‘Fills my heart with horror’: King Charles expresses personal sorrow over slavery

St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda: King Charles has expressed his “profound personal sorrow” over slavery but has stopped short of an apology in a major address to Commonwealth leaders, amid calls from some for Britain to pay compensation for the wrongs of the past.

The King told the opening session of the Commonwealth summit in Antigua that slavery was a “monstrous injustice” and he acknowledged its impact on many of the 56 member nations represented at the gathering.

But he also emphasised that British institutions including the Royal Navy had worked to end slavery when it was abolished in the 1800s, in a message about learning from historic evils.

“We cannot change the actions of those who came before us. We can, however, learn from the past,” he said.

“The transatlantic trade in enslaved persons still casts a shadow over these islands and other members of our Commonwealth.

“As I have said before, that shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow.

“And yet, history also teaches us that evil need not have the last word; that character and courage can combine to overcome the most monstrous injustice, as they did with the determination to end international trade in enslaved people, in which the Royal Navy played such a leading role.”

The remarks are central to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, known as CHOGM, in its first gathering since a meeting in Samoa in 2024 that was also shaped by the debate over slavery and the “blackbirding” of workers taken by force from the Pacific Islands.

Protesters gathered on the streets near St John’s, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, to call for a formal apology and compensation from the King and the British government.

One of the protest organisers, Conrad Luke, a local writer and activist, said the King had admitted the wrongs of slavery but should recognise that compensation was paid to slave-owners, not the enslaved, when Britain abolished slavery in the 1830s.

“There has been no repair whatsoever, and we are saying it is full-time to apologise and go beyond that – to negotiate the need for repair.

“These societies have been left in absolute disarray from the exploitation, the rape, from everything that was done during slavery and after that in the colonial period.

“When these societies obtained flag independence, we were in a state of abject poverty. The institutions of health, education, infrastructure development were completely neglected. The record is there.

“There is no dispute about it. And you can say that it took place long ago, but we are still, in fact, suffering, not only materially but psychologically and socially.

“The king is the constitutional leader of England, he represents it. To say that he’s not in a position to apologise, we don’t accept.”

Gross national income in Antigua and Barbuda was $US23,790 ($34,000) last year, according to the World Bank. It was $US54,550 in the United Kingdom ($78,000).

The host of this year’s meeting, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, has voiced the frustrations of countries shaped by slavery and has called for talks on reparations.

Browne said two days ago that the issue of slavery had “not disappeared with the passage of time” because of its lasting impact on societies.

The King spoke in front of leaders ranging from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Andy Burnham of the UK, Mark Carney of Canada and counterparts from across the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific.

He warned of the risks from technologies that were being released at “at dizzying speed” and urged the Commonwealth to address some of the changes this would bring.

As he did in Samoa two years ago, the King also called for action on climate change and noted that the greatest cost would fall on countries dealing with the impact on oceans.

“Here in the Caribbean, as in so many parts of our Commonwealth, climate change is not some distant prospect, it is an alarming reality,” he said.

“As we know, large Ocean States have contributed little to the causes of climate change and yet they are among those bearing the greatest cost.

“If we mobilise climate finance through the private sector, and with the leveraging capacity of the public sector, we can drive investment into climate resilience.

“Nature herself is an essential form of capital that sustains our prosperity and wellbeing and yet we have persisted for too long to live off nature’s capital rather than her income.

“To restore nature is therefore not to choose our environment over our economy – it is to invest in the very foundations of our economy, not to mention our security.”

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