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Officials from St. Kitts and Nevis are set to engage in discussions with Greene King, Britain’s leading pub company and brewer, over its historical connections to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Benjamin Greene, the founder of Greene King in 1799, owned 231 people in St. Kitts during the era of slavery and had a plantation in Montserrat. He was compensated approximately £500,000 in today’s money when slavery was abolished in 1833.

Carla Astaphan, the head of the St. Kitts and Nevis reparations committee, emphasized that Greene King has acknowledged the direct link between the genesis of the company and the enslavement of Africans, with owners benefiting from compensation after abolition. Astaphan asserted that reparations should be made.

The pub chain had previously pledged, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, to donate funds to Black communities addressing its founder’s historical role in slavery. Nick Mackenzie, CEO of Greene King, expressed that it was inexcusable for one of the founders to profit from slavery. He outlined the company’s commitment to becoming a truly anti-racist organization and acknowledged that more work needs to be done to eradicate racism and discrimination.

This move by St. Kitts and Nevis reflects a broader reparations movement across the Caribbean region, with nations like Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda advocating for reparations from institutions with historical ties to slavery. The discussions with Greene King highlight the ongoing efforts to address the historical injustices related to the Transatlantic Slave Trade.