The Price of Emancipation : Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery Hardback
by Nicholas (University College London) Draper
Part of the Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series series
Hardback
Description
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.
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:416 pages
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:17/12/2009
- Category:
- ISBN:9780521115254
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:416 pages
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:17/12/2009
- Category:
- ISBN:9780521115254
