9780521115254
Home | Books | Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery, 1823-1838
Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery, 1823-1838 share button
Nicholas Draper
Genre Business Books
Format Hardcover
Dimensions 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.10 (d)
Pages 416
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Publication Date January 2010
ISBN 9780521115254
Book ISBN 10 0521115256
About Book
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 for the first time 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.
Reviews

From the Publisher

"... 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

"...well-researched and insightful book..." -Christopher Clark, American Historical Review

"....Draper's book is a vital reminder not only of the importance of slavery to British social history through the 1830's but also of the impact of slave emancipation as a force for political innovation and reform in British society during the age of abolition." -David Richardson, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Draper’s book is insightful, engaging, and finely nuanced." -Kevin Grant, Journal of Modern History

"Nicholas Draper's award-winning book is well researched, heavily annotated, and handsomely illustrated." -John David Smith, Canadian Journal of History

'Draper has written an outstandingly good and important work.' -H-LatAm

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