The Price of Emancipation (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521115254)

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.

Author: Nicholas Draper
ISBN-10: 0521115256
ISBN-13: 9780521115254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/29/2010
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.72lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.10d