A year ago today Queen Elizabeth II died. Her death revived demands for reparations for the crimes of the British Empire. When Elizabeth II became queen in 1952 she ruled over more than a quarter of the world's population. The vast majority of these people had only ever known poverty, suffering, and death due to Britain.
Up to 100 million Africans were enslaved as part of the transatlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries. The British played a leading role in the abduction, enslavement, and trafficking of people from Africa. Britain rarely pays reparations unless it benefits the British ruling class. Soon after the abolition of slavery in 1833, Britain paid the equivalent of what today would be over $200 billion to "compensate" slave owners for their "lost property". Britain also forced China to pay reparations under the treaty that ended the First Opium War which Britain started in order to allow British capitalists to sell opium.
The treaty forced China to pay the equivalent of $780 million and to give Hong Kong to Britain. The transatlantic slave trade was key in building European wealth and the poverty of people in Africa and the Caribbean today.
While no amount of reparations will undo the evil and pain of slavery, however, Britain continues to ignore Jamaica's modest demand for $10.6 million. Although there haven't been any official demands from the Indian government there are increasing demands for reparations from Indians.
Indian economists estimate that Britain stole $45 trillion from India between 1765 and 1938 as the colonists turned one of the richest countries in the world into one of the poorest. A coalition of 15 Caribbean countries known as (CAIRCOM) where colonists stole resources and turned the countries into slave plantations are calling for reparations for genocide the transatlantic slave trade and the racialized system of chattel slavery. Of the 14 countries outside the UK that still have Charles III as their head of state known as Commonwealth Realms, at least 6 in the Caribbean have expressed a desire to become republics.
These countries would follow Barbados, which removed the queen as its head of state to become the newest republic in the Caribbean in November 2021.