King Charles III has launched an unprecedented appeal to allow independent research into the British monarchy’s links to slavery.
Buckingham Palace’s move reportedly marks the first time the crown has supported such an investigation, after centuries of silence about their official dealings with the slave trade.
Camilla de Koning, Doctor of History. at the University of Manchester will explore the ruling family’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and the way it supported the expansion of the British Empire, Guardian reported Thursday.
De Koning’s study, which began in October, is co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces, an independent, non-profit organization that manages several royal properties in London and Northern Ireland. Her research is scheduled to end in fall 2026.
In an announcement obtained by The Post, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said the King took the job “deeply serious”, echoing his message to Commonwealth leaders in Rwanda last 12 months: “I cannot describe the depth of my personal sadness at the suffering of so many because I’m still deepening my very own understanding of the enduring impact of slavery.”
“This process has continued with vigor and determination since His Majesty’s accession to the throne,” a palace official continued, adding that researchers could be given access to the royal collections and archives. “Given the complexity of the problems, it is important to investigate them as thoroughly as possible.”
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Meanwhile, the Guardian also just unveiled a previously buried document which evidently confirms King William III’s involvement in the slave-trading Royal African Company, showing the transfer of the company’s shares value 1,000 British kilos in 1689 money from Edward Colston, deputy governor of the company, to the king.
The royal family has traditionally been reluctant about its association with the slave trade in the seventeenth and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, historians have long reiterated that British monarchs did indeed support or profit from the trade of tens of millions of individuals from Africa to the Caribbean and North America.
![King Charles is supporting research into the royal family's links to slavery in an unprecedented move](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009256662.jpg?w=1024)
“This document provides clear evidence of the central involvement of the British monarchy in the expansion of the slave trade and the vital importance of crown support for enslaved voyages to Africa,” said historian Brooke Newman, who dug up the archival document. “Edward Colston now became known through the dedicated research of historians and activists in Bristol, but he was in actual fact a far less important figure than the successive kings and queens who invested and gave royal support to slavery and the slave trade.”
The families of the Windsor dynasty, which took over the monarchy in 1917, have also recently been forced to reckon with systemic racism inside their institution as former royals Prince Harry and his American wife Meghan Markle, who’s black, claimed that former members of the family concerned about skin color their firstborn, Archie, who’s now 3 years old, and that Markle herself was a victim of royal racism.