Enslavers complained the $300 compensation was too low, not too high

Evidence

The bill was not popular with residents in the District of Columbia. They were especially troubled by the effort to “deprive them of their property without a fair equivalent,” since they viewed the $300 average compensation as woefully inadequate. (Postwar valuations of enslaved persons were low given the uncertainty of slavery, whereas prewar values for adults “without blemish” were much higher.) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 70

Categorization

• XREF: Charts with the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s framing? No — better tie: this is the compensation-per-head figure central to any reparations accounting debate; the fact that enslavers deemed even government compensation inadequate prefigures contemporary arguments that reparations are unpayable