General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)How Benedict Cumberbatch's family made a fortune from slavery [View all]
High above Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, is a range of hills known locally as the Scotland District ...Here...is a weather-beaten white stone archway announcing that you have arrived at the Cleland Plantation.
The owner, 66-year-old Stephen Tempro, has lived here since 1985, eking out a modest living from the small herds of cattle and goats...Mr Tempro and his wife, Jessie, also 66, eat and sleep in a four-bedroom colonial villa at the centre of the property, where they raised two grown-up children.
The one-storey building, believed to be almost 400 years old, is filled with antique furniture...With its high ceilings, wooden floors, and walls covered with peeling paint, it has what estate agents might describe as rustic charm....During almost half of its long history, the Cleland Plantation was home to 250 slaves, who lived and died in conditions of unimaginable brutality.
Their so-called home, throughout the 18th and early 19th century, was a giant bunk-house on a now-vacant plot fewer than 100 yards from Mr Tempros front door.
I sometimes think about what went on here, and it brings a tear to my eye, says Mr Tempro. Thinking of the struggles of the people who occupied the place can be very emotional.
Intriguingly, almost every single one of the brutal slave masters who held sway here boasted the same, highly-distinctive surname: Cumberbatch... The plantation was purchased in 1728 by Abraham Cumberbatch, Benedicts seventh-great-grandfather. It remained in the family until slavery was abolished in the 1830s, when it was owned by Benedicts great-great- great-grandfather, Abraham Parry Cumberbatch. Slavery built the Cumberbatch fortune, which at its height in the mid-18th century made them one of Britains wealthiest families, owning at least seven Barbados sugar plantations and a stately home near Taunton, Somerset.
The Cumberbatch family's planter digs in Barbados
Its proceeds, trickling down through generations, helped Benedict attend Harrow, the £33,000-a-year boarding school which has produced no fewer than seven British prime ministers.
Today, Cumberbatch, 37, is rightly horrified by his familys dark history.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549773/How-Benedict-Cumberbatchs-family-fortune-slavery-And-roles-films-like-12-Years-A-Slave-bid-atone-sins.html#ixzz3NhYq2P2O
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Yes. Bernard is horrified -- but he ain't giving up the money or his position in life, both of which derive from that horror more than any other single factor. (Even though he's a good actor IMO, if he'd been a nobody it's likely he'd have not gotten into the acting trade.)