January 2025

Barbados is set to escalate its campaign for reparations against Richard Drax, the British Conservative MP and owner of Drax Hall plantation, as negotiations remain stalled over the St George estate where African ancestors suffered centuries of brutal enslavement.

The National Task Force on Reparations (NTFR) also plans to launch a public education initiative about the plantation’s history of slavery, aiming to pressure Drax into acknowledging his family’s role in the slave trade and negotiating compensation.

Harvard University has laid off the staff of its Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, the unit of its $100 million Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative tasked with identifying the direct descendants of those enslaved by Harvard affiliates.

Lloyd’s Register, the maritime and industrial group owned by one of Britain’s biggest charities, has apologised for its role in the trafficking of enslaved African people but has been criticised for not going far enough.

Founded in 1760 as the Society for the Registry of Shipping by merchants and underwriters who met at Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in Lombard Street in London, the company provided classification for ships.

The treasured island of Balliceaux is no longer for sale, as it is being acquired by the government of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).

This was announced on Monday January 13, 2025 by Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves, during his presentation of his 2025 Budget address. Considered by the minister as a act of historical reclamation, Minister Gonsalves said this was triggered in 2024 by the prime minister’s declaration that the Government would seek to either purchase or acquire the island of Balliceaux.

Celebrating 221 years of Haitian independence, local authorities used the opportunity in New Year’s Day to remind France that it needs to repay the country billions in reparations for forcing it to make cash payments to France to avoid attempts at recolonization.

Thursday, 9 January 2025 (CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown): CARICOM Chair, Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, SC, Prime Minister of Barbados, says the Community welcomes the 17 December United Nations Declaration of a Second International Decade for People of African Descent, which began on 1 January 2025.