British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834

British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834
Author: J. R. Ward
Publisher:
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1988
Genre: History
ISBN:

The first account of Caribbean slavery to draw from the plantation records of several different sugar colonies, this book examines the attempts made by British West Indian planters to improve the treatment of their slaves, partly in response to the anti-slavery movement. Ward argues that although the measures taken did raise the standard of living and productive efficiency of plantation slaves, "amelioration" contained serious weaknesses that made it ultimately ineffective as a means of defending the institution of slavery. Though focused on the British West Indies, the book's main theme--the potential for reform and economic development in slave-based societies--will hold wider significance for a variety of economic and social historians.

Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean

Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean
Author: Randy M. Browne
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2017-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812294270

A groundbreaking study of slavery and power in the British Caribbean that foregrounds the struggle for survival Atlantic slave societies were notorious deathtraps. In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another. Grounded in the nineteenth-century British colony of Berbice, one of the Atlantic world's best-documented slave societies and the last frontier of slavery in the British Caribbean, Browne argues that the central problem for most enslaved people was not how to resist or escape slavery but simply how to stay alive. Guided by the voices of hundreds of enslaved people preserved in an extraordinary set of legal records, Browne reveals a world of Caribbean slavery that is both brutal and breathtakingly intimate. Field laborers invoked abolitionist-inspired legal reforms to protest brutal floggings, spiritual healers conducted secretive nighttime rituals, anxious drivers weighed the competing pressures of managers and the condition of their fellow slaves in the fields, and women fought back against abusive masters and husbands. Browne shows that at the core of enslaved people's complicated relationships with their enslavers and one another was the struggle to live in a world of death. Provocative and unflinching, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean reorients the study of Atlantic slavery by revealing how differently enslaved people's social relationships, cultural practices, and political strategies appear when seen in the light of their unrelenting struggle to survive.

Testing the Chains

Testing the Chains
Author: Michael Craton
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801475283

Sugar and Slavery

Sugar and Slavery
Author: Richard B. Sheridan
Publisher: Canoe Press (IL)
Total Pages: 572
Release: 1994
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789768125132

This book covers the changing preference of growing sugar rather than tobacco which had been the leading crop in the trans-Atlantic colonies. The Sugar Islands were Antigua, Barbados, St. Christopher, Dominica, and Cuba through Trinidad. Jamaica has been by far the major producer of sugar, but The Lesser Antilles had the advantage of a shorter sea trip to deliver produce and rum to the European Markets during the 18th and 19th Centuries.

British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery

British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery
Author: Barbara Lewis Solow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2004-07-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521533201

The proceedings of a conference on Caribbean slavery and British capitalism are recorded in this volume. Convened in 1984, the conference considered the scholarship of Eric Williams & his legacy in this field of historical research.

The Rebel Woman in the British West Indies During Slavery

The Rebel Woman in the British West Indies During Slavery
Author: Lucille Mathurin
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press
Total Pages: 52
Release: 1975
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789768017246

"The Rebel Woman describes a period in Jamaica's history where women played an important part in different forms of protest against slavery. Mair's book details both the negative and positive methods of protest used by the enslaved people of the West Indies. An excellent reference for students researching topics relating to slavery, freedom and gender.

Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement

Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement
Author: Gelien Matthews
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807131318

"Focusing on slave revolts that took place in Barbados in 1816, in Demerara in 1823, and in Jamaica in 1831-32, Matthews identifies four key aspects in British abolitionist propaganda regarding Caribbean slavery: the denial that antislavery activism prompted slave revolts, the attempt to understand and recount slave uprisings from the slaves' perspectives, the portrayal of slave rebels as victims of armed suppressors and as agents of the antislavery movement, and the presentation of revolts as a rationale against the continuance of slavery. She makes use of previously overlooked publications of British abolitionists to prove that their language changed over time in response to slave uprisings.".

Island on Fire

Island on Fire
Author: Tom Zoellner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674984307

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award “Impeccably researched and seductively readable...tells the story of Sam Sharpe’s revolution manqué, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that’s acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time.” —Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising The final uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica started as a peaceful labor strike a few days shy of Christmas in 1831. A harsh crackdown by white militias quickly sparked a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. The rebels lost their daring bid for freedom, but their headline-grabbing defiance triggered a decisive turn against slavery. Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of these transformative events. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner uses diaries, letters, and colonial records to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and briefly tasted liberty. He brings to life the rebellion’s enigmatic leader, the preacher Samuel Sharpe, and shows how his fiery resistance turned the tide of opinion in London and hastened the end of slavery in the British Empire. “Zoellner’s vigorous, fast-paced account brings to life a varied gallery of participants...The revolt failed to improve conditions for the enslaved in Jamaica, but it crucially wounded the institution of slavery itself.” —Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal “It’s high time that we had a book like the splendid one Tom Zoellner has written: a highly readable but carefully documented account of the greatest of all British slave rebellions, the miseries that led to it, and the momentous changes it wrought.” —Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains

The First Black Slave Society

The First Black Slave Society
Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Barbadians
ISBN: 9789766405854

Book describes the brutal Black slave society and plantation system of Barbados and explains how this slave chattel model was perfected by the British and exported to Jamaica and South Carolina for profit. There is special emphasis on the role of the concept of white supremacy in shaping social structure and economic relations that allowed slavery to continue. The book concludes with information on how slavery was finally outlawed in Barbados, in spite of white resistance.