Benedict Cumberbatch might have to pay reparations for family's slave trade history

Trouble brewing for Hollywood actor Benedict Cumberbatch as the country of Barbados plans to demand the actor and his family for reparations for slavery. This is in links to a sugar plantation in Barbados.

Barbados's National Task Force on Reparations, part of the Caricom Reparations Commission (Caricom), previously focused on seeking reparations from colonial powers and wealthy institutions that made hefty profits from slavery, according to a report in The Guardian. Moving on from big institutions, it is now focusing on individual families, the first of which is Richard Drax (British MP), over his family’s ownership of a vast sugar plantation on the island nation.

David Comissiong, the Barbados ambassador to Caricom and deputy chairman of the state's task force, told The Guardian, "It is now a matter that is before the government of Barbados. It is being dealt with at the highest level."

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Next in line is Benedict Cumberbatch’s family. On pressing the family for reparations, he said, "This is at the earliest stages. We are just beginning. A lot of this history is only really now coming to light."

This is in light to BenedictCumberbatch’s family being one of the white plantation owners who have benefitted from the slave trade reportedly. Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestor, Abraham Cumberbatch, bought the Cleland plantation in the 18th century.

According to several newspaper reports, there were around 250 slaves on the plantation until slavery was abolished in 1834. After slavery was abolished, the family received a payment of £6,000 from the British government, a sum worth approximately $1million according to 2022 standards.

Without denying the same, Benedict in 2018 said, "We have our past, you don't have to look far to see the slave-owning past. We were part of the whole sugar industry, which is a shocker."

Incidentally, Benedict has previously played the role of a slave owner in the Oscar-winning 2013 movie ‘12 Years a Slave’. He also portrayed William Pitt the Younger in the 2006 movie ‘Amazing Grace’ about the battle to abolish slavery in Great Britain.