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- A wealthy UK family is to pay reparations to Grenada, where their ancestors once owned 1,000 slaves.
- The family is launching a £100,000 ($120,545) fund in Grenada on 27 February.
- The vice-chair of the Grenada National Reparations Commission said, "I am seeing history being made."
A wealthy British family is to publicly apologize to people in Grenada, an island in the Caribbean, where their ancestors had owned more than 1.000 slaves in the 19th century.
The Trevelyan family owned six sugar plantations in Grenada. They plan to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves.
The family met virtually in late January and agreed to write a letter of apology to the people of Grenada, the Guardian reports.
Laura Trevelyan, currently a BBC correspondent in New York, visited Grenada in 2022 to explore her family's colonial past and detailed how she found "instruments of control and torture."
Trevelyan also explained that she visited a local school, where she asked who in the room was a descendant of slaves.
"Every hand shot up. Should my family pay reparations to the people of Grenada because we had owned slaves here? The answer was a resounding 'yes.'"
John Dower, a member of the Trevelyan family, has described the actions of his ancestors as "crimes against humanity, and told The Guardian, "We want to lead by example, in the hope that others will follow."
According to The Guardian, a £100,000 fund ($120,545), donated by the BBC's Trevelyan, will be launched in Grenada on February 27 by her family members and Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission.
—John Dower (@JohnDower) February 4, 2023
Nicole Phillip-Dowe, the vice-chair of the Grenada National Reparations Commission, has celebrated the family's reckoning with their past.
"It's absolutely fascinating that I am seeing history being made. It takes a leap of faith for a family to say, 'my forefathers did something horribly wrong, and I think we should take some responsibility for it," said Phillip-Dowe, per The Guardian.
British families who owned Caribbean plantations were paid substantial compensation by the British government when slavery was formally abolished in 1834.
The Trevelyan family received £26,898 at the time — the equivalent of nearly £3m ($3.6 million), per The Guardian.