Legacies of the Slave Trade

When colonial slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid £20 million to slave-owners as compensation for the loss of their "property". In today's terms that figure equates to around £16.5 billion. The enslaved received nothing.

Legacies of British slave ownership

Legacies of British Slave-Ownership is the umbrella for two projects based at University College London (UCL):

The Legacies of British Slave-Ownership
The Structure and Significance of British Caribbean Slave-Ownership 1763 to 1833.

UCL has produced a searchable and freely accessible database of all slave-owners in the British Caribbean at the time slavery ended. The starting point for this work was the records of the Slave Compensation Commission, which distributed the compensation to slave-owners.

The UCL database concerns slave-owners. Registers of the enslaved are held by the National Archives. Further information is also available from The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

Ending slavery

The Road to Abolition

Learn about the formation of the Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade.
Notable Legal Cases

Read about some of the notable legal cases concerning slavery and the slave trade.
Slavery After 1807

Find out what happened following the Abolition Act in 1807.
Women Against Slavery

Find out about women abolitionists and listen to our podcasts about women's involvement in the anti-slavery campaign.
1834: The End of Slavery?

Slavery continued in some territories run by the East India Company as not all parts of the British Empire came under the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.
Legacies of the Slave Trade

When slavery was abolished, slave owners were compensated, the enslaved received nothing. Here we link to registers of both owners and the enslaved.
Legacies of Slavery and Abolition in Listed Places

The National Heritage List for England includes our research into places with a connection to the slave trade and the campaign for its abolition.