Slavery made their ancestors wealthy. Now they’re making amends.

When Arley Gill, head of Grenada’s National Reparations Committee, envisioned his work seeking repair for centuries of enslavement on the Caribbean island, one thing was certain: It was going to be a long slog.

But just two years since its founding, the task force is fielding calls from individuals around the world looking to make amends for ancestors who benefited from enslavement in Grenada. 

“If you had told us this would be happening, we wouldn’t have believed you,” Mr. Gill says, crediting a burgeoning movement of descendants of enslavers getting wise to their family’s history and taking action. 

In Grenada’s case, the momentum began with a public apology made by former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan and her family in February at a ceremony on the island. They apologized for their forebears’ enslavement of people in Grenada and their enrichment from it, pledging an initial contribution of £100,000 ($130,000) toward education on the island.

“She opened the doors for people to feel comfortable” coming forward, says Mr. Gill.

In April, Ms. Trevelyan and journalist Alex Renton co-founded an organization called Heirs of Slavery. Its eight British members have ancestors who benefited financially from slavery in various ways: managing sugar estates in Jamaica, Barbados, or Tobago; receiving compensation from the British government for “lost property” – enslaved people – following abolition; and advocating for the preservation of the institution of slavery to maintain their profits. 

Heirs of Slavery says wealth and privilege trickle down through generations, and that there are possibly millions of Britons whose lives were touched by money generated from enslavement. 

The group aims to amplify the voices of those already calling for reparations, like Caribbean governments. And it supports organizations working to tackle the modern-day consequences of slavery, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, from racism to health care inequities. But it’s also setting an example for others, drafting a road map of reparative justice for enslavement – at the individual level. 

CAROLINE IRBY/COURTESY OF ALEX RENTON

Alex Renton is a descendant of enslaver Sir Adam Fergusson. Mr. Renton co-founded Heirs of Slavery.

There’s no “right” way to go about it, the group says. It can mean apologies, donations, or difficult conversations with relatives. 

“Shining a light is always a good idea,” says Mr. Renton, who published a book in 2021 about his family’s ties to slavery, donating the proceeds to a handful of nongovernmental organizations in the Caribbean and England. “You don’t have to feel guilt about it; you can’t change the past,” he says, paraphrasing Sir Geoff Palmer, a Scottish Jamaican scholar. “But we should feel ashamed that up to this point we’ve done nothing about the consequences” of slavery.

Start anywhere

Most Africans trafficked to the Americas and Caribbean during the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended up in the West Indies. The wealth generated there through unpaid, brutal, forced labor funded much of Europe’s Industrial Revolution and bolstered churches, banks, and educational institutions. When slavery was abolished in British territories in 1833, the government took out a loan to compensate enslavers for their lost “property.” The government only finished paying off that debt in 2015. 

The family of David Lascelles, the 8th Earl of Harewood, for example, received more than £26,000 from the British government after abolition in compensation for nearly 1,300 lives, while “the enslaved people were given nothing,” Mr. Lascelles says. He joined Heirs of Slavery upon its founding, eager to collaborate with peers doing work he’s been focused on for decades.

“People like us have, historically, kept quiet about what our ancestors did. We believe the time has come to face up to what happened, to acknowledge the ongoing repercussions of this human tragedy, and support the existing movements to discuss repair and reconciliation,” reads the group’s webpage.

For Ms. Trevelyan, that meant a very public apology – and resigning from journalism to dedicate herself to activism. It was a slow windup to get here, she says. She first learned about her family’s ties to the slave trade in 2016 when University College London published an online database of compensation.

But it took covering the murder of George Floyd for the BBC and realizing the many legacies of slavery in the United States – like modern-day policing – before she questioned what the effects might look like in the Caribbean, where her family enslaved people.  

COURTESY OF ALEX RENTON

A property inventory of an ancestor of Alex Renton includes enslaved people.

For Mr. Lascelles, a second cousin of King Charles, making repairs included in 2014 handing over digitized copies of slavery-related documents discovered in the basement of the Downton Abbey-esque Harewood House to the National Archives in Barbados, where much of his family’s wealth originated during enslavement. 

“What can we do that is actually useful and wanted – not to solve our own conscience?” he says he asks himself. He and his wife have dedicated two decades to working with communities around Harewood House, where there is a large West Indian population, including investment in the arts and education. 

“When we started, there was no one else doing this. It was a big leap in the dark,” he says of reparative justice. “But we decided, let’s be hated for what we do, rather than for doing nothing.” 

“Listen and learn”

The Caribbean Community, a political and economic bloc, came out with a 10-point plan for reparations in 2014. The groundbreaking document, which calls for a “full formal apology” as its first point, was met broadly by silence in Europe. 

But, apologies by the Dutch prime minister last year and the king this summer, and the burgeoning efforts of Heirs of Slavery.

“We can try to encourage people to do something, to figure out ... where to jump in,” says Mr. Lascelles. “We don’t have the power to change government policy, but we can make a lot of noise.”

COURTESY OF ALEX RENTON

A portrait of enslaver Sir Adam Fergusson.

The group is planning a conference this fall that will bring together families that benefited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade along with representatives from Caribbean governments and Black Europeans advocating for reparations. In the meantime, members are meeting with local advocacy groups to better understand what they want – and how Heirs of Slavery might assist.

At a recent meeting, “there was one man who said he wanted to hear what we had to say, but said he saw us as a distraction. And I understand that,” says Mr. Renton. “Maximum humility is necessary on our part. We are here to listen and learn, not try to take the lead and be the boss.”

Mr. Renton’s family has made donations to youth development and educational organizations, but he doesn’t see it as compensation. “I see this as work of repair. If I sold everything I own, I couldn’t begin to compensate for the lives my ancestors destroyed,” he says. 

One of those organizations is the North Street Educational Development Fund, run by Donald Reynolds in Kingston, Jamaica. “We need more schools, and more children in them,” says Mr. Reynolds, who supports the reparative model of direct donations to NGOs. “We need more hospitals. ... Electricity in rural areas. That is what we need – help develop[ing] our country, not money lining government pockets, or apologies, or chitchat.”

Heirs of Slavery estimates 70 people have contacted it since its April launch, asking for guidance on making repairs.  

And the Caribbean Community’s reparations plan is currently under review, says Mr. Gill in Grenada. He says the work of Heirs of Slavery “is adding a new, important dimension to reparative justice.” 

This story was produced as part of a special Monitor series exploring the reparations debate, in the United States and around the world. Explore more.