Prince William’s trip to the Caribbean may not have been the triumph he and his team hoped it would be. But the one good thing to come out of it is reigniting the conversation around the payment of reparations.
When slavery was abolished in 1833, Britain paid £20million, equal to 40% of its annual income, in compensation. (They don’t teach you this in secondary school history.)
However, the money, worth about £17billion today, didn’t go to the victims of slavery. Instead it was paid to the powerful and rich slave owners who made their astronomical wealth off the back of this evil trade.
