The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been accused of benefiting from the “blood, tears and sweat” of slaves as they arrived in Jamaica and were met by protests calling for reparations from the British monarchy.
There have been calls from Jamaican politicians in recent years for the country to drop the Queen as head of state and become a republic, and for a formal acknowledgment of slavery.
Earlier in the tour, the couple’s first engagement on the Caribbean island of Belize was pulled at the last minute after local residents protested about the royal family’s colonial ties.
Why are people in Jamaica protesting the royal visit?
At least 350 people gathered outside the British High Commission in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, on Tuesday to protest the couples’ visit, holding placards with messages such as: “reparations now” and “apologise”. One little girl held a sign reading: “Kings, Queens and Princesses and Princes belong in fairytales not in Jamaica!”
The protest was organised by the Advocates Network coalition of Jamaican politicians, business leaders, doctors and musicians. They also wrote an open letter detailing 60 reasons why the monarchy should compensate Jamaica, to mark the country’s 60th anniversary of independence.
“During her 70 years on the throne, your grandmother has done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and/or during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonization,” the Advocates Network wrote.
Opal Adisa helped to organise the protests, and called for the UK monarchy to pay reparations for slavery and apologise for human rights abuses.
Ms Adisa said: “Kate and William are beneficiaries, so they are, in fact, complicit because they are positioned to benefit specifically from our ancestors, and we’re not benefitting from our ancestors.
“The luxury and the lifestyle that they have had and that they continue to have, traipsing all over the world for free with no expense, that is a result of my great, great grandmother and grandfather, their blood and tears and sweat.”
She joined calls for an apology, and said the monarchy should provide “economic social reparation”, such as “building us proper hospitals, providing and making sure that our children are educated through college level, and making sure land is equally distributed”.
She added: “You know, we don’t have anything personally against Kate and Prince William, and even the Queen, for that matter, but we’re simply saying you’ve done wrong, and it is way past time that you admit that you’ve done wrong and when you do, redressing it.”
Royal sources say Prince William and Kate are acutely aware of the debate raging in Jamaica about the dark chapter of Britain’s history, and William was expected to condemn the abhorrence of slavery in a speech on Wednesday.
Why are the protests happening now?
Anti-colonial sentiment has long brewed in the Caribbean, but it has recently gained momentum amid worldwide Black Lives Matter protests against racism, and calls for Britain to atone for the legacy of colonialism.
While a decade ago, polls in Jamaica suggested 60 per cent support for the Queen, polls now suggest 55 per cent want to sever ties with her and for the country to become a republic.
In November, Barbados celebrated 55 years of independence by becoming the first Commonwealth realm in three decades to declare itself a republic — the culmination of a debate dating to the 1970s, when several Caribbean nations drew inspiration from the Black Power movement and abolished the monarchy.
Relations between Britain and Jamaica further soured after the revelations of the Windrush scandal in 2018, which saw Caribbean people who had long lived in Britain legally denied jobs, housing or medical care, with some deported because they didn’t have the required paperwork. Britain has since apologised and pledged compensation.
Will Jamaica remove the Queen as head of state?
Jamaica has already started the process of removing the Queen as head of state and will continue to work on this once the royal visit is over, according to reports.
A senior figure within the Jamaican government has been appointed with the primary aim of seeing the nation transition to republic status, sources told The Independent.
It is understood that Jamaica’s uncoupling from the UK has been discussed at the “highest levels” in government and will begin in earnest once Kate and William leave.
“The government has had to start the process; the road to becoming a republic is not an easy one but they have long been coming under significant pressure to do it,” another political source told The Independent.
This transition has been in the works for a while. Back in 2003, Prime Minister at the time P. J. Patterson called for Jamaica to abolish the monarchy by 2007.
In 2012, then Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller expressed her intention to make Jamaica a republic to coincide with the country’s 50th anniversary of independence that year, but did not follow through with the proposed change which would require the support of two-thirds of both houses in Parliament.
What is the historic relationship between Britain and Jamaica?
Britain seized Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655 and started a plantation economy based on sugar and cocoa – farms on which slaves from West Africa were forced to work.
The British empire controlled Jamaica for more than 300 years and forced hundreds of thousands of African slaves to toil the island under brutal conditions. The death rate on slave plantations was high, a result of overwork, poor nutrition and work conditions, brutality and disease.
By 1800, there were over 300,000 slaves in Jamaica. There were numerous bloody slave revolts on the island which were brutally crushed, resulting in the deaths of countless slaves.
Even after the formal ending of slavery in Jamaica in 1834, the Caribbean island was not totally free. The Slavery Abolition Act stipulated that all slaves above the age of six on the date abolition took effect, were bound (indentured) in service to their former owners under what was called the “Apprenticeship System”. On top of this, former enslaved people received no compensation and had limited representation in the legislatures.
Jamaica gained independence from Britain on 6 August 1962 but the Queen remained Head of State.
