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.
| ISBN: | 9780521115254 |
| Publication date: | 17th December 2009 |
| Author: | Nicholas University College London Draper |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 416 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series |
| Genres: |
Slavery and abolition of slavery European history |