During a Caribbean tour marred by protests over Britain’s colonial past, Prince William has suggested that the British royal family would support the Bahamas’ decisions about its future.
“We support with pride and respect decisions about your future,” the Duke of Cambridge said at an official reception in Nassau on Friday, March 20, 22, hosted by the island’s governor-general. “Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.”
‘Colonial tour’
Prince William, the second in line to the throne, has been on a week-long tour of Caribbean Commonwealth countries with his wife Kate Middleton in honour of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.
Protestors have dubbed the royals’ Caribbean trip the “colonial tour,” with demonstrators demanding that the royal family apologize for its role in the slave trade that saw millions of African slaves being shipped to the region to work under inhumane conditions.
Jamaica going Republic?
In Jamaica on Tuesday, protestors outside the British High Commission in Kingston demanded that the British monarchy pay reparations for its role in the slave trade, according to reports.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew M. Holness told Prince William that his country was “moving on” in remarks that suggested the country would go the way of Barbados, which became a republic last year and removed the Queen as its head of state.
Barbados the latest to remove Queen as Head of State
Barbados, in November 2021, officially removed Queen Elizabeth II as its Head of State and became the world's newest republic.
The island was one of England's first slave colonies. English settlers first occupied the island in 1627 and, under British control, it became a sugar plantation economy using enslaved people brought in from Africa.
Slavery was abolished in Barbados in 1834 and the country became fully independent in 1966.
The British monarch's Royal Standard flag is taken down and replaced to mark the official change of status in Barbados.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew M.
Holness (right) in conversation with His Royal Highness, the Duke of
Cambridge, during a courtesy call in March 2022.