A groundbreaking new book examining the British monarchy’s direct involvement in slavery is providing fresh historical evidence that could significantly strengthen the Caribbean’s campaign for reparatory justice from the United Kingdom. The research comes as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) intensifies its push for reparations through an updated regional manifesto.
Historian Brooke Newman, author of The Crown’s Silence, argues that Jamaica’s transformation into the center of Britain’s slave empire was not simply driven by private merchants but was a deliberate policy directed and supported by the British Crown. Drawing on records from the Royal Archives, Newman contends that successive monarchs and senior royals actively financed and profited from the transatlantic slave trade through investments in the Royal African Company.
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According to the research, members of the royal family, including King Charles II, Queen Catherine, James, Duke of York, and the Queen Mother, invested heavily in the Royal African Company, which transported more than 150,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic between 1672 and the early 18th century. The book also argues that customs duties generated primarily from Jamaican sugar eventually accounted for about one-third of the British Crown’s ordinary income, making Caribbean slavery foundational to Britain’s economic rise.
Newman further highlights the injustice of Britain’s abolition settlement. While slavery was abolished in 1833, the British government paid £20 million in compensation to slave owners, while formerly enslaved Africans received no financial compensation, land, or other reparative support. The debt incurred to compensate slaveholders was not fully repaid by British taxpayers until 2015.
The findings arrive as the CARICOM Reparations Commission has unveiled an updated reparations manifesto that strengthens its legal arguments for reparatory justice. The revised plan expands its focus to include monetary compensation, gender-based violence against enslaved women, climate justice, and the principle that crimes against humanity are not subject to statutes of limitations.
Hilary Beckles, chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, said the region has moved beyond establishing the legal case for reparations and is now focused on implementing meaningful reparatory action.
“We believe that the legal case has been made. We are now into phase two — the programme of reparatory action.”
The renewed momentum comes as Jamaica prepares to formally present a reparations petition to King Charles III later this year, ahead of the 2026 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. Caribbean leaders are expected to use the summit to press Britain for formal acknowledgment of its historical role in slavery and concrete commitments toward reparatory justice.
