World’s Anglican Leader Admits Ancestral Link to Slavery

LONDON (AFP) -- The leader of the world’s Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, on Tuesday said that one of his ancestors owned slaves at a plantation in Jamaica.

His admission comes after he previously apologized for the Church of England’s historic links to slavery, calling it a “source of shame”, and urging followers to confront the past.
Welby, 68, said in a personal statement on his website that his late biological father, Anthony Montague Browne, “had an ancestral connection to the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago”.
“His great, great grandfather was Sir James Fergusson, an owner of enslaved people at the Rozelle Plantation in St Thomas, Jamaica,” he added.
A number of former British colonies in the region are currently pushing for a formal apology and reparations from the royal family for their role in the trans-Atlantic trade in people.
Three candidates to be the next secretary-general of the Commonwealth group of mainly former British colonies, whose leaders meet this week in Samoa, have also all said they back compensation.
Welby’s formal apology for the Church of England’s role in the slave trade came in the wake of global anti-racism protests in 2020. 
He also called the church “deeply institutionally racist” and apologized for Britain’s treatment of black people and other minorities since World War II.
In 2023, the Church Commissioners who handles the body’s finances and investments were told to increase its compensation scheme for communities affected by slavery to £1 billion.
Britain will not bring the issue of reparations for historical transatlantic slavery to the table at a meeting of Commonwealth nations that began in Samoa on Monday.
Leaders and officials from 56 countries with roots in Britain’s former empire attend this week the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the Pacific Island nation.
Consecutive British governments have rejected calls for reparations but the chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) reparations commission, Hilary Beckles, told Reuters there were hopes this stance might change under the new Labour administration after 14 years of Conservative rule.
Both British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles will attend the Samoa meeting.
But a spokesperson for Starmer reiterated on Monday that reparations were not on his agenda. “We do not pay reparations,” the spokesperson said. “The position on an apology remains the same. We won’t be offering an apology at CHOGM.”