The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War

by Jeff Forret

A prizewinning historian uncovers the first instances of reparations in America—ironically, though perhaps not surprisingly, paid to slaveholders, not former slaves


“A spectacular achievement of historical research. Forret shows for the first time just how far the American government went to secure reparations.”
—Robert Elder‚ author of American Heretic


In 1831, the American ship Comet, carrying 165 enslaved men, women, and children, crashed onto a coral reef near the shore of the Bahamas—then part of the British Empire—where slavery had been outlawed. Shortly afterwards, the Vice Admiralty Court in Nassau, over the outraged objections of the ship’s owners, set the rescued captives free. American slave owners and the companies who insured the liberated human cargoes would spend years lobbying for reparations, not for the emancipated slaves, of course, but for the masters deprived of their human property.


In a work of profoundly relevant research and storytelling, historian and Bancroft Award finalist Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet—as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the antebellum era—resulted in the first direct slavery reparations payments made by the U.S. government, establishing a precedent that has never been fully explored. The Price They Paid shows how, unlike their former owners and insurers, neither the survivors of the Comet and other vessels, nor their descendants, have ever received reparations for the price they paid in their lives, labor, and suffering during slavery.


Any accounting of reparations today requires a fuller understanding of how the debts of slavery have been paid, and to whom. The Price They Paid represents a major step forward in that effort.


 

Genres: History, American History

381 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 19, 2024

Reviews

[ancientreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Price They Paid" must be valuable to specialists: it's detailed and meticulously documented. It's not, I think, suited to readers like me -- general readers who want to deepen their understanding of the slave trade, and the history of slavery in the Atlantic world generally, but who aren't those specialists. For us, the minutiae of legal proceedings and of insurance claims tend to obscure the larger view, the mindset that treats human beings as a commodity that has a sale value, that can be insured on the basis of sale value, and possession of which (which) can be litigated.

It's a paradox, because of course the horror is exemplified by exactly those details, and yet reading through the details has a distancing effect. Some historians could bring them to life; Forret has the research chops but not, I think, the narrative skill. All the same, I have to give this four stars for sheer documentary value.

Thanks to the New Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the value of a human life? This question has long been a focus of philosophical thought, in some periods of history, the popularity of slavery provided a financial value. Professor Jeff Forret's The Price They Paid Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War examines the cases of four American ships that wrecked off the British controlled Bahamas in the 1830s and the fall out from the American held slaves aboard them being freed. What makes this a key moment of study is that Britain had ended the buying and selling of slaves within the British Empire in 1807 and in 1833 abolished it (aside from apprenticeships) completely. Meanwhile, the US was still divided, and as new states entered the Union efforts were made to maintain balance such as in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state.

The four wrecks, Comet, Encomium, Enterprise and Hermosa were all legally transporting slaves within the US, but when they were stranded in the Bahamas, the British agents on the island either declared them free or left the slaves a choice of returning to their masters or being free residents of the Bahamas. Southern states saw this as international meddling and demanded diplomatic efforts from the US government for return or recompense for the loss of the slavers. And in an effort to maintain some balance, US foreign policy officials did so to the best of their efforts, even if they were northern born or based. Some of this is due to Andrew Jackson's presidency, but Forret also demonstrates the political clout of insurance companies and their influence on agenda setting and policy.

Forret narrates these efforts drawing from congressional records, official communications and other materials to detail the eventually successful efforts of the US government to have the UK's government make good on the loss. He is also clear what records survive, typically the governmental and political discussions and which did not, accounts of the formerly enslaved, a portion of the insurance of the enslaved. Reparation is used here as a word by the slave owners for payment for their lost slaves.

Recommended reading to those interested in United States History, diplomacy between the British Empire and the United States, or those studying linguistics.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Mr. Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at my blog, Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Thank you, The New Press, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks and Reparations Before the Civil War, by Jeff Forret.

This book will be released on November 19, 2024.

This book is about four different incidents in which slave ships became shipwrecked while the slaves were being delivered to the United States. In each case, the ship’s owners, financiers of the venture and/or slave traders sued to get their “property” back and then when that wasn’t successful, they demanded reparations as compensation for the loss of their “property.” The United States government was involved in helping them to get their compensation. Government “officials actively and enthusiastically labored to subsidize them for their losses, not unlike the financial rescue of the banks deemed too big to fail during the Great Recession.”

This book was definitely thoroughly researched and is very detailed. Those are big strengths in any history book. But, where this book fell way short was in terms of being interesting. There were occassional interesting pages, but they were buried in a sea of uninteresting accounts and details.

I give this book a C. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on September 22, 2024.

[David Shaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeff Forret's The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War is a fascinating book on the fight between slave owners, the U.S. government and the British Government over reparations for slaves freed when the U.S. ships the Comet, Encomium, Enterprise, and the Hermosa which due to inclement weather were forced to land or be brought to the Bahamas where due to British Law outlawing the slave trade and a later act to outlaw slavery the slaves being transportec were given the option of being emancipated and the Creole were the slaves took obey the ship to escape slavery by a forced landing at Nassau and were subsequently freed from slavery.
The freeing of the slaves from these ships led to a nearly two decade fight between the owners of the freed slaves, U.S. insurance companies, the U.S. Government and the British Government for reparations for the freed slaves as well as trying to determine which countries laws were paramount and how to determine maritime law.
This is an outstanding micro-history that addresses a seldom reviewed aspect of slavery in the United States.

[Jeanette Durkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book. It is very factual in its presentation. The author did a fantastic job with his research! I thought (hoped) that their would be some actual stories regarding the events that took place, but I do realize that authentication would be difficult. I also prefer a lot of pictures and this book only has a few. The lists of the captives at the end are very sobering.

I won a complimentary copy of this book from LibraryThing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Craig Gorsuch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really impressed with the book. Having lived in parts of the country that had study groups,
and book clubs and actual reenactments of battles. It was something to read about prewar incidents
that would lead to the Civil War. The book should be used in the study of the Civil War. It is extremely detailed and supported by the findings of the author Jeff Forret.