US Paid Slaveholders Reparations, Not Slaves The shocking truth about America's first emancipation law. On April 16, 1862, the DC Emancipation Act freed 3,000 enslaved people in Washington—but the government paid up to $300 (worth $9,000 today) to 930 slave owners as "compensation for lost property." The enslaved received nothing. Even worse, freed people were offered $100 to leave America. This is the Compensated Emancipation Act they don't teach in schools—backed by National Archives records a