Benedict Cumberbatch’s family could be forced to pay reparations for ancestors’ slaves

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The family of Benedict Cumberbatch could be forced to pay reparations for slavery after it was revealed he has familial ties to a sugar plantation in Barbados.

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The Caribbean nation, which became a republic in 2021, is looking for reparations from the families of past slave owners and Cumberbatch could find himself in a legal battle over his ancestors owning a plantation in the 18th and 19th century.

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According to a report in The Telegraph, Abraham Cumberbatch, the seventh great-grandfather of the Oscar-nominated actor, bought the Cleland plantation in 1728, which housed 250 slaves for more than 100 years. Cumberbatch’s relatives reportedly earned the family a small fortune from the plantation.

After slavery was abolished in the 1830s, Cumberbatch’s ancestors and other slave owners were compensated with a monetary amount now worth millions.

Last November, The Guardian reported that the Barbados government has indicated it plans to seek reparations from Richard Drax, a conservative member of British Parliament who inherited the island’s largest plantation, Drax Hall. Drax is facing pressure to hand over his family’s land and if he refuses, Barbados will ask an international arbitration court to decide on the matter.

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“The Drax family had slave ships. They had agents in the African continent and kidnapped black African people to work on their plantations here in Barbados. I have no doubt that what would have motivated them was that they never perceived us to be equal to them, that we were human beings. They considered us as chattels,” said Barbados MP Trevor Prescod, chairman of Barbados National Task Force on Reparations.

If Barbados’ challenge is successful in court, it will pave the way for its government to seek compensation from other descendants of slave owners, including Cumberbatch.

David Comissiong, Barbados’ deputy chairman of the island’s national commission on reparations, told The Telegraph he wants the ancestors of slave-owning families to pay damages.

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“This is at the earliest stages. We are just beginning,” he said when asked if the country would try and force Cumberbatch to pay up. “A lot of this history is only really now coming to light.”

“Any descendants of white plantation owners who have benefited from the slave trade should be asked to pay reparations, including the Cumberbatch family,” David Denny, General Secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, added.

“The money should be used to turn the local clinic into a hospital, support local schools and improve infrastructure and housing,” Denny said.

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Cumberbatch, who played an enslaver in the Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave, has acknowledged his ancestors’ slave ownership in the past. He said his role in the 2006 abolitionist drama Amazing Grace was a “sort of apology” for his ancestry.

The Sherlock star also said in a 2007 interview that his mother once urged him to reconsider using his real name for fear he could become a target for descendants of slaves looking for reparations.

In 2014, Stacey Cumberbatch, New York’s commissioner of citywide administrative services, was asked about her surname, revealing that her ancestors were slaves in Barbados owned by the Emmy winner’s forefathers.

Cumberbatch said he was troubled by his family history in a 2018 interview with The Telegraph.

“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.”

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