Benedict Cumberbatch quotes in motion demanding reparations for his family’s slaveowning past (Photo: VALERIE MACON) Benedict Cumberbatch, best known for playing Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is being appointed by the Barbados National Task Force on Reparations and Ins Part of the Caricom Reparations Commission (CARICOM), a movement to obtain reparations for slavery in Barbados, Central America. “All descendants of white plantation owners who benefited from the slave trade must pay reparations, including the Cumberbatch family,” David Denny, secretarygeneral of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, told the British newspaper The Telegraph. Grandmother, Abraham Cumberbatch, bought a Cleland sugar plantation in Saint Andrew, Barbados in 1728. The site employed about 250 slaves until slavery was abolished in the country in 1834. When the plantation was forced to close, the Cumberbatch family received £6,000 in compensation for the loss of ‘human property’, the equivalent of £3.6million today. Barbados was the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire’s slave economy and was maintained as a colony until 2021, when they became thenPrince Charles, attending the island’s independence ceremony and acknowledging its past of slavery and suffering. and sorry or refund.
Life imitates art
Benedict Cumberbatch played plantation owner William Pitt in the feature film Journey to Freedom (2006), which depicts the struggle to abolish slavery in Britain. At the time, the actor told The Chron he saw the role as “kind of an apology” for his family’s involvement in the slave trade.
Benedict Cumberbatch played a slave owner in Journey for Freedom (2006) (Photo: Reproduction/Swen Films)
In 2015, Benedict also revealed that his mother, Wanda Ventham, once advised him not to use his Cumbarbatch surname professionally, lest it attract media interest should the descendants of Barbadian slaves seek redress, as is currently the case. .
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