Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834

Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834
Author: B. W. Higman
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1995
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789766400088

First published in 1976 (see HLAS 40:2983), work is a masterful analysis of the dynamics of slave labor in the economic growth of early-19th-century Jamaica. Discusses various characteristics of slave and free-colored population including mortality, birth rates, manumission, distribution, and structure, as well as jobs performed on island as a whole. Contains excellent statistical tables and new introduction by author. -Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58

A Jamaican Plantation

A Jamaican Plantation
Author: Michael Craton
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 1970-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487596499

Worthy Park has archives covering much of its three-hundred year history. Using these records, the authors have written the first complete history of a West Indian sugar estate. However, this is not just the story of a single Jamaican plantation and its people over three hundred years; the study reveals, in microcosm, the social and economic development of the area.

From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves

From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves
Author: Mary Turner
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780253210012

"... a very welcome addition to the literature on labour history." --Labour History Review "This is a valuable collection of essays which gives fresh perspectives and interesting empirical data on the modes of labor bargaining by New World slaves and on the transition from 'chattel' to 'wage' slavery." --New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids "Of uniformly high quality, these essays underline the fluidity and dynamic of bargaining processes, the diversity of political and economic contexts, and the importance of external factors.... will provoke discussion on parallels between capitalist agriculture and capitalist industrial organization, and will fuel debates on slave as proletarian, and on the notions of 'peasant breach' and the two economies." --Choice "[These essays] provide important answers to questions relating to levels of slave subsistence, the material conditions of the enslaved, the control mechanisms of owners, the contexts which generated labor bargaining on the part of the enslaved and the reasons owners/employers acquiesced to laborers' demands rather than rely on the coercive power of the whip." --Labor History "[The] contributors deserve commendation for making salutary advances towards developing an integrated analysis of the history of labouring people in slavery and freedom that transcends the particularities of their legal status." --Slavery & Abolition "... this collection addresses an important topic and will serve as a valuable resource for scholars and students of comparative slavery in the Americas." --Judy Bieber, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque The status of labor during slavery and post-emancipation in the Caribbean and the Americas. Contributors investigate the terms under which slaves in the Caribbean, the Southern States, and Latin America worked and how they struggled to establish informal contract terms.

General History of the Caribbean

General History of the Caribbean
Author: Higman, B.W.
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
Total Pages: 1002
Release: 1905-06-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9231033603

This volume looks at the ways historians have written the history of the region, depending upon their methods of interpretation and differing styles of communicating their findings. The chapters discussing methodology are followed by studies of particular themes of historiography. The second half of the volume describes the writing of history in the individual territories, taking into account changes in society, economy and political structure. The final section is a full and detailed bibliography serving not only as a guide to the volume but also as an invaluable reference for the General History of the Caribbcan as a whole.

Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838

Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838
Author: Barbara Bush
Publisher: James Currey
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1990
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780852550588

In this text the author sets forth and then evaulates the images of slave women accumulated in published sources and folklore.

Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom

Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom
Author: Kathleen E. A. Monteith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789766401085

"Jamaica's rich history has been the subject of many books, articles and papers. This collection of eighteen original essays considers aspects of Jamaican history not covered in more general histories of the island, and illluminates more recent developments in Jamaican and West Indian history." "Unique in its interdisciplinary approach, the collection emphasizes the relevance of history to everyday life and the development of a national identity, culture and economy. The essays are organized in three sections: Historiography and Sources; Society, Culture and Heritage; and Economy, Labour and Politics, with contributions from scholars in the Departments of History, Literatures in English and Political Sciences and from the Main Library, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica." -- Book Jacket.

Chattel House Blues

Chattel House Blues
Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9766370869

The remaking of colonial Barbados as a postmodern nation state has its political roots buried deep within the past. In Chattel House Blues, Hilary Beckles sets out to rewrite modern Barbadian history by centring the evolution of the nation in centuries of grassroots struggle. Democracy in Barbados, he argues, as a social, political and cultural reality, has its origins principally within working class demands for freedom, justice and equality and not as a bestowal upon the masses by elites at moments of imperial and colonial enlightenment. In the second volume of his trilogy, Great House Rules: Landless Emancipation and Workers' Protest in Barbados 1838-1938, Prof. Beckles convincingly shows that for the first one hundred years after emancipation, an unbroken chain of resistance, protest and agitation for democratic governance, resulted in a decisive breach in the walls of the structures of white supremacy culminating in the Clement Payne Movement and the Riots of 1937. Black workers and their middle class allies secured Universal Adult Suffrage in 1950 and finally politically independence in 1966, ending the 'Great House Rule' that had begun three hundred years earlier. This process he further argues, reached maturity in 1994 when Owen Arthur, a young man from the chattel house in the plantation tenantry became prime minister. Independence and nationhood, though critical markers in the journey towards social justice and equity d not mean an end to the struggle. The politically enfranchised workers have since risen to an appreciation of their economic rights and the issue of popular economic democracy is now seen as the next step I civil rights development that Barbadians must confront. Chattel House Blues connects current political thinking with the historical process. In producing this work of historical literature that emphasises a people-centred culture of change and transformation, Prof. Beckles' thesis is challenging if not controversial and is bound to result in widespread debate among Barbadians at home and in the diaspora.

Great House Rules

Great House Rules
Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2004
Genre: Barbados
ISBN: 9766370850

"When Emancipation came in 1938, Blacks in Barbados imagined that the terms of their everyday lives would undergo radical change. Instead, an unrelenting landless freedom would be violently imposed upon a community whose conditions of life and work remained largely unchanged, on plantations that produced more sugar with less labour for below subsistence wages. It was the rule of the Great House that subverted the promise of Emancipation. This is the story of the post-Emancipation betrayal of 83, 000 Blacks in Barbados; it is also a narration of how these Blacks prepared for persistent resistance and civil war as the only means to effectively break the rule of the Great House and establish preconditions for genuine Emancipation. The battles over progress were fought on the plantations, in the streets, in the courts, in the Legislative Councils and wherever Blacks recognised sites to effect change. This chain of organised rebellion was linked to produce the 1876 rebellion. Against this background of 19th century popular protest and workers agitation, the modern labour movement, the anti-colonial campaign and the agitation for democratic governance came to maturity by the 1920s. The final breach in the walls of the structure of white supremacy was achieved in 1937 when, under the ideological leadership of Clement Payne, workers took to the streets and fields with arms. Professor Beckles argues that this unbroken chain of protest and political activity from 1838 to the 1937 Riots constitute the Hundred Year War against Great House Rules. It had taken a full century of struggle after emancipation to see, even at a distance, the freedom that was promised by the abolition of slavery legislation. Written in a clear, discourse style, the author succeeds in presenting the text as an accessible document for public consumption, rather than a dense academic work. "

Slaves and Missionaries

Slaves and Missionaries
Author: Mary Turner
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1998
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789766400453

On 27 December 1831 a fire on Kensington Estate in St James, Jamaica signalled the start of one of the largest slave revolts in the Caribbean. Its leaders were leaders also in the mission churches and the independent sects, and their followers expected the missionaries to support them in their bid for wage work and free status. The missionaries, however, sent to save souls from sin in the face of planter hostility, were explicitly committed to neutrality on the slavery issue. This book traces the response of all classes in Jamaican society to mission work, focusing in particular on the dynamic interplay between slaves and missionaries. Embraced as fellow sinners, assured of spiritual equality of all before God, their intellectual equality with whites demonstrated in schools and classes, the slaves imbued Christianity with political purpose and questioned why blacks and whites were equal after death but slave and master in life. The slaves transformed the question into action in the political circumstances created by the decade-long campaign for abolition, and in doing so made the missionaries themselves into committed anti-slavery campaigners.

Out of Slavery

Out of Slavery
Author: Jack Hayward
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2022-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000647536

Out of Slavery, first published in 1985, is a series of articles commissioned on the 150 year anniversary of William Wilberforce’s death and the Act of Parliament abolishing British slavery in 1833. With the background from which the history of slavery was viewed being radically changed, with decolonisation, the advancement of Human Rights, the economic and social consequences of what was done, and left undone, by the Abolitionists and Emancipators and of the situations which they faced. This book offers a broad reappraisal on slavery and freedom from slavery as they can now be seen, and of the contribution and personality of the Abolitionists, particularly of their leader and spokesman William Wilberforce.