Twenty million pounds was paid in 1833 to approximately 46,000 claimants who had registered their ownership of enslaved people under the Abolition Act. The payments were processed through the Slave Compensation Commission. Records survive of exactly who received what and in respect of which enslaved people. The sum represented roughly 40 percent of total government expenditure in 1833, a very significant fiscal commitment.
The loan raised to fund the compensation was serviced by British taxpayers until it was finally paid off in 2015, meaning that the financial burden of abolition was distributed across British society for 180 years. The enslaved people freed received nothing directly, which was a profound injustice. But the state did bear a very substantial financial cost to end slavery, a cost that its taxpayers continued to service for over a century and a half.
