This database has been compiled from the returns of people who received compensation
following the 1833 emancipation act which freed slaves in the British colonies in
the Caribbean, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, Mauritius and Cape Colony (South Africa).
These lists were presented to both Houses of the British Parliament on 16 January
1838 and are printed in the Parliamentary Papers, session 1837-38, volume XLVIII
(paper 215). A supplementary list, updating the original return, was compiled in
1840 and is held in the National Archives (TNA) in Kew, London under the reference
CO 318/150. These lists are incomplete as a small proportion of contested claims
were not resolved until after 1840 and no further returns have been found.
The names of these claimants are not known and have been recorded as 'unknown' in
the Barbados claims on this database.