Sounds of Freedom III - episode 5 - "Wealth Built on Bondage" (part two)

We continue the story of how one British family accumulated and protected wealth built on sugar, slavery and the suffering of enslaved Africans in Barbados in this second part of “Wealth Built on Bondage”. British investigative journalist and author Dr Paul Lashmar joins host Shayla Murrell to explore the modern legacy of Drax Hall Plantation in St George, and how the Drax family’s fortunes remained tied to an estate stained by bondage long after emancipation. Drawing on his book “Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich and Stayed Rich from Sugar and Slavery”, Dr Lashmar reflects on apology, responsibility and reparations, and why attempts to speak with current owner Richard Drax about Barbados’s calls for atonement and memorialisation have gone unanswered. Against the backdrop of a 2026 United Nations resolution naming the Transatlantic Slave Trade the gravest crime against humanity, this episode considers what meaningful justice, dialogue and remembrance might look like for Barbados and the wider African diaspora.