Key Points
- Hollywood star Benedict Cumberbatch’s family could be forced to pay reparations to Barbados for running a slave plantation on the island in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- Cumberbatch’s seventh great grandfather bought the Cleland plantation in St Andrew, Barbados, in 1728.
- The plantation then became home to 250 slaves until slavery was abolished more than 100 years later.
- Ironically, Cumberbatch played the role of a plantation owner in the Oscar-winning film “12 Years a Slave.”
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