The Price of Emancipation

Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-107-69656-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 416 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 600 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series

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 2009 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Draper, Nicholas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Sklaverei
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. The absentee slave-owner: representations and identities; 2. The debate over compensation; 3. The distribution of slave compensation; 4. The structure of slave ownership; 5. The large-scale rentier owners; 6. 'Widows and orphans': small-scale British slave-owners; 7. Merchants, bankers and agents in the compensation process; 8. Conclusion; Appendix.

Über Autor(innen)

Draper, Nicholas
Nicholas Draper is Research Associate at the Department of History, University College London.