Island Of Jamaica Research Articles

The type species of the genus Geotrygon Gosse, 1847 (Aves: Columbidae).

The generic name Geotrygon was introduced by Gosse (1847: 316) for some doves from the island of Jamaica and has been subsequently used for the so-called quail-doves of Middle and South America (Baptista et al. 1997; Gibbs et al. 2001; Dickinson 2003; Dickinson & Remsen 2013). Johnson & Weckstein (2011) and Banks et al. (2013) indicated that this genus is polyphyletic. The application of a generic name is determined by its type species (Art. 42.3 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature; ICZN 1999; hereafter the Code). A literature search showed that different nominal species have been proposed as the type species of Geotrygon, and the situation thus requires clarification.

‘I am the only woman!’: the racial dimensions of patriarchy and the containment of white women in James Hakewill’sA Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica … (1825)

White females were dramatically absent from Caribbean ‘high’ art of the early nineteenth century. This article explores James Hakewill’s visual representation of upper-class white women through the lens of Lady Maria Nugent and Eliza Chadwick Roberts’s early nineteenth-century Jamaican sojourns. Of the 21 prints in Hakewill’s A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica (1825), only two included white women. Although by far the smallest portion of the Jamaican population at the time, this white female disappearance was not simply connected to their demographic minority status. Rather, this article explores the selective absence and containment of white women as an ideological strategy, which erased their direct participation in plantation slavery and preserved their idealised reputations as refined purveyors of ‘polite’ society.

Site suitability and the analytic hierarchy process: How GIS analysis can improve the competitive advantage of the Jamaican coffee industry

This paper presents a site suitability model for growing coffee in the island of Jamaica and how it can be used to assist the development of the Jamaican coffee industry as it seeks to regain the presence it once had in the specialty coffee market. Home to the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee – one of the world's most exotic and expensive coffees, the industry has struggled in face of increased competition in the specialty coffee market and increasing costs of production. This decline in competitive advantage has forced stakeholders to seek innovative means to remain viable. This suitability model integrated the perspectives of local coffee stakeholders using the analytic hierarchy process to determine the weights for the biophysical and infrastructure criteria used in the suitability analysis. The results indicated that the most suitable locations for growing coffee in the island were in the mountainous core of central and eastern Jamaica, especially in and around the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee region and the hills of south-central Jamaica. The results also highlighted areas with limited coffee production potential across the island. This model lays the groundwork for potential applications of the model such as its use in policy making decisions and scenario planning as the industry contemplates the possible impacts of climate change on coffee growing regions across the island. This suitability model promises to be a stepping stone in the creation of novel applications of geospatial technology in agriculture within small islands.

‘Ready for big school’: making the transition to primary school – a Jamaican perspective

The aim of this small-scale, qualitative study is to understand the perspective of varying stakeholders responsible for student transitions from pre-primary to primary school in the Jamaican context. The questions that guided the research are: What factors affect student transitions to primary school? What skills do children need in order to successfully transition? and Who/what is responsible for preparing students to transition from pre-primary to primary school? To answer these questions a representative from the Early Childhood Commission, 13 parents and 16 Grade 1 teachers from 12 schools across the island of Jamaica were interviewed. Findings reveal that student transitions from pre-primary to primary school need systematic attention particularly in light of how this impacts on student success, not only in primary school, but in their secondary years as well. The data also reveal that a major issue affecting student transitions is the quality of pre-primary education and parenting practices in the early years. Also highlighted are the differing perspectives of teachers and parents on the skills needed for success in primary school. Parenting programmes and professional development for both parents and teachers, respectively, are critical if strides are to be made.

Index of Suspicion in the Nursery

A male infant was born at 38-4/7-weeks’ gestation to a 39-year-old gravida 6, para 4012 mother, who presented for induction of labor because of oligohydramnios. The mother’s previous deliveries included a now healthy 18-year-old woman born at term (different father from the subsequent 3 children), 2 term neonatal demises that occurred at 4 days after birth, a healthy 5-year-old boy, and the current fetus, all reported to be from the same father. All except the last living child were born on the island of Jamaica. Both infants who died presented with early respiratory distress and succumbed in the neonatal period. Autopsies revealed hyaline membrane disease in those infants. Prenatal ultrasonography of the current fetus revealed normal development. At 34 weeks’ gestation, a course of betamethasone was administered. All prenatal serologic test results were unremarkable except for group B Streptococcus, which was unknown at the time of delivery. She received adequate penicillin prophylaxis. The infant was born by induced vaginal delivery because of oligohydramnios. The infant had spontaneous cry at delivery but became apneic at 5 minutes after birth and required positive pressure ventilation and endotracheal intubation. Apgar scores were 8 and 4 at 1 and 5 minutes, respectively. Birth weight was in the 11th percentile (2.62 kg), length in the 30th percentile (48 cm), and head circumference in the second percentile (30.5 cm). On admission to the neonatal intensive care unit, the infant had physical examination findings significant only for respiratory distress and pallor. Radiography revealed clear lung fields. The infant receives conventional ventilation and requires a fraction of inspired oxygen of 0.3 to 0.35 to maintain oxygen saturations …

A new Orchid species of the genus Brassavola (§Cuneilabia) from the west Indian Island of Jamaica

A new Orchid species of the genus Brassavola (§Cuneilabia) from the west Indian Island of Jamaica

Convergent evolution in the territorial communication of a classic adaptive radiation: Caribbean Anolis lizards

To demonstrate adaptive convergent evolution, it must be shown that shared phenotypes have evolved independently in different lineages and that a credible selection pressure underlies adaptive evolution. There are a number of robust examples of adaptive convergence in morphology for which both these criteria have been met, but examples from animal behaviour have rarely been tested as rigorously. Adaptive convergence should be common in behaviour, especially behaviour used for communication, because the environment often shapes the evolution of signal design. In this study we report on the origins of a shared design of a territorial display among Anolis species of lizards from two island radiations in the Caribbean. These lizards perform an elaborate display that consists of a complex series of headbobs and dewlap extensions. The way in which these movements are incorporated into displays is generally species specific, but species on the islands of Jamaica and Puerto Rico also share fundamental aspects in display design, resulting in two general display types. We confirm these display types are convergent (the consequence of independent evolution on each island) and provide evidence that the convergence was driven by selection for enhanced signal efficiency. Our study shows how adaptation to common environmental variables can drive the evolution of adaptive, convergent signals in distantly related species.

Polysiphonia subtilissima (Ceramiales, Rhodophyta) from freshwater habitats in North America and Europe is confirmed as conspecific with marine collections

Lam D.W., García-Fernández M.E., Aboal M. and Vis M.L. 2013. Polysiphonia subtilissima (Ceramiales, Rhodophyta) from freshwater habitats in North America and Europe is confirmed as conspecific with marine collections. Phycologia 52: 156–160. DOI: 10.2216/12-085.1Polysiphonia subtilissima has a global marine distribution and has been reported from coastlines of every continent except Antarctica. Here, we report P. subtilissima from a freshwater habitat in Pego-Oliva Natural Park, Spain, which is only the third freshwater record for the genus and the first from Europe. This species was previously identified based on morphology from Juniper Creek (Florida, USA), 140 km from marine tidal influence, as well as from a stream on the island of Jamaica. Two molecular markers (5′ cytochrome c oxidase subunit I barcode and rbcL) were sequenced for the freshwater collections from Spain and Florida. DNA sequences from the freshwater specimens were identical for each marker and were identical or highly similar to previously published P. subtilissima sequences. Both the freshwater samples were collected from alkaline waters (pH 7.6–8.8 and 7.7, respectively) with high conductivity (1900–2700 and 1840 μS cm−1, respectively) for a freshwater ecosystem, suggesting a high concentration of total dissolved solids within these habitats. The high conductivity may have alleviated some of the osmolaric stress to the freshwater P. subtilissima populations.

Abstract 4237: Inhibition of prostate cancer associated kinases by Tillandsia recurvata: A Jamaican medicinal plant

Abstract Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer in men of all ages. The three conventional treatment options include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. In many cases, these treatments are used in combination. Chemotherapy is however the most widely used tool in prostate cancer treatment especially where the cancer has metastasized or spread to other organs of the body. Increased resistance to current chemotherapies by prostate cancer calls for an urgent need to discover and develop new therapeutics that can slow the growth of cancer cells while having lesser side effects on the patients. The development of target therapies for the treatment of human cancers is revolutionizing the concept of cancer treatment today. This type of therapeutic approach is directed to the inhibition of molecular targets that play a pivotal role in tumor progression such as the kinases. It is only in recent years that kinases have emerged as major targets for therapeutics, particularly for cancer related therapies. Relatively few kinase inhibitors have been identified to date and efforts are being made to discover new small molecules kinase inhibitors. The Island of Jamaica is known for its rich biodiversity and abundance of medicinal plants used in folk medicines. In an effort to discover new anticancer drugs from natural products several Jamaican medicinal plants were screened for anticancer activity. The Jamaican Ball Moss (Tillandsia recurvata L.) was one such plant that exhibited potent activity against the PC-3 prostate cancer cell line in vitro (IC50 = 2.4µg/ml) and was selected for further studies. The crude extract of Ball Moss was screened for interaction with 451 kinases. The crude Ball Moss extract showed potent kinase inhibitory activity against 5 kinases (kd = 8-14 µg/ml), of which 4 are implicated in prostate cancer growth and proliferation. The four kinases are; CSNK2A2, DRAK1, GAK and MEK5. The above results validate the folk use of this medicinal plant as well as make it a good candidate for development into a prostate cancer treatment or for the discovery of the bioactive molecules in the plant. Studies are currently underway to confirm the ability of Ball Moss to halt the growth of prostate tumors in mice as well as measure the inhibitory effects of the crude extract on the 4 related kinases in vivo. The isolation and characterization of the kinase inhibitors in ball moss is also in progress. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4237. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-4237

Interview with Robert E. Ricklefs, recipient of the 2011 Alfred Russel Wallace award

profiles ISSN 1948‐6596 Interview with Robert E. Ricklefs, recipient of the 2011 Alfred Russel Wallace award by Rosemary G. Gillespie Division of Organisms and Environment, University of California at Berkeley, USA Rosemary Gillespie: You started working on is‐ lands as a new graduate student. Why islands? Robert E. Ricklefs: When I arrived at the Univer‐ sity of Pennsylvania to begin graduate studies with Robert MacArthur, he and Ed Wilson had just published their seminal paper in Evolution on the “theory of insular zoogeography.” It was only natural that I turned my attention to islands—and birds because I had for years been an avid bird‐ watcher, as was MacArthur; the West Indies be‐ cause James Bond at the Academy of Natural Sci‐ ences of Philadelphia had published a distribu‐ tional checklist. I quickly developed a scheme pos‐ tulating changes in bird distributions in the islands similar to Wilson’s “taxon cycle,” but MacArthur felt that historical hypotheses were untestable and discouraged further work. I slipped in some observations of bird distributions on the island of Jamaica one summer, which resulted in a 1970 publication, but did not return to the topic until I had become an Assistant Professor at Penn., and began a collaboration with George Cox, a superb ecologist and naturalist at San Diego State Univer‐ sity. My doctoral thesis at Penn. addressed issues in bird life histories—nothing on community ecol‐ ogy or biogeography. RG: You began your career in the 1960s, following in the footsteps of Hutchinson and MacArthur, and at a time when the ideas of Lotka and Volterra were highlighted, competitive exclusion was a new and important topic, along with related themes of niche specialization, ecological sorting, limiting similarity, and community saturation. How important were these in shaping your ideas and the field of biogeography in general? RER: One had to be impressed by the power of competition, and other types of interactions, re‐ vealed in experimental studies. Most ecologists brought up in the Hutchinsonian tradition be‐ lieved in niches and in resource limitation. These properties of systems were the basis for character displacement, density compensation, and other ecological and evolutionary phenomena. So, all these elements fit together well. Community satu‐ ration was perhaps the weakest aspect of the de‐ veloping theory, as this was difficult to demon‐ strate experimentally in natural systems, and simi‐ lar environments in different regions sometimes supported very different numbers of species. The degree to which species interactions constrained species ranges and probabilities of establishment following dispersal were harder to judge, although some ideas about biogeography, such as Jared Diamond’s checkerboard distribution patterns, had an essentially ecological foundation. RG: The 1960s were also the early days of plate tectonics, and the start of panbiogeography, cladistics and vicariance/dispersal debates. How much interaction did you see between these fields? How did they inform one another? How did discussions with the different players affect your thinking? RER: As an ecologist, these developments had relatively little influence on me. Ecologists were relatively indifferent to phylogenetics (as opposed to evolution) at the time, and to any kind of his‐ torical explanation, although we were very much interested in adaptive radiation, convergent evo‐ lution, character displacement, and evolutionary ecology. From my perspective, the debates con‐ cerning panbiogeography, cladistics, and vicari‐ ance/dispersal were peripheral issues, and the kind of biogeography involved in these debates seemed to have little connection to ecology. These were historical/geographical issues, and were not discussed widely among ecologists. Similarly, ‘island biogeography’ was consid‐ ered as distinct from ‘community ecology’. The frontiers of biogeography 3.1, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society

Expatriate Hotel General Managers in Jamaica: Perceptions of Human Resource, Organizational, and Operational Challenges

International hotel companies employ expatriates all over the world as general managers to help professionalize the hospitality industry. Yet, there is very little research on expatriate management in the Caribbean. The present exploratory study was undertaken to research expatriate managers’ perceptions of managing on the island of Jamaica. Nine expatriate general managers from four and five star hotels were interviewed. Punctuality, educational levels, productivity, and low skill levels were seen as key human resource challenges. Crime, bureaucratic red tape, and shortage of materials were seen as impacting the organizations’ operations. Expatriates adjustment to the Jamaican culture and maintaining standards were seen as key factors for success.

Parenting and depressive symptoms among adolescents in four Caribbean societies.

BackgroundThe strategies that parents use to guide and discipline their children may influence their emotional health. Relatively little research has been conducted examining the association of parenting practices to depressive symptoms among Caribbean adolescents. This project examines the association of parenting styles to levels of depressive symptoms among adolescents in Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent.MethodsAdolescents attending grade ten of academic year 2006/2007 in Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Vincent, and St. Kitts and Nevis were administered the Parenting Practices Scale along with the BDI-II. Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive and Neglectful parenting styles were created using a median split procedure of the monitoring and nurturance subscales of the Parenting Practices Scale. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationships of parenting styles to depressive symptoms.ResultsA wide cross-section of tenth grade students in each nation was sampled (n = 1955; 278 from Jamaica, 217 from the Bahamas, 737 St. Kitts and Nevis, 716 from St. Vincent; 52.1% females, 45.6% males and 2.3% no gender reported; age 12 to 19 years, mean = 15.3 yrs, sd = .95 yrs). Nearly half (52.1%) of all adolescents reported mild to severe symptoms of depression with 29.1% reporting moderate to severe symptoms of depression. In general, authoritative and permissive parenting styles were both associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms in adolescents. However, the relationship of parenting styles to depression scores was not consistent across countries (p < .05). In contrast to previous research on Caribbean parenting, caregivers in this study used a mixture of different parenting styles with the two most popular styles being authoritative and neglectful parenting.ConclusionsThere appears to be an association between parenting styles and depressive symptoms that is differentially manifested across the islands of Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent.

Behaviors linked to high levels of hotel managers' work‐related learning

PurposeThe goal of this study is to identify behaviors linked to hotel managers who report a high degree of work‐related learning. To achieve this the researchers seeks to determine whether the extent to which managers were intrinsically motivated to learn, their perceived risk‐taking abilities, their attitudes towards learning and their attitudes towards the hospitality industry could determine their level of individual work‐related learning.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted on the island of Jamaica. The survey was completed by 154 hotel managers and multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data.FindingsOf the four behaviors examined, two predicted the hotel managers' individual work‐related learning levels, i.e. their perceived risk‐taking abilities, and their attitudes towards learning. Managers who reported high work‐related learning levels also reported high risk‐taking abilities and more positive attitudes towards learning. The extent to which they were intrinsically motivated to learn and their attitudes towards the hospitality industry were not significant determinants of their work‐related learning levels.Research limitations/implicationsThe exercise had a number of limitations and these should be taken into consideration when reviewing the findings.Practical implicationsThe study therefore pointed to two behaviors linked to intense individual learning amongst managers in hotels. Hotel managers wishing to display high levels of work‐related learning should therefore determine the extent to which they possess the behaviors connected and make the adjustments necessary.Originality/valueThe study was one of a small number which examined objectively individual learning in hospitality business.

Searching for Self in the Global South: Japanese Literary Representations of Afro-Jamaican Blackness

This article explores Japanese literary engagement with the Caribbean island of Jamaica, one informed most directly by the recent popularity of Jamaican musical culture in Japan. I link these works to a discursive imagination of the international, including the Third World, as a proving ground for artistic accomplishment and for the acquisition of an ideological cosmopolitanism counterposed against life in insular Japan. This includes the discourse of jibun sagashi, or self-searching, that has emerged in the post-1991 recessionary era. I argue that a consistent trope in many works of fiction and non-fiction on Japanese travel to Jamaica is of their protagonists' or authors' intimate encounter with Afro-Jamaican blackness as both menacing and impoverished, but also vitalizing and endearing. Encountering the Afro-Jamaican, and surviving it, simultaneously affords a sense of toughness and sociopolitical enlightenment impossible elsewhere in Japan. I conclude that although these narratives usually include returns to a Japanese homeland appreciated anew, an ethnographic perspective on these issues – though not the focus of the paper – suggests that the experiences of less famous Japanese youth travelling to Jamaica might complicate these narratives offered to mainstream audiences.

Molecular systematics of Selenops spiders (Araneae: Selenopidae) from North and Central America: implications for Caribbean biogeography

The Caribbean region includes a geologically complex mix of islands, which have served as a backdrop for some significant studies of biogeography, mostly with vertebrates. Here, we use the tropical/subtropical spider genus Selenops (Selenopidae) to obtain a finer resolution of the role of geology in shaping patterns of species diversity. We obtained a broad geographic sample from over 200 localities from both the islands and American mainland. DNA sequence data were generated for three mitochondrial genes and one nuclear gene for eleven outgroup taxa and nearly 60 selenopid species. Phylogenetic analysis of the data revealed several biogeographic patterns common to other lineages that have diversified in the region, the most significant being: (1) a distinct biogeographic break between Northern and Southern Lesser Antilles, although with a slight shift in the location of the disjunction; (2) diversification within the islands of Jamaica and Hispaniola; (3) higher diversity of species in the Greater Antilles relative to the Lesser Antilles. However, a strikingly unique pattern in Caribbean Selenops is that Cuban species are not basal in the Caribbean clade. Analyses to test competing hypotheses of vicariance and dispersal support colonization through GAARlandia, an Eocene–Oligocene land span extending from South America to the Greater Antilles, rather than over-water dispersal. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 101, 288–322.

The association of academic tracking to depressive symptoms among adolescents in three Caribbean countries

BackgroundStudents who are tracked into low performing schools or classrooms that limit their life chances may report increased depressive symptoms. Limited research has been conducted on academic tracking and its association with depressive symptoms among high school students in the Caribbean. This project examines levels of depressive symptoms among tenth grade students tracked within and between high schools in Jamaica, St. Vincent and St. Kitts and Nevis.MethodsStudents enrolled in grade ten of the 2006/2007 academic year in Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent were administered the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). In Jamaica and St. Vincent, academic tracking was operationalized using data provided by the local Ministries of Education. These Ministries ranked ordered schools according to students' performance on Caribbean school leaving examinations. In St. Kitts and Nevis tracking was operationalized by classroom assignments within schools whereby students were grouped into classrooms according to their levels of academic achievement. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between academic tracking and BDI-II depression scores.ResultsA wide cross-section of 4th form students in each nation was sampled (n = 1738; 278 from Jamaica, 737 St. Kitts and Nevis, 716 from St. Vincent; 52% females, 46.2% males and 1.8% no gender reported; age 12 to 19 years, mean = 15.4 yrs, sd = .9 yr). Roughly half (53%) of the students reported some symptoms of depression with 19.2% reporting moderate and 10.7% reporting severe symptoms of depression. Students in Jamaica reported significantly higher depression scores than those in either St. Kitts and Nevis or St. Vincent (p < .01). Students assigned to a higher academic track reported significantly lower BDI-II scores than students who were assigned to the lower academic track (p < .01).ConclusionsThere appears to be an association between academic tracking and depressive symptoms that is differentially manifested across the islands of Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent.

Repeat Teenage Pregnancy in Two Cultures–The Meanings Ascribed by Teenagers

This qualitative study charts the views, feelings and experiences of two diverse, yet in many ways similar, groups of respondents from two cultures – one group of 26 respondents from the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Barbados and the other group of 26 respondents from London, who have experienced repeat teenage pregnancies. The study uses a comparative approach to provide a psychosocial, emotional and economic understanding of the factors, which lead to repeat pregnancies. This study cautions against an over reliance on a mechanistic understanding and management of both single and repeat teenage pregnancies, and emphasises the fact that economic, social, psychological and emotional processes are also crucial to our understanding of repeat teenage pregnancies.

The origins of the recently discovered Hispaniolan Olive-throated Parakeet: A phylogeographic perspective on a conservation conundrum

The Olive-throated Parakeet (Aratinga nana) occurs on the eastern slope of Middle America and the island of Jamaica. A resident population has been recently discovered in remote areas of Hispaniola, where it might represent an overlooked relict population or a recent introduction. If the Hispaniolan population of A. nana is native, then it would merit conservation attention. Conversely, if the Hispaniolan population is a recent non-natural introduction, the potential for competitive interactions with the threatened endemic Hispaniolan Parakeet, Aratinga chloroptera, should be assessed. To explore the origins of the Hispaniolan A. nana population, we sequenced the mitochondrially encoded ND2 gene from individuals from five mainland populations of A. nana vicinalis and A. nana astec, as well as the Jamaican A. nana nana and the Hispaniolan A. nana (subspecies unknown). Mitochondrial variation was highly structured into well differentiated island and mainland clades separated by close to 2% nucleotide divergence, but within each group there was very low ND2 haplotype variation. These results suggest that the Jamaican and Hispaniolan populations are evolutionarily distinct from the mainland populations, and they add support to the hypothesis that the Hispaniolan A. nana population results from a recent, human-mediated introduction.

Dawn and Dusk “Chorus” in Visually Communicating Jamaican Anole Lizards

A key hypothesis explaining the existence of dawn and dusk choruses in acoustically communicating animals centers on the need to advertise continued territorial occupancy after and before a period of nocturnal inactivity. If this hypothesis is correct, it follows that similar dawn and dusk choruses should occur in territorial animals exploiting other signal modalities. Adult male Anolis lizards defend territories by using elaborate head-bobbing displays and extensions of a throat fan or dewlap. Males are inactive at night and return to their territories at dawn, remaining there until dusk. I quantified the production of visual displays as a function of time of day for four species on the island of Jamaica: Anolis lineatopus, Anolis sagrei, Anolis grahami, and Anolis opalinus. All exhibited dawn and/or dusk peaks in display behavior. These patterns have remarkable parallels with the dawn and dusk choruses reported for many acoustically communicating animals.

“Conveying Away the Trash”: Sweetening Slavery in Matthew Lewis’s Journal of a West India Proprietor, Kept during a Residence in the Island of Jamaica

This article examines the role of sugar in Matthew Lewis’s Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834), arguing that, despite its relatively marginal position as an overt content, the commodity provides a felicitous means of understanding the formal dimensions of Lewis’s text, and its negotiation of racial violence, in particular. Throughout the Journal, Lewis figures the Caribbean sugar estate as a kind of utopia, divested of all that made slavery so anathema to its opponents and, in so doing, discursively echoes the processes of refinement entailed in the production of the very substance on which his wealth and status are predicated. Yet even as Lewis’s colonial record aspires towards a condition of discursive and ideological purity, it can never quite reach its goal: the material realities of racial conflict stubbornly obtrude themselves in stray moments, lingering on in fragmentary and vestigial forms, which vitiate the saccharine visions Lewis seeks to promote.