The Price They Paid - by Jeff Forret (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A prizewinning historian uncovers the first instances of reparations in America, paid to slaveholders, not former slaves"--

Book Synopsis

A prizewinning historian uncovers one of the earliest 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 Calhoun: American Heretic

Winner of the Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Nonfiction

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. Shortly afterward, 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 cargo would spend years lobbying for reparations from Great Britain, 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 Frederick Douglass Prize-winner Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet incident--as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the next decade--resulted in the British Crown making reparations payments to a U.S. government that strenuously represented slaveholder interests. Through a story 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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Price They Paid:

"Weaving together rich character portraits of diplomats, lawyers, and other players involved on both sides of the Atlantic, this is an enlightening examination of what moves the levers of power."
-Publishers Weekly

"A detailed and worthy study of the clash of abolitionist and pro-slavery forces in early America."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A brilliant excavation of a lost corner of American history, The Price They Paid reveals that today's debates over what we owe the descendants of slavery have deep and complicated roots. A riveting read in its own right--and an essential touchstone for anyone grappling with reparations in the twenty-first century."

--Michael Eric Dyson, university distinguished professor, Vanderbilt University, and New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop

"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 Calhoun: American Heretic

About the Author

Jeff Forret is University Professor of History at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. He has authored or edited seven books, including the award-winning Slave Against Slave: Plantation Violence in the Old South, Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and His Cargo of Black Convicts, and The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War (The New Press). He lives in Lumberton, Texas.