavery. This was at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

5:33And he essentially says, you know, I regret that, you know, we haven't been able to fully emancipate everyone who's enslaved. But what he's really saying is he also regrets that the abolition movement that Britain has championed has not as yet resulted in this like worldwide transformation. And people in Britain and in London in this moment were thrilled because this is the first time a member of the royal family, the consort of the sitting monarch, come out and supported anti-slavery in a very vocal way. But he did not apologize. Instead, it was about, again, his personal feelings. And we've seen that repeated by prime ministers as well in the past, including David Cameron.

6:17You know, he's talked about in the past his feelings of regret even during the visit to Jamaica. um charles as heir apparent and as king and ghana rwanda barbados his sorrow his condemnation of slavery the horrors of slavery you know that matters and i don't think that it's something we should minimize it's important that the sitting monarch or someone who's in line to be the next monarch acknowledges this history but at this point that's done they've been acknowledging it They've been expressing sorrow for years. It's now time to move beyond just these personal feelings, because when you do not apologize, you are not admitting any kind of culpability.

7:00You're not engaging in a process of essentially saying, I'm ready for the next step, because sorrow doesn't open any doors. let's rewind the clock your book is called the crown's silence what exactly has been silent and for how long you know why did monarchs like elizabeth i james the first charles the first charles ii why did they actually decide this was something worth investing in you know and what i argue in the book is that this is about geopolitics it's about economics there's also religious aspects in this. But as the book evolves, the end of the book is really about the silences, because one of the things I'm arguing in this book is that for centuries, the British monarchy did not at all hide their support for transatlantic slavery.

7:52They were the heads of very important slave trading companies like the Royal African Company, like the South Sea Company. They were willing to be publicly aligned with the slave trading entities. They are also receiving tax revenue, customs revenue from products like sugar and tobacco that are being produced by enslaved labor. And they are relying on those products to support their ordinary income. They're using the Royal Navy not just to help promote abolition, which is what we mostly hear about in the 19th century, including in Charles's most recent speech that he gave in Antigua. They also were using the Navy to help provide convoy protection of slaving vessels and actually letting the Royal Navy ships transport enslaved people to the Americas.

8:46So there is a lot of involvement for the monarchy for centuries. But by the time we get to the era of abolition in the late 18th and into the 19th centuries, you know, there's been this radical change. The British public, I mean, very much on a grassroots level, is deeply opposed to the transatlantic slave trade. This ends up becoming a mass movement. You have men, women across the country coming together to really say we're done with the transatlantic slave trade. And then decades later, eventually with slavery as well. The monarchy is, you know, unsurprisingly, they're an institution, they're a hereditary institution, they are about privilege, they are as kind of as an institution, deeply conservative in many ways.

9:32And so because of that, they are not at the vanguard of any of this. So, of course, for their own sort of protection, they are going to not discuss all of the centuries of support that came before and financial investment and defense of this large system that they benefited from. Because if they do, it actually weakens the monarchy's ability to be a moral authority. And in the 19th century, under Victorian Albert, they really do try to transform the monarchy into this Christian, humanitarian, liberal monarchy that can both support imperial expansion and everything that comes with that, and championing anti-slavery.

10:16And so it's a really fascinating, I think, 19th century about face that occurs. But one of the things that I argue, and unfortunately, they haven't proved me wrong yet, is that we are still in the era of silences. We are still coping with basically everything that's happened since the 19th century. There has not yet been a real moment of grappling with this history and engaging with it fully. Other than saying, you know, the king, I'm continuing to educate myself. My question is, how long can you educate yourself? I mean, he's like 78 now. I feel like he knows at this point, you know?

10:55Before that about Facebook that you were just mentioning there, by 1807, the crown was the largest buyer of enslaved people. Tell us, how did that happen? Why isn't it better known? And actually, a couple of follow-up questions. I mean, was this connected to Britain's wider wealth derived from slavery, or did the royal family's money kind of stay within the family? The most fascinating thing about the royal connection to slavery over the centuries is how it evolves over time. And it's one of the reasons why I ultimately wrote this book covering multiple centuries. Because when I initially started out researching this topic, I was focusing primarily on the reign of George III, because I was really focused on the 18th century.

11:43But then I started to realize that the story that's the most compelling and least known is that as the constitutional power of the monarchy changes after the 17th century, so, you know, after the Glorious Revolution, when Parliament ends up taking the reins of authority and we start thinking about Britain more in terms of, quote, the state, like how the state is benefiting, there's a sense that, oh, well, of course, the monarchs, they're not really doing that much. They're not really benefiting. They're not as involved as they were during the era of the Stuarts when they were using the royal prerogative and in some ways abusing it to invest in these companies, profit personally from these companies, get gifts of gold, you know, shareholders and stuff like that, like James II did and Charles II were trying to benefit.

12:32But by the time we get to the reign of George III, which begins in 1760, he is thinking about his empire in different ways. Like essentially, how can he use this Atlantic slave empire to his benefit? And one of the ways he can do that is through enslaved men, using them as soldiers, using them in what will ultimately become the West Indian regiments, which is formed in the 1790s, to defend these critical holdings in the Caribbean, places like Jamaica and Barbados, that he is very insistent Britain not lose in the context of even the American Revolution. Like these are the islands that help to power empires because of the wealth that they generate for Britain.

13:18And so he, in the name of the crown, essentially, is willing to send enslaved men into combat because he believes, and we know this from his surviving correspondence, that the white British soldiers that are being sent to places like Jamaica, they're dying from tropical diseases. Like they're really just their immune systems are incapable of coping with this environment, essentially. And so he says, well, why not send the enslaved? And he is very supportive of this. pretty early on in his reign, and it continues for decades. And I found that to be such an interesting part of the story. And I think the reason it's not as well known is because it's not as easy to pin down as saying so-and-so had 3 ,000 pounds worth of shares, which is James II in the Royal Asking Company.

14:07That's just a little bit more like, okay, that's precise. How did George III profit and use benefit from enslaved labor? Well, he is benefiting in terms of customs revenue coming into Britain. He's benefiting in terms of having these holdings that he sees are really significant on his Atlantic empire. And then also he's thinking about how can I use all of these enslaved people as essentially chess pieces in this larger geopolitical game that he's trying to play. And so the evolving relationship between the monarchy and slavery is something that's very important to put in a fuller contextualization because it does change over time.

14:48But what is, I think, the most revealing part of that story in particular is that when they purchased a million pounds worth of enslaved men for the West India regiments, this is happening during the era of abolition, when essentially the time for the British transatlantic slave trade is already kind of on its way. It's winding down. And they're like, let's just make this purchase now. And so they're already thinking about how can we purchase people now and secure the troops that we need for the long run. And so it's a very pragmatic choice that they're making.

15:28Is the crown the same thing as the monarch? Where does personal responsibility end and institutional responsibility begin? That is one of those questions that's almost impossible to answer because they are deeply intertwined. I mean, and especially when we're thinking about slavery, because each successive monarch inherits something from the previous monarch, whether it is financial, whether it's material in terms of palaces, or even just authority and power. And so I don't think you can, you know, you know, basically say, well, only Charles II really benefited or only James II or only the Hanoverian monarchs.

16:13Like this, this is a dynasty that is all about what is inherited by the next generation. I mean, the only reason King Charles is significant in today's world is because of his birth, because of his blood. And so that ties back to all the previous people who came before him and the choices that they made and the wealth and power that they passed down. But I do think, I mean, and this is, I teach British history, you know, one of the things I always tell my students is that, like, what did the Tudor monarchs, for example, inherit from each other? A lot of chaos, impoverished treasuries. I mean, so what they were inheriting initially was not much.

16:54And, Britain was this backwater, basically, in the Tudor era. And they were trying to claw their way out of that complex geopolitical financial hole that they were in. And slavery was just one of the ways to do that. I mean, Elizabeth I, for example, she was investing in all sorts of voyages overseas and projects. James I was to trade. The Guinea Company, which is one of the first companies founded to trade with West Africa, they are trading in products that are already in demand in places like Europe and England, things like dye woods, ivory, spices. They're not necessarily thinking, I need to profit off of human trafficking.

17:41But once that becomes available and they start thinking, okay, here's another way to profit, they just go along with it. And I think that that is critical to understand. And as a historian, that is something that I think is part of the larger story. So I'm not going to say, oh, well, this was some completely unusual thing. But at the same time, we still have to acknowledge they made these choices. And as time passed, and as slavery itself became viewed as more abhorrent, they continue to make those choices. Brooke, we'll have to get you back for the white gold episode where we go deep on the Tudor wool trade.

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19:42Just talking about royal families, you know, including this one, are among those documented as profiting from slavery. Obviously, that line runs through to the present day. I think that's a really interesting point because certainly on the British side of the debate, when people are talking usually about reparations, one of the arguments you very often hear is that it's unfair for modern day people, i.e. the British taxpayer, to compensate another nation state or people because of the activity of the people that came before them. And, you know, to be fair, I have a degree of sympathy with that argument.

20:20You know, some random bloke in Derby or Birmingham that, you know, doesn't have a racist bone in his body. Why should we make his life harder to pay for a wrong of the past? But the thing that really sticks out in that conversation to me is that Britain did actually pay reparations at the time. We compensated the slave owners. And not only did we compensate the slave owners, we compensated them to such an extent that we only finished paying off that debt about 10 years ago. So the idea that this is some far-flung historical fact that has no bearing on the day-to-day doesn't really stand up to me.

20:54And I guess maybe that's the distinction that we might draw. We might say, well, in King Charles's case, he very literally has profited, right? You know, he is, he's a direct descendant. He's not the only one, by the way, we could look at the Drax family, you know, um, people who have stood in parliament, very recently stood in parliament, whose forebears literally wrote the book on transitioning from indentured white labor to enslaved black labor, massive estates in the South of England, you know, still profiting, still inheriting that wealth. So there's not really a question here. I'm just sort of inviting you to tease out that distinction between people who are alive in the modern day versus those who might have inherited and benefited?

21:31How do you think about reparations in that context? Well, one of the things I haven't heard as much when people are talking about this issue is there is almost a distancing that happens where people will say things like, well, we compensated the enslavers. The slaveholders were given money. Well, who were these enslavers? They were Britons. they were everywhere they were a wide spectrum of people and they have descendants and they are among us so it's not as though this was some island separate island where all these enslavers got a bunch of money and just had a big party and you know there's no connection to present-day britain's they actually do and so that is something that you know historians and some of the most recent work that has come out with ucl and the recent slave traders database project you can really drill down to a micro level and see how much was an individual person subscribing in, for example, in the Royal African Company or the South Sea Company or in various plantations in these colonies?

22:37How much are they making? Where's that money going? Is it going into this country estate? Is it going into the Church of England or the Bank of England or, you know, palaces or wealth in art collections, like where did the money go? We can trace a lot of that. So it isn't abstract, right? But I also think that the number one concern among just from what I'm hearing as a, just particularly as an American, from British people is not, we don't think that this isn't something worth discussing, or we don't think we should apologize. It's more about the average taxpayer. That is the real concern. Why should the average taxpayer who is facing a cost of living crisis and all this economic insecurity?

23:23I mean, it's one of the reasons why you've got prime ministers in and out, you know, every year or two. Why should we have to cope with all of this? It's too much. And I think that I can see that side of the argument, of course, because this is the world we live in and everyone is very anxious about their just day to day life, right, financially. But then there's this larger issue about the responsibility of the state and institutions. What do they owe these former colonies that they extracted resources from, extracted wealth from, and essentially destroyed millions of people's lives? They are absolutely owed, I think, justice.

24:07And I don't think that it is something that is completely abstract. I mean, And I do think that the evidence is there. The records have survived. It's those records, which were never meant for us to be having this conversation. Like hundreds of years ago, these people were keeping these records so they could pay out the shareholders. You know, they were not keeping them so you and I could talk about, you know, do we owe money to people who are descendant from those enslaved people? And so as a historian, I find that to be kind of the most exciting part of all of this. We've got this paper trail of complicity.

24:40it leads back to a lot of cheap people, a lot of cheap families and institutions, and it leads to the monarchy itself. And I mean, if anybody has money to do something about this, it is King Charles. And, you know, you may laugh at me like, oh, well, you might think that, you know, you're an American. But also, I mean, we're talking about billions of pounds that the royal family is worth. And so when people say to me, well, why should the average taxpayer pay? I mean, I think there's definitely some investments that need to be made and discussions that need to go forward on behalf of the state.

25:14But I also think that there should be a separate apology from the monarchy and a separate fund set up because the monarchy profited. We know that. We've got the evidence. And it is separate. And the Buddhist taxpayer should not be on the hook for the fact that King Charles and his relatives have inherited all of this wealth connected to slavery. brooke i should clarify i wasn't laughing at you i was i was smiling because when you say something as as patently obvious as as what you did um i just i know that there's a probably a pretty good chunk of the country who would find the ideas that you're putting forward you know in inherently provocative and offensive and it just when when you you're not as well i guess when you don't have the perhaps the british inclination to to doff your cap and bend one knee to the royal family things that seem just incredibly obvious and simple.

26:07That's why I was smiling. Also, though, I think why, to some extent, it is easier to work on a topic like this. I don't revere the monarchy. Obviously, I'm fascinated by the monarchy. I love British history. I love the UK. I've lived in the UK. I've spent years living in the UK. I go there every year. And so I'm not unfamiliar with all of this. But I also think that institutions are never going to be leading the charge towards necessarily doing the right thing. It's always going to be from below. It's about grassroots. It's about the public really caring about this history and asking more from our institutions.

26:47And I think that that's something I like to be part of. Yeah. Distinct lack of reverence for the monarchy on this side of the conversation as well. It has be said. Your book received considerable criticism from conservative publications in the UK. They accused you of imposing today's moral standards on the past. Were you expecting that reaction? And then I'll follow up to that by asking, what does that say about, or does that say anything about Britain as a country? Are we still kind of making unjustifiable excuses and exceptions for the royal family, do you think? Absolutely. I was not surprised by the responses that I received.

27:25And, you know, what's interesting is that the responses were so fascinating. Like in one of the reviews, I think it was in The Telegraph, one star historian, utterly shameful, utterly shameful to even discuss this. And this review came out right around the time that all the Epstein stuff was blowing up. And I thought, you know, is the shame coming from me or is it coming from within Buckingham Palace and within this larger family? I mean, where is the shame? I don't think it's in a historian digging around in the Royal Archives and the National Archives and the South Sea Company records. So I thought that was so revealing about how this topic, just not even reparations, because this book is not really about that.

28:11This book is 99 % just the history. At the very end, I essentially say, wouldn't it be nice if Charles addressed this? I mean, that's it. It's not, this is a historical book. This is not a, you know, I support reparations necessarily kind of book. But the way it was reacted to by members of the far right was this is a threat. This person is attacking our institution and they don't know anything. They don't understand the constitutional history of the monarchy. This or that or whatever. And of course, as an American, I thought, well, it's interesting that you could be so dismissive of your own archival records, the records of slave trading companies.

28:53This book has copious footnotes. This is not just something I made up. And it's also not something that I summarized just from reading other people's research. I spent 10 years in the archives researching this book. The people who reviewed my book and gave me the utterly shameful reviews, they don't even work on slavery. So I can't take their responses seriously because it's not a serious critique. It's a dismissal. And it is basically saying this is part of the culture wars and we're just going to chew this up and spit it out and not take it seriously. The Times Literary Supplement, though, that review was quite good.

29:28And it was by a real historian who does work on India and empire and actually said this is an essential book and will become essential to future conversations. And so I think sometimes you've got to look at who are these reviewers. We are used to anybody who writes a book, you're going to get criticism about your book. There's always going to be something you could have done better or something else you could have talked about. But to dismiss something as this topic in and of itself should not be discussed. That is very telling to me about where Britain is right now. Yeah, I hesitate to make the reference that I'm about to, but it reminds me of a Rick and Morty quote, which is like, your booze mean nothing to me.

30:09I've seen what you people cheer for. And last question to you, Brooke, and then I'll let you get on your way. apparently in response to your book a source told the guardian that the king took the matter quote profoundly seriously what would a credible response from the king look like you know an apology we've spoken about financial maybe opening up the archives something else i know in the broader reparations debate some of the the commonwealth governments have mentioned things like debt relief they've mentioned things about development funding but from the king specifically what does a credible response look like i mean i think i mean because a king a king is different than a state.

30:48And so the king, it doesn't need to be getting involved in debt relief and all the rest of that. I mean, there's so many other things that he could do as an individual to make a difference and to also generate goodwill. And if we look at the example of King William Alexander of the Netherlands, you know, and again, he, somebody might look at him and say, well, he could have done more. But I think that he is someone, a monarch, European monarch, that we can look at and say, you know, he has set a benchmark for what to do. Not only did he create an independent commission to investigate the monarchy's links to colonialism and slavery, he didn't just do it in response to, you know, a guardian investigation or something.

31:30He actually went out and he handpicked top scholars, people who are at the top of their game. Some of them not even retired, and they came out of retirement to be involved in these investigations on behalf of the monarchy. He gave them complete independence to do their work over years. They brought in forensic accountants to look through this material. Then he also issued an official apology and started engaging in conversations and in dialogue about what could redress look like from his own perspective from working with the king. And so when I look at Charles, it's more complicated because the British monarchy was more involved.

32:13They benefited far more extensively from colonialism and slavery than the Dutch monarchy even did. And so it's a larger can of worms to open. But King Charles has, he's got the money to do this. There are so many talented people, he could tap to be part of this, and he could easily set aside a fund to help some of these initiatives that he cares about, like education, healthcare, environmental things to help make climate resilient, especially in some of these Caribbean countries. And so I think there's a lot he could do. And I do think it would go a long way, especially in places where he is still head of state, where they are really deciding, is it worth having a distant head of state if he's not willing to say sorry and to address this?

33:04Brooke Newman, author of The Crown Silence. Thank you so much for your time. Let us know when you're next in London. We'll have to get you in the studio and talk about it more. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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