King Charles photo with Caribbean officials under portrait of slavery-enriched monarch sparks criticism

Campaigners for slavery reparations and scholars have criticised the British monarchy after King Charles posed with Caribbean officials at a London reception beneath a portrait of George IV, who profited from enslaved labour on plantations in Grenada.

Charles hosted on March 10 several Caribbean representatives at St. James’s Palace for the annual Commonwealth Day reception, attended by, among others, the foreign ministers of Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Grenada’s high commissioner to Britain, Rachér Croney, was also in attendance, alongside other Caribbean diplomats.

A group of 29 guests at the reception posed for a photograph with Charles and British foreign minister Yvette Cooper beneath a large portrait of George IV. The image was subsequently shared across several accounts of some Caribbean foreign ministries as well as by a high commissioner.

GEORGE IV WAS ENRICHED BY GRENADIAN ESTATES: RESEARCHER

Research by independent scholar Desirée Baptiste shared with Reuters last year, found that 1,000 pounds ($1,331.20) – about 103,000 pounds today – were paid into George IV’s private coffers from two Crown-owned Grenadian estates worked by hundreds of enslaved people in the 18th and 19th centuries.

George IV’s reign lasted from 1820 to 1830.

Experts said the finding increases pressure on the monarchy to confront its historical ties to slavery, including issuing a full apology and acknowledging the ways it profited from it.

“It is offensive to have his portrait up,” Arley Gill, chairman of Grenada’s National Reparations Committee, said. “It is doubly offensive to have persons of African descent with the king below a photograph of him.”

“It just rubs salt in the wounds.”

Gill said the criticism of the photograph presented an opportunity for some Caribbean representatives to better educate themselves on the history of slavery.

Buckingham Palace did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Baptiste called the photograph a “diplomatic misstep” by the palace and urged Charles to “deepen his understanding” of the monarchy’s involvement in slavery.

Robert Beckford, a British professor of theology of Jamaican heritage, said the group photograph was an act of “historical amnesia.”

“Standing beneath royal portraits normalises forgetting,” Beckford added.

Charles, who expressed sorrow over slavery in a 2022 speech to Commonwealth leaders, has backed a PhD study on the royal family’s role in slavery.

A 2023 Guardian report found that King William III, who reigned from 1689 to 1702, received 1,000 pounds in shares of the Royal African Company, which trafficked thousands of enslaved Africans to the Americas.