Compensation History by Guy Grannum


This database has been compiled from the returns of people who received compensation following the 1833 emancipation act which freed slaves in the British colonies in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, Mauritius and Cape Colony (South Africa).

These lists were presented to both Houses of the British Parliament on 16 January 1838 and are printed in the Parliamentary Papers, session 1837-38, volume XLVIII (paper 215). A supplementary list, updating the original return, was compiled in 1840 and is held in the National Archives (TNA) in Kew, London under the reference CO 318/150. These lists are incomplete as a small proportion of contested claims were not resolved until after 1840 and no further returns have been found.

The names of these claimants are not known and have been recorded as 'unknown' in the Barbados claims on this database.

Legal

Under the 1833 emancipation act Parliament voted a sum of up to £20 million towards compensating the Persons at present entitled to the services of the Slaves to be manumitted and set free by virtue of this Act for the loss of such services (section XXIV). In other words slave owners and their representatives received compensation for the loss of their lawful property, and not the former enslaved people.

This money was granted to appease the very powerful West India lobby of planters, merchants and businessmen, many of whom were Members of Parliament and Lords. For example, William Ewart Gladstone's father, John Gladstone had been an MP, and owned plantations in Jamaica and Guyana.

Allocation of Compensation

Under the Act commissioners were appointed to assess lawful ownership of slaves, the value of those slaves, and to allocate compensation. This compensation was apportioned according to the average value of slaves, which varied between the individual countries, and by age and occupation. The award slave owners received was based on the number of slaves, their ages and occupations as registered in the slave registers and legally held at the date of emancipation. The dates of emancipation were 1 August 1834 in the Caribbean; 1 December 1834 in Cape Colony and 1 February 1835 in Mauritius.

The occupations of individual slaves for compensation purposes were set out in the act: where the former slaves were divided into three distinct classes, the first of such classes consisting of praedial apprenticed labourers attached to the soil, and comprising all persons who in their state of slavery were usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce or otherwise, upon lands belonging to their owners; the second of such classes consisting of praedial apprenticed labourers not attached to the soil, and comprising all persons who in their state of slavery were usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce or otherwise, upon lands not belonging to their owners; and the third of such classes consisting of non praedial apprenticed labourers and comprising all apprenticed labourers not included within either of the two preceding classes. There were two further categories: children under the age of 6 on the date of emancipation, and aged and infirm or otherwise non-effective.

The awards were compiled into 5 lists:

  • List A: awards made in respect of uncontested claims
  • List B: amount of compensation money forfeited under the 46th Section of the Act 3&4 William IV cap 73
  • List C: awards made in respect of litigated claims
  • List D: awards made for the payment or transfer of the compensation money into court by order of the High Court of Chancery
  • List E: transfers made by the accountant general of the High Court of Chancery in pursuance of orders of the colonial courts

Distribution by Country

There are separate returns for each country which give the following information:

  • date of award
  • claim number
  • names of person(s) making the claim.

Claimants

In most instances the person making the claim will be the slave owner, but it could also be an executor, trustee, guardian, treasurer, or creditor etc. For example, you will not find a claim under the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts who owned the largest estate in Barbados, the Codrington Plantation. Instead, the Society's treasurer James Heywood Markland is the claimant for the 410 slaves (claim 4215) for £8558 2/2d.

If you find anyone of interest make a note of the claim number because you may be able to find further information about the person, their estate, and their slaves from the Slave Compensation Commissioners' papers at The National Archives under the reference T 71. The records are organised by country and then by claim number. However, many of the records relating to litigated claims are arranged by date of award and it can be difficult finding all of their records.

The following are the more useful records for genealogists, they are all in claim number order:

  • 1. Original claims and certificates: volumes relating to ordinary claims, containing a copy certificate of the claim and the original claim. These are signed by the claimant and may include details missing from the slave registers, such as birth of children born after the last registration, and these usually give the mother's name.
  • 2. Counter-claims: these are loose papers with evidence used in counter-claims. They include the claim and correspondence and other evidence relating to the claim and counter-claim and may include information on the family and property, details of ownership and any loans. You may find information relating to slaves which predate the start of the slave registers, most of which start in 1817.
  • 3. Adjudication in contested claims; volumes summarising contested claims, containing the names of the parties contesting the claim, date of deeds, subject of the counter-claim, name of claimant, and remarks.

Other useful related records

NDO 4: this collection, again in country and then claim number order, contains payment books describing the sum of money actually paid out, based on the original valuation to which interest was added. Payments for counter-claims are towards the end of the returns but these are listed by date of payment rather than claim number.

AO 14: these registers are in country and claim number order and provide details on where the claimant was living in order to receive their award. Most were received locally in the Caribbean but some are describe as living overseas and occasionally these may give address.

To find out information on individual slaves you need to consult the slave registers. These are also held by The National Archives in T 71, these are arranged by country and then by slave owner. They are a census of all slaves for the period from about 1817 to 1834 when slavery was abolished. They were first established under British laws in Trinidad in 1813 and St Lucia in 1815. The other countries passed their own laws to establish local slave registries. Between 1816 and 1817, most had done so, although some started later: Bermuda in 1821, the Bahamas in 1822, Anguilla in 1827, and the Cayman Islands and Belize in 1834.

The slave registries were set up under a mixture of central and local laws, so the information recorded varies from country to country. The registers are arranged by owner and most contain indexes to owners or estates.

The first return is a general list of all slaves. Most later returns show only the changes to the slave populations such as deaths, births and manumissions and the movement of slaves between owners: imports, exports, sales, purchases, inheritances and gifts. Most returns group the slaves according to gender and age - so there are lists of men, boys, women and lastly girls, with few clues to family relationships.

The registers provide personal information on enslaved people:

  • Name - usually this is only the plantation name, but St Lucia, Trinidad and Belize give surnames and Jamaica states a baptismal name.
  • Age - this may be an estimate, especially for people born in Africa.
  • Colour - often this is only black/negro for people of pure African descent, or mulatto/coloured for people of mixed European and African origins and usually means that the person is of European paternal ancestry.
  • Place of birth - this might just say African or Creole (born in the Americas); others may give country of birth and occasionally African ethnic group.
  • Occupation – this was later used by the compensation commissioners to categorise the slaves for compensation purposes

Other information may include mother's name, physical description including disabilities, country marks for Africa-born people, date of birth, death or manumission, and the names of people receiving or purchasing slaves.

The registers also provide some information on owners. For example, they indicate if a person had died, or recently married because slaves were often included as dowry gifts. Registers for Barbados, Antigua and St Vincent indicate if the owner was a freed man or woman. See the Moving Here website for further information on the slave registers.

The 1834 slave register for Barbados compiled in March 1834 is available on Ancestry. You can search the database by name of slave owner, or slave name, age or nationality for free, but there is a charge to view the images.