These British 'heirs of slavery' are trying to make amends for past wrongs

The more that Laura Trevelyan unpicked her family history, the more disturbing details she found.

"I knew my family in the 19th century was prominent in colonialism and in the empire," the former BBC journalist tells ABC RN's Saturday Extra.

But a few years ago, one of her relatives typed the Trevelyan name into an academic database on the legacies of British slavery.

Trevelyan and her family have since been wrestling with the links between the past and the present, recently apologising and paying reparations to the people of Grenada.

And in April, Trevelyan co-founded Heirs of Slavery, a group of people whose ancestors once profited from British transatlantic slavery and are now hoping to make amends.

British slavery in the Caribbean

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the British took millions of Africans and enslaved them in their Caribbean island colonies.

Unlike American slavery – where the lives of white slave owners and slaves were closely intertwined – British slavery in the Caribbean was run differently.

Trevelyan says "offshore slavery" was common; people like her ancestors were "absentee plantation owners" based in Britain. This means it's not always obvious if a family once had links to slavery.

The Trevelyan family's research uncovered that their ancestors not only profited from slavery itself, but also when slavery came to an end.

To get the Slavery Abolition Act through parliament in 1833, the British government agreed to pay slave owners compensation for their loss of "property".

The Trevelyans were given £26,898 – a huge amount for that era – in compensation.

In total, the British government paid out around £20 million, or 40 per cent of its budget that year, to slave owners. To help cover these massive payments, it took out a loan that wasn't fully repaid until 2015.

"It's really just appalling, and actually very hard to get your head round," Trevelyan says.

A family apology and reparations

After learning her family's history, Trevelyan has made several visits to Grenada, starting with a trip for a documentary project.

"We went around the island and we saw the estates that my ancestors had part-owned … [We saw] the instruments of torture, the neck braces, the whips and the manacles that were used on the enslaved," she says.

"We looked at the slave registers and we saw that more people died than were born on the estates that the Trevelyans had owned – and it was really sobering and appalling."

She also learned about slavery's continued impact.

"The legacy of enslavement today is obesity, hypertension and diabetes because so many people ate [mainly] sugar. That was the diet of the enslaved," she explains.

"[Through] epigenetics, you have these high levels of diabetes and hypertension that are passed down."

In February, Trevelyan and other family members went to Grenada with a much bigger purpose: to apologise and give reparations.

Based on conversations with people in the country, Trevelyan says "an apology is really important … to stand up and be counted, to say, 'It was us, it was our ancestors that owned yours'."

As for reparations, Trevelyan cites the Caribbean Community (or CARICOM) intergovernmental organisation's 10-point reparations plan for European governments, which acted as a "roadmap".

"The Caribbean islands have been thinking about reparations and reparatory justice for a while now," she says.

"[So] we gave money to education schemes in Grenada … £110,000 [$205,000] towards bursaries for students at the University of the West Indies on the Grenada Open Campus and also to rural schoolchildren, to cover the cost of getting to school and school supplies."

Some Grenadians welcomed this, with the country's Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell attending a ceremony with the Trevelyans.

Others were not convinced, including one of Grenada's Rastafarian tribes who protested, as Trevelyan says they "felt that the money wasn't enough, that it wasn't a meaningful gesture".

Heirs of Slavery

In April, Trevelyan co-founded the Heirs of Slavery group to get similar actions at a bigger scale.

Other members include David Lascelles (the Earl of Harewood and second cousin of King Charles), Charles Gladstone (a descendant of the 19th-century Prime Minister William Gladstone) and Alex Renton (a journalist and author).

"The purpose of it is to encourage other people with this history to acknowledge it and for Britain to learn from its past," Trevelyan says.

Members of the group have been calling for King Charles to apologise for the royal family's links to slavery.

"[For example], in the 17th century, the Royal African Company was the vehicle by which the enslaved were shipped from West Africa to the Caribbean," Trevelyan says.

"It was happening in the name of the Duke of York, who became King James II, and the enslaved were branded with DY for the Duke of York."

Last month, King Charles announced he would take part in an independent, multi-year research project on the royal family and slavery.

"[So] by 2026, this will reveal the full extent of the royal family's links to slavery," Trevelyan says.

In a statement, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the king takes the issue "profoundly seriously".

'Not the right way forward'?

Since launching last month, the group has also called on the British government to apologise and give reparations.

But it has not been receptive.

Last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pushed back against pressure from the group and others, saying "trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward and is not something we'll focus our energies on".

"What I think our focus should now be is, of course, understanding our history and all its parts, not running away from it, but right now making sure we have a society that's inclusive and tolerant of people from all backgrounds."

While some in Britain's Labour Party support reparations, it is not party policy.

Opponents have said costs of reparations could spiral in the many billions of pounds and perhaps much more. Some lawmakers in Jamaica, for example, are seeking £7 billion ($13 billion).

Critics also argue that public money could be spent in better ways to achieve racial equality.

"For sure, it's full of potholes," Trevelyan says, but she again points to what CARICOM has proposed for European governments.

"The Caribbean nations have a very clear 10-point plan for reparations, which is their ask of the former colonial powers, based on the fact that there was a system of wealth extraction and the Caribbean was left with nothing – literally nothing," she says.

These countries "are asking for debt forgiveness, and investment in health and education from the former colonial powers".

"[It] would hopefully go some way towards healing in Britain too."