“Sugar, Blood and Silence: The Drax Family’s Wealth and the Price Paid by the Enslaved”
The story of the Drax family is not just a footnote in Britain’s colonial past; it is a brutal exemplar of how immense wealth and land ownership in England were built directly on the bodies and suffering of enslaved Africans. The family’s sprawling Dorset estate, today still held by Conservative MP Richard Drax, is a living monument to one of the most violent and exploitative chapters in British history. Yet, despite clear and damning evidence of his ancestors’ crimes, Drax himself refuses to take meaningful responsibility; choosing silence and evasion over accountability.
The Foundations of Blood: James Drax and the Birth of the Sugar Empire
The Drax dynasty traces its roots to the early days of British colonisation in the Caribbean. In the 1620s, James Drax, a young Yorkshireman, sailed to Barbados, one of England’s newest colonies, with dreams of fortune. What he built was far more sinister than mere prosperity: he became one of the architects of the Barbadian sugar revolution, a man whose name would become synonymous with extreme wealth extracted through extreme cruelty.
Sugar was not a simple crop. It was a labour-intensive commodity that thrived on exploitation. At first, white indentured servants were used on the plantations, but as demand for sugar skyrocketed, the Drax family, like many plantation owners, turned to the transatlantic slave trade to provide a near-endless supply of forced labour.
By the mid-17th century, James Drax had become staggeringly wealthy. His estate, Drax Hall, was among the earliest and most profitable sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Historical accounts describe the plantation as a place of relentless suffering. Enslaved Africans, many of them torn from their homelands and trafficked across the Atlantic in horrifying conditions, were subjected to backbreaking labour from dawn until dusk under the scorching Caribbean sun.
Mortality rates were appalling. Enslaved workers endured brutal punishments for the smallest infractions, lived in squalid conditions, and had virtually no medical care. Women and children were not spared the lash nor the torment of family separations and sexual exploitation. Plantation owners like the Draxes calculated that it was more cost-effective to work enslaved people to death and replace them, rather than invest in their wellbeing.
The Drax family’s wealth ballooned, and with it, their influence back in England. The profits from sugar built their grand estates, financed political ambitions, and bought social standing that continues to benefit their descendants today.
The Scale of Involvement: Profiteering from Human Misery
The Drax family were not merely passive participants in the slave economy; they were deeply embedded in every layer of its machinery. Shipping records, wills, and slave registers detail their ownership of hundreds of enslaved people across multiple plantations in Barbados and Jamaica. These plantations generated vast sums of money, making the Drax family one of the wealthiest in the British Empire.
Even after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1833, the Drax family profited yet again. Under the terms of the Slave Compensation Act, British slave owners were financially compensated for the “loss” of their human property. The Drax family received what would be the equivalent of millions of pounds in today’s money; public funds, paid out by British taxpayers, including descendants of the very enslaved people from whom the family had profited.
This grotesque payout added yet another layer of injustice to the legacy of enslavement and ensured that the Drax dynasty continued to flourish long after the abolition of the slave trade.
Richard Drax: Modern Silence, Historical Amnesia
Today, Richard Drax presides over the 6,000-acre Charborough Estate in Dorset, making him one of the largest private landowners in the county. He is also the registered owner of Drax Hall in Barbados, the very plantation where his ancestors orchestrated their brutal sugar empire.
Confronted with this undeniable history, Drax has adopted a strategy of deflection and denial. In public statements, he has described slavery as “abhorrent”, a word that falls far short of an apology, while insisting that he “cannot be held responsible for something that happened centuries ago.” He has refused calls from campaigners in Barbados to engage in reparations discussions and remains unwilling to relinquish ownership of Drax Hall, despite growing pressure.
His stance is not mere reluctance; it is a refusal to reckon with the profound moral implications of inherited wealth built on mass exploitation. Rather than use his position to acknowledge historical wrongs and contribute to reparative justice, Drax has chosen to shield himself behind the convenient veil of historical distance.
When pressed by journalists, he has claimed that “no one alive today is responsible” for slavery, sidestepping the uncomfortable truth: that while the enslaved and their immediate oppressors are long dead, the economic benefits of slavery are still very much alive in the assets, influence, and privileges he enjoys.
The Call for Justice Grows Louder
Meanwhile, activists, historians, and political leaders in Barbados and beyond have intensified their calls for reparations. In Barbados, where the Drax family legacy is synonymous with colonial exploitation, Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s government has openly discussed the possibility of pursuing reparations from Drax and other descendants of slave-owning families.
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, has called Drax “the living symbol of the crimes against humanity that were committed”, demanding both financial reparations and the return of land stolen through colonial conquest and slave labour.
Yet Drax remains unmoved.
His refusal to engage reflects not only personal obstinacy but the broader unwillingness of Britain’s elite to acknowledge the enduring impact of slavery. The reluctance to confront these uncomfortable truths perpetuates the injustices of the past, maintaining a social and economic order still shaped by colonial exploitation.
Reckoning Deferred
The story of the Drax family is not ancient history. It is a living legacy of wealth hoarded, power maintained, and justice denied. The land Richard Drax walks upon, the titles he holds, and the privileges he enjoys are soaked in the blood and sweat of thousands of enslaved Africans.
Until Richard Drax and others like him confront their history with honesty and humility, until they take concrete steps towards reparative justice, the shadow of slavery will continue to hang heavy over Dorset, over Barbados, and over Britain itself.
Silence is no shield against history.
A major publishing event in Dorset:
Author Paul Lashmar introduces his new book
Drax of Drax Hall
With some 15,000 acres, the Drax estate between Wareham and Dorchester has made its mark on the landscape, communities, and politics of Dorset. Several members of the Drax dynasty have been MPs for Dorset constituencies. Richard Drax was MP for South Dorset for many years until the 2024 general election; he was said to be the wealthiest landowner in parliament.
Much of the Draxes’ huge wealth came from its plantation in the Caribbean—the Drax Hall sugar estate in Barbados. The Drax family pioneered the system of chattel slavery: for 200 years it exploited thousands of Africans who had been transported across the Atlantic. Drax of Drax Hall tells the story of slavery, wealth, and its impact in the Dorset countryside.
Paul Lashar is a Dorset historian and investigative journalist. He is Reader in Journalism at City St George’s, University of London.
Book launch and discussion with Paul Lashmar:
TUESDAY 15 APRIL, 7.30pm
The Pointe, Old Salvation Army Hall, Durngate Street, Dorchester DT1 1NA.
