slavery paid

Scottish businessmen collectively received the equivalent of £2 billion for loss of “property”on the outlawing of slavery, according to new research by a network of historians.

During the 1830s, the UK exchequer paid out £400,000 to around 100 Scottish claimants, mostly with Glasgow addresses.

The sums were to compensate for the freeing of their slave labour force. The total amount for the UK was £20 million. If equated to a proportion of national income at that time, the Scottish figure alone is equivalent to around £2bn in today’s terms.

Compensation to slave-owners was achieved largely due to the lobbying efforts of the West India societies, of which Glasgow had one of the most influential. The activities of the society, founded in 1807 and continuing to lobby on behalf of Caribbean sugar interests until the 1960s.