8.4 What does the Slave Compensation Act tell us about the British Empire?

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Lesson description

This lesson looks at the Slave Compensation Act in depth, and asks what it can tell us about the British Empire.

At first glance, the term ‘Slave Compensation Act’ might seem to suggest that the British government paid compensation to enslaved people, for the horrors they had experienced.

Join our detective and her team they discover the truth about this controversial act.

Lesson highlights

A close look at different views of the Slave Compensation Act
A journey through the campaign to end slavery in the British Empire, and key facts about the context of the Slave Compensation Act
An introduction to building different historical arguments about the Slave Compensation Act and the British Empire

Detective	Thanks for joining, team. We’ve got a big mystery to solve. We’re here in the library, searching through the archives. But we also need your expertise, in numbers…
Stats	Got you covered, Detective. I basically am maths.
Detective	...and digital marketing…
Digital	It’s true – nothing’s ever been solved without digital marketing.
Stats	What about before we had computers?
Digital	Tsh, when was that?
Stats	Like, in the last century.
Digital	Then what are we talking on, right now?
Stats	...a computer?
Digital	Let’s get back on topic. Something here just doesn’t add up. We know the British transatlantic slave trade starts with John Hawkins in the fifteen-hundreds. Millions of people are taken from Africa. The ‘slave trade triangle’ is established, and Britain builds a wealthy empire on the backs of enslaved people. But there is always resistance; and in 1833 the British government finally passes the Slavery Abolition Act, which makes it illegal to own and sell human beings. So here’s what I don’t get: the British slave-owners don’t complain. The Act passes through Parliament with no opposition. Almost like they were happy for abolition to take place…
Archivist	Detective, you’ve gotta see this. 1837 – the Slave Compensation Act.
Detective	The Slave Compensation Act? What’s that – did Britain compensate enslaved people, for the horror of what they’d been through?
Archivist	I wish, Detective. But no – it’s the British government compensating slave-owners for abolition: for the loss of their ‘property’.
Detective	The ‘property’ being the men, women, and children who they had kept as slaves?
Archivist	Exactly. And look at these numbers – twenty million pounds paid out to slave-owners at the time. That was nearly half of the British government’s entire tax income for the year.
Detective	Twenty million pounds in 1837. What’s that in today’s money?
Stats	Bear with, Detective, calculating now… In the 21st century, that’s between sixteen and seventeen billion pounds.
Detective	So British slave-owners were getting very rich from abolition. Who were these people?
Stats	To be honest, they were pretty much everywhere in British society. There were over forty-thousand compensation claims. They were old and young, from all corners of the country; middle and upper class; bankers, butchers and bakers, home-makers, teachers, vicars, soldiers, doctors and politicians…
Digital	Anyone from digital marketing?
Detective	Sorry?
Digital	Well, she was listing jobs, so I thought she might say someone from digital marketing. Which is my job.
Archivist	I don’t think they had digital marketing in 1837.
Digital	Oh, right – well that’s an error. It’s pretty essential for building an online following.
Archivist	They didn’t have – y’know what, doesn’t matter.
Detective	Tell me more about these slave-owners. How do we know about them?
Stats	There’s a big free database of slave compensation, built by researchers at University College London. They based their research on the government’s own survey of 1834, which asked British people how many slaves they owned and where, and how much the enslaved people were worth. This would decide how much compensation you get.
Archivist	Now this is a fascinating document. It’s one of the first ever standardised forms, where you fill in the boxes with your name, occupation, and address. Forms like this are everywhere in society nowadays.
Detective	Wait, we have their home addresses? So we can see exactly where slave-owners lived?
Stats	Absolutely. Zoom in anywhere.
Detective	My goodness. They really were everywhere. People still live in these houses today.
Stats	And it’s not just individuals – businesses got rich too. Even today, a lot of the top companies and banks were built on slave compensation money. And the British Government was still paying off the debts in 2015!
Archivist	You can see why slave-owners didn’t complain when abolition was passed. It was an opportunity for them to make big money, and to own even more things.
Detective	That’s it – it’s about property. They realised it didn’t matter what they owned – it could be people, land, or money, as long as it was property of the same value.
Stats	Yes – in fact, a majority of British laws are about property rights. It’s a bit of an obsession.
Detective	So from their point of view, they were just exchanging one kind of ‘property’ for another. I wonder how the abolitionists felt about that.
Archivist	It does make their victory of abolishing slavery seem much less glorious.
Digital	Although... it probably depends which abolitionist you ask.
Detective	Huh?
Digital	Well I guess some would say it’s a price worth paying, if it means they can achieve the aim of abolishing slavery. The white British campaigners like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson might have thought that, for example.
Detective	I’ve heard about Clarkson and Wilberforce...
Digital	Right. That’s partly because they were wealthy powerful men, who could buy great marketing! Thomas Clarkson’s friend Josiah Wedgwood made this famous campaign image, showing a Black man in chains begging for freedom. It became a very fashionable accessory. ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ – top slogan.
Detective	I can see how that stirred sympathy among the British public. But enslaved people did much more than begging, right?
Stats	That’s true. Enslaved people had been rising up for centuries. In 1831 Samuel Sharpe led a rebellion of sixty-thousand people in Jamaica, just two years before abolition.
Archivist	And don’t forget the excellent books written by Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano. They each wrote detailed first-hand accounts of being enslaved, which were hugely popular, and swayed public opinion in favour of abolition.
Digital	In fact, Mary Prince’s book sold out three whole print runs in a single year. Now that’s what I call influencing. She would’ve loved digital marketing.
Detective	...she says that about everyone…?
Archist	What do you think Mary Prince would have made of the Compensation Act?
Digital	Hard to say, isn’t it? But put it this way: she had seen first-hand the cruelty that happens when some people have too much power over others. Abolition meant there were no slave-owners any more. But compensation meant that the people who had been slave-owners kept their power – it was just converted into another currency. And she might have worried about what those people would do next.
Stats	That’s good. You should put that on the internet.
Digital	It’s a bit long for the internet. I’ll just take a screenshot of us lot. Smile! Nailed it.

8.4 What does the Slave Compensation Act tell us about the British Empire?

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More lessons

8.1 The British Empire (In One Take)

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8.5 How did the British Empire dominate one fifth of the world?

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8.6 What is the legacy of the British Empire today?

Fact Sheet

What was the Slave Compensation Act?

Who claimed compensation?

How do we know about slave-owners?

Why did abolition come about in Britain?

Video Transcript