When Freedom Wasn’t Free: How Slave Owners Got Paid and the Enslaved Were Left with Nothing

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a law that many consider a milestone toward ending slavery in the United States—the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. At first glance, the name might suggest that those who had suffered under slavery were finally being compensated for their pain. But the truth was far from that.

Instead of paying the formerly enslaved, the U.S. government handed out nearly $900,000—around $28 million in today’s value—to about 930 slaveholders who had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War. These individuals received $300 for each person they had once enslaved. In total, almost 3,000 African Americans were freed—but they received next to nothing in return.

The formerly enslaved were offered just $100 (roughly $3,100 in today’s money), and even then, only if they agreed to leave the country altogether. This early gesture toward abolition, often praised in textbooks, laid the groundwork for what would become a long history of ignoring the true victims of slavery when it came to justice and reparations.

The U.S. was not alone in this. Countries like Britain and France had already taken similar paths. In 1835, the British government paid out £20 million (worth over $17 billion today) to slaveholders in the British Empire and parts of the Americas. It was the biggest public payout in British history until the financial crash of 2008. To fund it, Britain even took out a loan so large it wasn’t paid off until 2015—nearly two centuries later.

France went even further. After Haiti won its independence in 1804 through a successful slave uprising, France forced the new nation to pay a massive “independence debt” for the loss of its enslaved labor. That debt, worth between $20 and $30 billion today, took Haiti over 120 years to repay. Historian Marlene Daut has called it “the greatest heist in history.” The legacy of that crippling debt is still felt in Haiti’s ongoing political and economic turmoil, much of which has been shaped by foreign interference.

Today, generations after slavery’s official end, the countries that profited most from it continue to reject calls for reparations. While statues come down and apologies are made, the victims and their descendants have yet to receive the justice they deserve.