Should Benedict Cumberbatch pay reparations for his family's slave business?

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch is at the center of a heated debate over reparations in Barbados. Since his family profited handsomely from owning hundreds of slaves there, people are asking what does he owe, if anything, to Barbados or the descendants of those enslaved by his ancestors?

More than 100 years before slavery was abolished, the A-list actor’s seventh great-grandfather bought the Cleland plantation in the north of Barbados in 1728. Records show Abraham Cumberbatch legally owned 250 human beings as slaves. Should he pay for his forefathers' sins?

Four years after the UK abolished slavery, the Parliament passed the Slave Compensation Act of 1837. It compensated 3,000 slave-owning families with a total of around £20 million — the equivalent of £16.5 billion in today’s money, according to the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). The debt was only paid off in 2015.

The Cleland plantation was passed down through generations to Benedict’s great-great-great-grandfather, Abraham Parry Cumberbatch, who received £5,388 for his 250 slaves under the compensation act — that’s equivalent to nearly $600,000 US today, according to the Bank of England inflation calculator.

Image: still from '12 Years a Slave' via SearchlightPictures / Youtube

With the payout and profits from the slaves’ work on the plantation, the Cumberbatches became one of the UK’s richest families, according to ABC News. Benedict’s great-great-grandfather was a British consul in Turkey and Russia and his great-grandfather was also a diplomat. The actor’s grandfather was a naval commander in both World Wars and a prominent figure in London’s high society.

Image: 'The Times,' April 27, 1934, via Cumberbatch.prg

Benedict went to Harrow, one of the UK’s most expensive boarding schools, but told the Mail On Sunday, that his parents, working actors, were not rich. "I’m definitely middle-class, I think. I know others would argue, but I’m not upper-class. Upper-class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re royalty. Okay, maybe I’m upper-middle class."

In a 2007 interview with the 'Scotland on Sunday' newspaper, he said his mom, actress Wanda Ventham, encouraged him to use a stage name to avoid people seeking reparations for slavery. "'They'll be after you for money' she used to say, 'they' being descendants of Britain's slave trade,'" Benedict said, calling his ancestors "pretty dodgy," according to his biography.

In a 2022 interview on the Late Late Show with James Corden, Benedict said he used the stage name "Ben Carlton" early in his career (his father, also an actor, went by Timothy Carlton). However, Benedict told James Corden that he used a stage name because Cumberbatch sounded like “a f a r t in a bath" and didn't mention anything about slavery.

Image: The Late Late Show with James Corden / YouTube

Benedict starred in '12 Years A Slave' as a slave owner and in the 2006 film ‘Amazing Grace,’ which told the story of a man’s fight to eliminate slavery in the British empire. "Maybe I was trying to right a wrong there," he told 'Scotland on Sunday' about the latter role.

Image: Still from 'Amazing Grace' 2006, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Roadside Attractions, Bristol Bay Productions.

On Dec. 30, 2022, The Telegraph reported that Barbados was setting its sights on slave-owning families, quoting a local leader saying that “any descendants of white plantation owners” should pay reparations, including the Hollywood actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

After the story went viral, Barbados politician David Comissiong penned an op-ed, saying he was misquoted in the Telegraph. He said his nation is not going after individuals because it’s easier “to establish a Reparations claim against a legal entity such as a national Government or a company than it is against a family.”

Image: Barbados Today Oped by David Comissiong

Comissiong said that Barbados is, however, studying a claim against the wealthy British conservative MP Richard Drax and his family. That’s because the family still owns and operates a sugarcane plantation in Barbados, which used to use slave labor and has made the family very wealthy.

Perhaps no country is moving forward as strongly on the call for reparations as Barbados. "On Barbados, reparations have moved from a fringe idea to a thing everyone is talking about," reported Time Magazine in July 2023. Another reflected on how in the mid-20th century Barbados was one of the most racist countries in the Carribean. Ads for jobs often included requirements like a “good complexion,” which didn't mean being "acne free."

Image: Time cover, July 24, 2023

In December 2023, Barbados PM Mia Mottley said her nation was owed $4.9 trillion by slave-owning nations. “We’re not expecting that the reparatory damages will be paid in a year, or two, or five because the extraction of wealth and the damages took place over centuries. But we are demanding that we be seen and that we are heard,” she said in London.

CARICOM, a political and economic union of 15 Caribbean states, has a reparations commission. In 2015, it passed a 10-point plan for justice. Among other things, it calls for formal apologies from nations involved in the Caribbean slave trade, but not even that has happened.

In November, a global movement seeking reparations for slavery was forged in Ghana, with the African Union partnering with CARICOM to form a "united front" aimed at convincing European nations to pay for "historical mass crimes." “The entire period of slavery meant that our progress, economically, culturally, and psychologically, was stifled," Ghana President Nana Kufo-Addo said.

Despite the story blowing up, the actor has not publicly commented on the issue. However, he did share his thoughts on reparations with 'Scotland on Sunday' in 2007: "The issue of how far you should be willing to atone is interesting. I mean, it’s not as if I’m making a profit from the suffering — it’s not like it’s Nazi money."

Despite not seeking reparations from the Cumberbatches, or at least not yet, Barbados has been recently breaking from its colonial past. In 2021, Barbados became the first Caribbean country since the 1970s to abolish the monarchy.

But Barbados’ stance hasn’t stopped calls for Cumberbatch to pay up. TikToker kuhdeejuh_ traced her family history back to slaves on Barbados plantation owned by the Cumberbatches. She said she made the connection as soon as she saw a “white Cumberbatch” since the only people with that surname she knew were black and from Barbados.

Image: kuhdeejuh_ / TikTok

The 29-year-old based in Brooklyn said she’d been waiting ten years for this news to break, ever since she investigated and found a 2014 Daily Mail story on how Benedict’s family made a fortune from slavery. "Give me my money, thanks" she said in a video posted to the social network.

Image: kuhdeejuh_ / TikTok