Some British companies involved in the slave trade have promised to make amends, but Barbados and the other members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have pressed European governments for full reparations. Part of the Black Lives Matter movement that swept the world in 2020, protests in the UK have often focused on the repercussions of slavery in Britain’s Caribbean colonies and the role it played in the empire’s wealth and global power.
What could the future hold for other Commonwealth realms?īarbados’s decision has added to recent movements in some other countries, especially in the Caribbean, to reconsider their ties to the queen. The date was set to coincide with the fifty-fifth anniversary of Barbados’s independence from the UK. Barbados is the latest to exit, having officially left the monarchy behind by swearing in a president on November 30, 2021.īarbadian leaders framed the move as a long-awaited culmination of independence: “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” said Governor-General Sandra Mason in announcing the exit. Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, left in 1992. The 1970s saw the last major wave of departures, with Caribbean countries Dominica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. For countries that saw their monarchies as unwelcome remnants of colonialism, this was the final step in distancing themselves from its last vestiges. This has generally meant replacing the queen with another head-of-state figure, often a president whose role is also largely ceremonial. Nearly twenty former British territories renounced their monarchies and became republics after World War II, including India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Together, there are some 150 million people in the Commonwealth realms, the most populous of which are the UK, Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand. They are distinct from the Commonwealth of Nations, a loose grouping of fifty-four countries that were once part of the British Empire but most which are not still subjects of the queen.
These are known as the Commonwealth realms. Queen Elizabeth is not only the monarch of the United Kingdom (UK), but also of fourteen other countries, including Canada and others across the Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean. Will others follow suit? Where does Queen Elizabeth II reign? In 2021, Barbados became the latest country to sever its ties with the Crown.
She is also the queen of more than a dozen other independent countries that were once under direct British colonial rule. Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-serving British monarch in history, having ascended to the throne in 1952 at age twenty-five. In Last Night’s SOTU, (Some) Republicans Gave Joe Biden Just What He Wanted
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