King Charles Opens Caribbean Tour as Reparations Calls Grow

King Charles opened a nine day Caribbean tour in the Bahamas on Tuesday by acknowledging the suffering caused by slavery, and he confirmed that Commonwealth leaders will take up the issue at their summit next week as Caribbean demands for reparations grow louder.

Speaking at the start of the tour, Charles said it was "only right" to acknowledge "the great suffering and injustices of the past in these islands and beyond". He added that some of what was "best" in Bahamian culture today, "the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most bright", was "born out of darkness".

Charles and Queen Camilla visit the Bahamas and Guyana before travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the biennial summit of the 56 nation Commonwealth, most of whose members are former British colonies. The tour runs from October 27 to November 4.

Reparations moves to the summit table

Caribbean governments have pushed for years for a formal reckoning over the transatlantic slave trade, and last month CARICOM, the regional bloc of 23 member and associate states, said it wanted reparations on the summit agenda. "The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice," CARICOM Secretary General Carla Barnett said in a speech last month. "It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom."

At the previous Commonwealth summit in 2022, Charles expressed deep personal sorrow over slavery. Buckingham Palace has indicated that the King would address the issue during this tour but would not offer a formal apology, in line with British government policy, which also rules out financial reparations. A palace spokesperson pointed instead to "the work his majesty himself has done over many years both to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to right inequalities that endure".

Jamaica added a legal track last month, handing the King a petition asking for guidance on Britain's reparations obligations, which he forwarded for consideration. The summit in Antigua and Barbuda will now test how far words of acknowledgment can go when the governments across the table are asking for money, and the government in London has ruled it out in advance.