Familiar legacy of the slave trade

It reveals plantation owners received over £20 million in compensation for slaves when the Emancipation Bill was passed in 1833, 26 years after the much heralded Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807.

Even after emancipation, slaves had to work as unpaid apprentices until the system was phased out several years later.

Owners of 4,000 estates, including MPs, sheriffs, authors and philanthropists who had profited from years of free labour, were then handsomely remunerated from public funds.

I have talked to dozens of groups here and am still discovering slave owners in Devon, where the first British slave ships embarked under John Hawkins in 1562.

Bishop Henry Philpott of Exeter, who consecrated Honiton Church, was paid £12,000 for "losing" 660 slaves.

The then Tory MP for Honiton, whose father managed a slaver's bank in Bristol, went even better and claimed over £40,000 for 1,600 slaves on 17 plantations - that's about £3m in today's money.

Of course the slaves got nothing except the chance to work. Still sounds familiar doesn't it?

Tony Simpson

Honiton