British families have been told to pay slavery reparations in Grenada after ex-BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan pledged to pay £100,000.
Trevelyan promised to hand over the cash to atone for her ancestors' slave profiteering.
She will donate the funds via education projects through a “first-of-its-kind” family charity.
Grenada is now hoping other wealthy Britons follow Trevelyan’s example.
Protesters take to the streets of London to demonstrate for reparations
GETTY
It could enable Caribbean countries to receive reparations which are not forthcoming from recalcitrant Western nations.
The Caribbean Community is looking to pivot to requesting reparations from institutions rather than governments, The Telegraph has revealed.
Trevelyan said: “We hope to set an example. If one family can do it, why can’t all? I hope that we’re a model.”
Arley Gill, a lawyer and chair of the Grenada’s nation’s Reparations Commission, added: “This has opened a pathway for other families, other institutions, to follow.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
British families told to pay slavery reparations as ex-BBC journalist pledges £100k
PA
“Other families linked to Grenada and elsewhere in the Caribbean can get a workable example of what can be done with regard to repairing the harm which was done by slavery.
“The example that the Trevelyan family is setting is not only for what needs to be done, but also how it should be done.”
Trevelyan offered to pay up £100,00 in February 2023 after learning her family owned more than 1,000 enslaved Africans in Grenada.
The family also received compensation worth £3million following abolition.
A general view of the Lloyd's building, home of the world's largest insurance market Lloyd's of London
GETTY
She quit her BBC role in New York to campaign for reparations shortly after.
Caribbean countries hope institutions including the Royal Family, Church of England, and insurance companies like Lloyds of London could follow the Trevelyan principle.
Grenada’s Reparations Commission has been pushing or reparations to be made for slave economy overseen during the period of British rule.
Caribbean countries issued a 10-point plan for reparative justice in 2014.
It set out a string of demands to former colonial nations including Britain and France.
