The British Empire formally emancipated its slaves in the Caribbean on 1 August 1834, then in South Africa on 1 December 1834 and in Mauritius on 1 February 1835. This arose largely in response to humanitarian pressures. Groups such as the Anti-Slavery Society sought not only to end the brutal system of enslaved labour but also to address the systematic marginalisation of people of colour from colonial society and to reform standards of social and moral conduct among both black and white populations. With the benefit of tuition by humanitarian agents, former slaves would take their place within a new society of free labourers, negotiating with planters and farmers for the terms on which their labour would be sold, and working more productively because they were now to be driven by their own desire for consumption rather than by the lash. The intention was, therefore, not to destroy the plantation sectors of these colonies but rather to rebalance them away from slavery towards a more efficient, humane system of free labour, but one ultimately still marked by social and economic hierarchies. The grant of £20 million to slave-owners in compensation was intended to aid this process by enabling planters to clear their debts and retool their plantations to meet the new conditions of free labour. This article examines one aspect of the system, the £1.5 million of this compensation that found its way into the banks founded in these territories between 1835 and 1840, and how it helped the process of transition in South Africa in particular. In the sugar colonies of the Caribbean and Mauritius, the money supported a new system of indentured plantation labour; in South Africa, it was channelled into banks that supported the existing agriculture of the western Cape and the expansion of settler capitalism in the eastern Cape. This enabled planters and farmers to ride out emancipation with far fewer changes to the wider societies and economies of the former slave colonies than humanitarians and abolitionists had hoped.

大英帝国于 1834 年 8 月 1 日在加勒比地区、1834 年 12 月 1 日在南非和 1835 年 2 月 1 日在毛里求斯正式解放奴隶。这主要是为了应对人道主义压力。反奴隶制协会等团体不仅寻求结束奴役劳动的残酷制度，而且还解决殖民社会有色人种被系统边缘化的问题，并改革黑人和白人人口的社会和道德行为标准。受益于人道主义代理人的学费，前奴隶将在一个新的自由劳工社会中占据一席之地，与种植园主和农民就他们的劳动力出售条件进行谈判，并且因为他们现在要被驱使而工作更有成效由他们自己的消费欲望而不是睫毛。因此，其目的不是摧毁这些殖民地的种植园，而是将它们从奴隶制转向更有效、更人道的自由劳动体系，但最终仍以社会和经济等级为标志。向奴隶主提供 2000 万英镑的补偿金旨在通过使种植者能够清偿债务并改造种植园以满足新的自由劳动条件来帮助这一进程。本文考察了该体系的一个方面，即 1835 年至 1840 年间进入这些地区的银行的 150 万英镑补偿，以及它如何帮助南非的转型进程。在加勒比和毛里求斯的糖业殖民地，这笔钱支持了一种新的契约种植园劳工制度；在南非，它被引导到支持西开普省现有农业和东开普省定居者资本主义扩张的银行。这使种植者和农民能够度过解放，而对前奴隶殖民地更广泛的社会和经济的变化比人道主义者和废奴主义者所希望的要少得多。