Tate and Lyle faces Caribbean demands for reparations over indentured labour

Tate and Lyle could face demands from Caribbean nations to pay reparations for profits made from indentured labour, as British companies come under fresh pressure to address their colonial history. British refiner Tate and Lyle sourced sugar from the colony of British Guiana, now Guyana, where plantations were worked by indentured labourers shipped from India to replace newly freed slaves. Campaigners in Guyana are planning to demand reparations from the company for its exploitation of indentured labour through new lobbying bodies. The Telegraph understands that a new set of formal demands being drafted by Caribbean nations will include an insistence that companies that profited from slavery and colonialism should pay reparations. The revised set of demands, which will be put to Britain and other former colonial powers, will also include new clauses covering indentured labour as well as slavery. Profited from indentured labour Under the indenture system, workers agreed to work for a set number of years in exchange for a pay-off at the end, such as land or a return passage to their place of origin, but most never returned after being duped into their bonded labour. As a company that profited from this labour, Tate and Lyle is...