PDF Empire's Guestworkers: Haitian Migrants in Cuba during the Age of US Occupation (Afro-Latin America) by Matthew Casey in History

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.