Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners
Two-part documentary looking at the abolition of slavery in Britain and the extraordinary choice by the government of the day to compensate slave owners for their loss of 'property'.
- 2015-2015
- 1 season
- Documentary
Two-part documentary looking at the abolition of slavery in Britain and the extraordinary choice by the government of the day to compensate slave owners for their loss of 'property'.
Season 1 Episode Guide
2 Episodes 2015
Episode 1
Profit and Loss
59 mins
David Olusoga reveals how more than 40,000 ordinary middle or lower class Britons in Georgian times owned thousands of slaves on plantations in British overseas territories such as Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Antigua, St Vincent and Tobago, and why the British government set up The Slave Compensation Commission to pay out around 20 millions pounds in compensation to British slave owners when slavery was abolished in 1834. The story of their involvement in the slave trade began when a group of around 50 British settlers together with their indentured servants landed on the then uninhabited island of Barbados in 1627.
Episode 2
The Price of Freedom
60 mins
David Olusoga reveals how British slave owners received around £20 million in compensation due to abolition. Although the slave trade in Britain was abolished in 1834, British slave owners waged a decades long battle in an effort to continue the slave trade. The debate about compensation began in the late 18th century when Britain's abolition movement was campaigning to end the transatlantic slave trade. William Wilberforce was the major driving force behind the trade's eventual abolition but concessions would be needed from both sides in order to facilitate abolition and compensation.