The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery

The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of SlaveryWhen colonial slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid 20 million to slave owners as compensation: the enslaved received nothing. Drawing on the records of the Commissioners of Slave Compensation, which represent a complete census of slave ownership, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the extent and importance of absentee slave ownership and its impact on British society. Moving away from the historiographical tradition of

When colonial slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid 20 million to slave-owners as compensation: the enslaved received nothing. Drawing on the records of the Commissioners of Slave Compensation, which represent a complete census of slave-ownership, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the extent and importance of absentee slave-ownership and its impact on British society. Moving away from the historiographical tradition of isolated case studies, it reveals the extent of slave-ownership among metropolitan elites, and identifies concentrations of both rentier and mercantile slave-holders, tracing their influence in local and national politics, in business and in institutions such as the Church. In analysing this permeation of British society by slave-owners and their success in securing compensation from the state, the book challenges conventional narratives of abolitionist Britain and provides a fresh perspective of British society and politics on the eve of the Victorian era.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07/18/2013
ISBN: 9781107696563
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.22lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.85d