King Charles has confirmed he will discuss the legacy of slavery at a summit with Commonwealth leaders as he begins his Caribbean tour.
The king arrived in the Bahamas on Tuesday to a ceremonial welcome and attended a youth rally at Clifford Park, the site where the country officially gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1973.
His arrival comes as a poll suggested strong support among young people and Labour voters in the UK for a dialogue on slavery reparations.
The poll, conducted by More in Common last week and published by the reparatory justice movement Repair Campaign, found that 40% of Britons supported a meeting on reparatory justice, while 19% were undecided.
But Repair Campaign elder and former St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Ralph Gonsalves pointed to disaggregated data showing that support was considerably higher among younger people, with 60% of those aged 18-24 and 51% of those aged 25-34 backing a meeting on reparatory justice.
The poll also suggested that a majority of all ages who voted Labour (58%) and Liberal Democrat (57%) in the last election favoured a meeting.
The findings come as the UK faces intensifying pressure from Caribbean leaders to apologise for its role in slavery and agree to a structured dialogue on reparations.
“The bulk of the young people under the age of 35 are saying we have to have that conversation. This should prompt him, like the Dutch prime minister, to give a full formal apology,” Gonsalves told the Guardian.
He also urged King Charles to apologise and help establish mechanisms for a dialogue, adding that he was disappointed with the King’s maiden speech in the Bahamas, which he described as “falling far short of what he had said before”.
Charles acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery”, describing it as something “which forever stains our history, when he attended the ceremony marking Barbados’s historic transition to a republic in 2021.
A year later he described how he was on a personal journey of discovery and was continuing to “deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact”, in a speech at the opening of a Commonwealth summit hosted by Rwanda.
In his speech in the Bahamas on Tuesday, Charles said: “Some of what is best in Bahamian culture today, the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most bright, was born out of darkness.
“It is only right that we should acknowledge the great suffering of the past in these islands and beyond, even as we rejoice in the successes of the present and build new opportunities for the future.”
He said the leaders at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) would discuss matters relating to the legacy of slavery next week in Antigua.
Charles’s nine-day tour, which includes a solo state visit to Guyana, will culminate in presiding over the Chogm gathering, hosted by Antigua and Barbuda.
But a statement from the Bahamas National Reparations Committee said the king’s comments on Tuesday “fall short of what justice requires”.
“Our culture is not born out of darkness; our culture was born out of agency and out of the will to survive despite the horrors, trauma and degradation. Our culture is a testament to the power of the human spirit, not simply a reaction to the worst examples of it.
“We therefore do not need King Charles to tell us how outstanding our culture is … We need him to speak about his role in the darkness and how he plans to atone for it actively.
“The royal family and the British government were responsible for the darkness. His comments fall short of what justice requires – a full and formal apology – and they do not speak to the steps needed to remedy the wrongs committed in the name of the crown he wears.”
Dr Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, the committee’s chair, told the Guardian that while she appreciated the king’s attempt to “connect with Bahamian culture” in his speech his words felt “like hollow platitudes”.
She added: “I am very proud of my Bahamian people and the beautiful spirit and hospitality that they shared. My critique is not an attempt to rain on their parade. It is because of this pride that I feel we deserve so much more than what was offered.”
The chair of the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission, Prof Hilary Beckles, said what the Caribbean was looking for was “proprietary justice, beginning with remorse”.
Beckles added that when speaking to Caribbean young people the king should “dig deep within his consciousness” and give to them “the empowerment that he would give to his own children” to survive in a rapidly changing world. Anything short of that would be to condone and minimise the legacy of harm and suffering that continues today, he said.
Charles is to travel to Guyana on Thursday where the president, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, recently called for the monarch to take the next step and offer to apologise.
The king follows the guidance of his ministers, and it is understood the government has not advised him to offer an apology or reparations, in keeping with established policy.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, and the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, will join Charles in Antigua for the gathering of Commonwealth leaders.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “At the request of host governments, the king’s programme will primarily focus on shining a light on the many modern partnerships and opportunities for the future that are having a transformative effect on the region, as it confronts the challenges of today.
“For his majesty, this tour is both a new journey but also the continuance of a lifelong one, in which he has sought to engage, understand and educate about the most shameful aspects of our past. This will therefore also be reflected in differing ways and words during the tour, as you would expect.”
Announcing the poll results, Repair Campaign founder Denis O’Brien called for a “time-lined commitment to holding talks with Caribbean states”.
“To date, there have been too many unsubstantiated expressions of regret and sorrow about Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, coupled with empty promises – including at the last Chogm in Samoa – that some sort of dialogue would begin,” he said.
Additional reporting by Press Association
