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Compensated emancipation was a method of ending slavery, under which the enslaved person's owner received compensation from the government in exchange for manumitting the slave. This could be monetary, and it could allow the owner to retain the slave for a period of labor as an indentured servant.[1] In practice, cash compensation rarely was equal to the slave's market value.
A number of countries (see "Other nations and empires" section below) enacted forms of compensated emancipation. In the United States, however, no nationwide compensation system was ever put in place. Only the District of Columbia, which was under federal control, used compensated emancipation as part of ending slavery in 1862.