When Slaveowners Got Reparations

[pangaia]

New York Times
Opinion
When Slaveowners Got Reparations
Lincoln signed a bill in 1862 that paid up to $300 for every enslaved person freed.

By Tera W. Hunter
Dr. Hunter, a professor of American history and African-American studies, specializes in the 19th and 20th centuries.

April 16, 2019

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved people in Washington, the end of a long struggle. But to ease slaveowners’ pain, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300 for every enslaved person freed.

That’s right, slaveowners got reparations. Enslaved African-Americans got nothing for their generations of stolen bodies, snatched children and expropriated labor other than their mere release from legal bondage.

The compensation clause is not likely to be celebrated today. But as the debate about reparations for slavery intensifies, it is important to remember that slaveowners, far more than enslaved people, were always the primary beneficiaries of public largess.

The act is notable because it was the first time that the federal government authorized abolition of slavery, which hastened its demise in Virginia and Maryland as runaways from these states fled to Washington. It offered concrete proof to enslaved people and their allies that the federal government might facilitate the destruction of slavery everywhere. And it confirmed the worst fears of their foes about an interloping tyrannical president.

Abraham Lincoln, however, was anxious to preserve his fragile alliance with loyal slaveholders. He had advocated abolition of slavery in Washington in 1849 as a congressman, to no avail. As president, he encouraged the border states to voluntarily end slavery. He chose Delaware as an ideal place to take the lead in late 1861. But it became clear that Union slaveowners could not be so easily persuaded. This reinforced the need to make congressional emancipation conditioned on compensating them, which put abolitionists in a bind.

BOLD is mine

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/opinion/when-slaveowners-got-reparations.html

[OnDoutside]

1. There was an excellent UK program about how the British government

Paid compensation to former British slave owners, which led to big investments in 19th century Britain.