Ian Birrell

Abolishing slavery was no cause for smugness

With slave populations forced to pay crippling fees for freedom, emancipation prolonged, and often worsened, the injustice, Kris Manjapra argues

Howe Browne, the governor of Jamaica, who oversaw ‘the Apprenticeship’ of the island’s black population shortly after the Abolition Act. [Alamy]

  • Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation

    Kris Manjapra

    Allen Lane, pp. 256, £20

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