The family of Oscar-nominated actor Benedict Cumberbatch faces the prospect of facing demands to pay reparations for slavery over historical links to a sugar plantation in Barbados, according to The Telegraph, Report informs via Insider.
The Caribbean nation of Barbados is starting to hone in on the wealthy descendants of slave owners as part of a campaign to get reparations for slavery.
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, The Guardian reported.
Recently, however, it singled out a specific family for the first time, targeting the British Conservative MP Richard Drax over his family's ownership of a vast sugar plantation on the island, per The Guardian.
David Comissiong, the Barbados ambassador to Caricom and deputy chairman of the state's task force, told The Guardian last month that Drax and other families could face litigation if they don't agree to pay reparations.
"It is now a matter that is before the government of Barbados," he told the newspaper. "It is being dealt with at the highest level."
Now, the Cumberbatch family faces being targeted for a reparations claim. When pressed by The Telegraph on whether Cumberbatch's family would be pursued, Comissiong did not rule it out.
He said: "This is at the earliest stages. We are just beginning. A lot of this history is only really now coming to light."
David Denny, a leading campaigner for reparations and the general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, told The Telegraph: "Any descendants of white plantation owners who have benefitted from the slave trade should be asked to pay reparations, including the Cumberbatch family."
Cumberbatch's ancestor, Abraham Cumberbatch, bought the Cleland plantation in the 18th century. According to The Telegraph, it housed some 250 slaves until slavery was abolished in 1834.
Per The Daily Mail, the Cumberbatch family made a fortune from the plantation. After slavery was abolished, the family received a payment of £6,000 from the British government — a sum worth approximately $1m in today's money.
The actor has spoken publicly about his family's slave-owning history. He told The Telegraph in 2018: "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."
Cumberbatch previously portrayed 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.
According to The Daily Mail, Cumberbatch viewed the role in "Amazing Grace" as a "sort of apology" for his family's role in the slave trade.