Tory told: Pay back slavery profits from 200 years ago
But MP says don’t blame him for sins of ancestors
A TORY MP has hit back at campaigners who want him to pay reparations for the prominent role his family’s Barbados sugar plantation played in the slave trade.
Richard Drax was told he had a moral duty to atone for his ancestors’ use of forced labour.
As many as 30,000 slaves are said to have died on the family’s plantations in Barbados and Jamaica from 1640 to 1836.
Mr Drax, who inherited the 618acre Drax Hall estate on Barbados from his father after his death in 2017, said: ‘I am keenly aware of the slave trade in the West Indies and the role my very distant ancestor played in it is deeply, deeply regrettable. But no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago.
‘This is a part of the nation’s history, from which we must all learn.’
Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the Caribbean Community’s Reparations Commission, said the Draxes ‘built, designed and structured slavery’. He told the Observer: ‘They have done more harm and violence to the black people of Barbados than any other family.’
Historian David Olusoga said: ‘The Drax family are one of the few who were pioneers in the early stages of the British slave economy back in the 17th century and, generations later, still owned plantations and enslaved people at the end of British slavery in the 1830s.’
Drax Hall was built in the 1650s by the MP’s ancestor Sir James Drax, who amassed a fortune after becoming the second person to cultivate sugar in the Caribbean. The MP for South Dorset reportedly registered the plantation – which is still producing sugar – with authorities in the Caribbean in February.
But it is not mentioned in the register of MPs’ interests.
The Harrow-educated politician, who served in the Coldstream Guards, is among the wealthiest MPs with a fortune of up to £150million including more than 100 properties in Dorset.
Mr Drax said he had not mentioned the Barbados estate on the Parliamentary Register of Members’ Financial Interests because the land is not yet in his name.
He said: ‘These are still going through the probate process and have not yet transferred to my name. Once that process is completed, I will of course register it in proper accordance with the rules.’