Title: The price of emancipation : slave-ownership, compensation and British society at the end of slavery /
Authors: Draper, Nicholas, 1958-
Year: 2013
Subjects: Slaves Emancipation West Indies, British History.; Slaveholders West Indies, British History.; Slavery West Indies, British History.; Slaves Emancipation Great Britain History.; Slaveholders Great Britain History.; Slavery Great Britain History.; Slaveholders; Slavery; Slaves Emancipation; Great Britain; West Indies British West Indies
Abstract: "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 for the first time 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 amongst 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 analysipermeationermation of British society by slave-owners, and their success in securing compensation from the state, the book challenges convenarrativesrativess of abolitionist Britain and provides a fresh perspective of British society and politics on the eve of the Victorian era.
Contents: The absentee slave-owner: representations and identities -- The debate over compensation -- The distribution of slave-compensation -- The structure of slave-ownership -- The large-scale rentier-owners -- 'Widows and orphans': small-scale British slave-owners -- Merchants, bankers and agents in the compensation process.