The slave family in the transition to freedom: Barbados, 1834–1841

Abstract

This article provides a new vision of the 1841 debates over child mortality in Barbados by examining the crisis as the result of the prolonged struggle for control over Afro-Barbadian families formed in slavery. The eviction of children and parents from Barbados estates in 1834 and 1838 provides us with fragmentary evidence to trace the networks of extended kin and ‘visiting’ relationships which had been established by the enslaved. In freedom, these family forms and strategies faced new pressures as control over the means of gaining subsistence became a central form of labour coercion. This resulted in deteriorating living conditions for the former slaves and mounting child mortality between 1834 and 1841.