Between Blood and Gold

<p> Today a century and a half after the abolition of slavery across most of the Americas the idea of monetary reparations for former slaves and their descendants continues to be a controversial one. Lost among these debates however is the fact that such payments were widespread in the nineteenth century-except the victims were not slaves but the slaveholders deprived of their labor. This landmark comparative study analyzes the debates over compensation within France and Great Britain. It lays out in unprecedented detail the philosophical legal-political and economic factors at play establishing a powerful new model for understanding the aftermath of slavery in the Americas.</p>