Benedict Cumberbatch may have to pay for his ancestors related to the slave trade

After removing Queen Elizabeth of England as head of state, the government of Barbados became a republic in 2021. It is now seeking compensation from people whose ancestors benefited from exploiting its inhabitants as slaves during the 18th and 19th centuries. This includes Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the names in the long list of descendants of slave owners.

The actor’s seventh great-grandfather was, like him, a Cumberbatch, but in the 18th century that meant being part of a German clan that settled in the Caribbean. According to The Telegraph, the ancestor of the aforementioned interpreter bought the Cleland plantation in northern Barbados in 1728, which He came to have up to 250 slaves before slavery was abolished nearly a hundred years later in 1833. When that happened, the UK government itself borrowed and paid the slaveholders an indemnity which, together with the exploitation itself, allowed them to have a “little luck”from which the later Cumberbatch would benefit.

“We are in the early stages. We are starting”said the ambassador of the Caribbean community of Barbados, David Commissiong. “Much of this story is coming to light now”. However, the secretary general of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration states: “Reparations must be sought from all descendants of white plantation owners who benefited from the slave trade, including the Cumberbatch family”. The New Daily reports it The actor’s family agreed to pay £6,000 (6,818 euros) at the time, but after the actor’s success the figure could rise.

It’s no secret

Benedict Cumberbatch has never kept his family’s past a secret and even said that his mother had suggested that he choose another stage name when he was starting out, taking into account the ties that his ancestors had: “When I became an actor, Mama didn’t like me keeping it. ‘They’ll go after your money,’ she would tell me.”. In 2008 he was promoting ’12 Years a Slave’ in an interview with The Guardian when he said “half joke” who had accepted the role of the abolitionist of slavery in ‘Amazing Grace’ “partly to apologize” for your family history.