The US compensated enslavers but almost no enslaved people chose relocation

Evidence

Most enslavers received only a fraction of what they requested. This was unsurprising given that the Compensated Emancipation Act’s 1 million allocation was estimated to cover about one-third of the real value of those enslaved. The act also allocated up to 100,000 (almost $3 million today) for any of the formerly enslaved who wanted to relocate to Haiti or Liberia. According to historian Kenneth J. Winkle, Thomas C. Sorensen Professor of American History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Almost no one chose to leave.” — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 101

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the DC Compensated Emancipation Act’s dollar figures as context for the reparations accounting argument.