workingclasshistory:

On this day, 1 August 1834, slavery in the British Caribbean officially ended, and the 800,000 enslaved people owned by Britons were “freed”. The move followed major uprisings of enslaved people, for example in Jamaica and Demerara (now part of Guyana).
However, the government compensated the former enslavers, at taxpayers’ expense, for the loss of their “property”: paying them £20 million at the time. This sum constituted 40% of the total government budget that year, and was the largest ever state bailout until the 2009 bank bailout. The debt incurred was only eventually paid off in 2015. Many rich and powerful people in Britain today can trace their wealth back to this compensation, including former Conservative prime minister David Cameron and his wife.
Formerly enslaved people were also forced to work unpaid for 45 hours every week for their former masters for four years.
Often this is referred to as the date the British Empire abolished slavery, but in fact the institution continued in other colonies and British-controlled areas for many years. For example, in the 1960s, Labour and Conservative governments sent troops to defend the sultan of Oman, where slavery was legal until 1970.
Pictured: Illustration of an enslaved revolt in Jamaica https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2047560642095742/?type=3