Jamaica’s government is set to demand reparations from the Queen for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.
A petition is being prepared and will be submitted to Her Majesty and the UK government
Jamaica’s Culture Minister, Olivia “Babsy” Grange said she wants to petition Her Majesty for compensation for all the nation’s citizens.
Ms Grange said: “We are especially pleased to announce that we have made further steps in our strides towards seeking reparatory justice for the victims and descendants of the transatlantic slave trade.
She added that Jamaica’s National Council of Reparation had fully backed the petition and it had been agreed that: “The Attorney General’s chambers would need to weigh up the merits of the petition in the eventuality of the government of Jamaica’s involvement in the petition.”
“It would be the responsibility of the Attorney General’s chambers to file the petition on behalf of the people of Jamaica.”
This is not the first time this subject has been raised, as, in 2015, David Cameron visited Jamaica and faced calls to pay billions of pounds in slavery reparations.
A document from the British National Archives stated: “Portugal and Britain were the two most ‘successful’ slave-trading countries.
“They accounted for about 70 percent of all Africans transported to the Americas.
“Britain was the most dominant between 1640 and 1807 when the British slave trade was abolished.”
In total, about 3.1 million people from African were transported to the British colonies in the Americas and Caribbean.
It is estimated that only 2.7 million people survived the dangerous “middle passage” in the confines of slave ships across the ocean.