British Slave Emancipation

Abstract

This is a study of the West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century. The author draws together the experiences of more than a dozen different sugar colonies and forms them into a coherent historical account. The first part of the book examines the West Indies on the eve of emancipation in 1830; the second explores the politics and society of the islands during the period 1830–65, a key passage in West Indian history. The author presents a general picture of the sugar colonies, and places British governmental policy towards the region in the context of Victorian attitudes towards colonial questions.