‘Possessing Slaves’: Ownership, Compensation and Metropolitan Society in Britain at the time of Emancipation 1834–40

摘要

This article examines the ownership of the enslaved in the British Caribbean colonies at the time of Emancipation. Through a systematic investigation of the records underlying the work of the Commissioners of Slave Compensation, who were charged with distributing the twenty million pounds in compensation granted to the slave-owners under the 1833 Act, it seeks to map comprehensively the recipients of the major awards of compensation by geography, function and gender, and to identify the beneficial owners behind each such award.