It also deployed Royal Navy ships the following year to intercept illegal slave ships, freeing tens of thousands of captives over several decades.
Descendants of slaves point out that the British government only compensated slave owners, not the slaves themselves, when slavery was abolished.
This is why, they say, they are entitled to compensation on their ancestors’ behalf – due to intergenerational “trauma”.
However, when many British people are struggling with the cost of living crisis, and the UK government is still tightening its belt, why should taxpayers be forced to compensate for something that happened two hundred years ago?
Slavery is a delicate issue, and King Charles’ first visit to the Caribbean and Guyana as monarch could be one of the biggest tests of his reign so far.