Slavery / Reparations

"Slavery on an industrial scale was a major source of the wealth of the British empire."

Britain's Colonial Shame: Slave-owners Given Huge Payouts after Abolition
By Sanchez Manning
The Independent, February 24, 2013
"The true scale of Britain's involvement in the slave trade has been laid bare in documents revealing how the country's wealthiest families received the modern equivalent of billions of pounds in compensation after slavery was abolished. The previously unseen records show exactly who received what in payouts from the Government when slave ownership was abolished by Britain -- much to the potential embarrassment of their descendants. Dr Nick Draper from University College London, who has studied the compensation papers, says as many as one-fifth of wealthy Victorian Britons derived all or part of their fortunes from the slave economy. As a result, there are now wealthy families all around the UK still indirectly enjoying the proceeds of slavery where it has been passed on to them. Dr. Draper said: 'There was a feeding frenzy around the compensation.' A John Austin, for instance, owned 415 slaves, and got compensation of £20,511, a sum worth nearly £17m today. And there were many who received far more. Academics from UCL, led by Dr. Draper, spent three years drawing together 46,000 records of compensation given to British slave-owners into an internet database to be launched for public use on Wednesday. But he emphasised that the claims set to be unveiled were not just from rich families but included many 'very ordinary men and women' and covered the entire spectrum of society.
Dr. Draper added that the database's findings may have implications for the 'reparations debate'. Barbados is currently leading the way in calling for reparations from former colonial powers for the injustices suffered by slaves and their families. Among those revealed to have benefited from slavery are ancestors of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, former minister Douglas Hogg, authors Graham Greene and George Orwell, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the new chairman of the Arts Council, Peter Bazalgette. Other prominent names which feature in the records include scions of one of the nation's oldest banking families, the Barings, and the second Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, an ancestor of the Queen's cousin. Some families used the money to invest in the railways and other aspects of the industrial revolution; others bought or maintained their country houses, and some used the money for philanthropy. George Orwell's great-grandfather, Charles Blair, received £4,442, equal to £3m today, for the 218 slaves he owned. [...]"