[ijpsud]

This is on point. Perhaps (in a very morbid way) it would have been better if the end of slavery had happened slightly later such that there was enough of a "surplus" of support for abolition that slaves and their descendants were actually compensated to some degree.

Though I can't see that the compensation would ever have been significant enough to cover the costs of having been enslaved.

Most slaves were banned by law from learning to read or write, and that alone (I mean, even without being enslaved) would have been an _immense_ cost on any individual trying to make their way in the world at that time.