The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery - Cambridge Studies in Economic History: Second Series (Paperback)

Nicholas Draper (author)

£24.99

Paperback 416 Pages / Published: 18/07/2013

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Synopsis

When colonial slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid GBP20 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.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107696563
Number of pages: 416
Weight: 550 g
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 22 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

Review of the hardback: 'The Price of Emancipation is a well-researched and argued book, and a major contribution to the study of British history and West Indian slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century.' Stanley Engerman, Journal of Economic History
Review of the hardback: '... an important contribution to our understanding of why compensation was introduced, and how it was funded and administered.' The Black and Asian Studies Association Newsletter
Review of the hardback: 'Draper has written an outstandingly good and important work.' H-LatAm
'... a valuable contribution to emancipation studies, and most appropriate for upper-level undergraduate or graduate-level courses.' Scott Hancock, The New West Indian Guide