Prince Charles has acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery”, describing it as something “which forever stains our history”, during the ceremony marking Barbados’ historic transition to a republic. Charles summed up the period when the UK was one of the leading players in the transatlantic slave trade as the “darkest days of our past”, but looking to the future said the “creation of this republic offers a new beginning”. The prince will be head of state of many nations in the Caribbean when he becomes king and his words will resonate across the region. Barbados’ ties with the British monarchy going back centuries were severed just after the clock struck midnight on Tuesday morning when the nation’s first president, Dame Sandra Mason, was sworn into office replacing the Queen as head of state during a televised open-air ceremony in the capital Bridgetown. In a message to the president and the people of Barbados, the Queen sent the new republic her “warmest good wishes for yo...
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