West Indian Colonies Research Articles

Design for Large-Scale Production in Eighteenth-Century Britain

In a recent essay published in the Journal of British Studies, T. H. Breen has characterised the AngloAmerican Empire that straddled the Atlantic during the eighteenth century as an 'Empire of Goods'.1 The eighteenth-century British Atlantic world was bound together, he argues, not simply by ties of language or administration, but also by flows of commodities, in particular manufactured consumer products. Such products circulated both within the constituent units of the British Atlantic EmpireEngland, Scotland, Ireland, the North American and the West Indian colonies and between those units, but it is the flow westward from Great Britain to the North American mainland that most effectively illustrates the themes I want to develop in this paper.* The burgeoning population of colonial British North America (over two million people by 1770) was dominated by relatively prosperous, small-scale commercial farmers. Indeed, there was considerable justification in the mid-eighteenth-century description of Pennsylvania as 'the best poor man's country in the world'.2 These were not pre-capitalist, selfsufficient peasants.3 A large proportion of the commodities that flowed westwards across the Atlantic were manufactured consumer products intended for this market; products made principally in England, which was already, at the start of the eighteenth century, probably the most industrialised of the major European states. As early as the 1740s, an upcountry Connecticut shopkeeper's ledger books reveal stocks of gloves, pots, pans, cards, knives, earthenware, thimbles, buckles, buttons, combs, spectacles, nails, silk, wire, tape, pewter dishes and cloth, almost all imported from England. 'Already', said an astonished German clergyman in the 1750s, 'it is really possible to obtain all the things one can get in Europe in Pennsylvania, since so many merchant ships arrive there every year'.4 Yet few of these products were manufactured in the colonies themselves. In other words, North America provided a large market of prosperous primary agricultural producers, hungry to buy finished and semi-finished consumer products, few of which were produced locally. Many of these products sold, at least in part, on their appearance. They were fashion products in the sense that their successful sale depended on con-

The 1937 riot in Inagua, the Bahamas

The upheavals in the form of mass riots and strikes during the 1930s in the British West Indian colonies did not occur on a similar scale in the Bahamas. The Nassau Riot in 1942 during the following decade was a short-lived spontaneous outburst by a group of disgruntled laborers. Black Bahamian leaders failed to convert the riot into a political movement but an analysis of the disturbance (Saunders 1985-1986) showed that it occurred against the background of narrow socio-economic and political policies then rampant in the Bahamas. Five years before the disturbance in Nassau, an incident erupted on Inagua, a remote island in the southern Bahamas. Following shortly after the Trinidad and Barbadian riots, the disturbance became known as the 'Inagua Riot.' This paper will explore the causes of the 1937 disturbance in Inagua. Such an analysis involves the examination of the disturbance and the immediately prior to it. To date no detailed examination of the disturbance has been published.1 The incident is rarely mentioned in general histories (Albury 1983: 200; Craton 1962). Colin Hughes and Philip Cash (Hughes 1981: 19; Cash 1979: 239-240) contended that it was essentially a clash of individuals. Hughes gave the incident only a footnote and stressed that there were no similarities with the mass actions of the West Indian riots (Hughes 1981: 19). Cash devoted more attention to the event and concluded that the events of the island of were given an importance unwarranted by the actual happenings... (Cash 1979: 240). Margery Erickson, wife of Josiah (or Jim) with his brothers revived the salt industry in in the 1930s, attributes the trouble to personal animosity of certain Inaguans whose own livelihood was threatened by the new prosperity and who resented Jim's effort to improve Inagua (Erickson

The Economics of Transition to the Black Labor System in Barbados, 1630-1680

System in Barbados, I630-I680 In recent years there has been an expansion of academic interest in the nature of the transition from white indentured servitude to black slavery as the dominant labor base of the English New World colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Studies by Galenson, Menard, Gray and Wood, Gemery and Hogendorn, and Bean and Thomas have explained in detail this change in the labor systems of the Chesapeake area, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland. In this literature, references are made to the West Indian colonies by way of comparison, but no specific studies have yet been presented for these colonies. Only Bean and Thomas attempted to be comprehensive in their comparison and showed the importance of the West Indian experience, but their analysis did not go far enough in correcting the lopsided nature of the historiography.1 All of these studies have noted that Englishmen in the West Indian colonies, particularly in Barbados during the late I64os and

Maritime Maroons: "Grand Marronage" from the Danish West Indies

T THE islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. Jan-now the Virgin Islands of the United States-were Denmark's outpost of empire in the Caribbean. Denmark was a late entrant in the seventeenthcentury scramble for West Indian colonies. Its colonization of St. Thomas, beginning in i 67i, and of St. Jan in I 7i8, occurred at a time when England, France, and Holland had long since broken, de facto and de jure, Spain's monopoly in the hemisphere and were consolidating their New World gains. Denmark's choice was limited in the extreme; its acquisition of St. Thomas and St. Jan was determined not by choice but by lack of feasible alternatives. St. Croix, bought from France in I 7 3 3, was the last of the Lesser Antilles to come under European rule, and the purchase has the dubious distinction of bringing to a close the first century of non-Hispanic colonization in the Caribbean. The acquisition completed Denmark's territorial empire in the New World. Apart from two British occupations during the Napoleonic Wars, in i 8o i and again from i 807 to i8I5, the islands remained in Denmark's possession until I 9I7, when they were sold to the United States.'

Towards emancipation: Slave women and resistance to coercive labour regimes in the British West Indian colonies, 1790–1838∗

(1984). Towards emancipation: Slave women and resistance to coercive labour regimes in the British West Indian colonies, 1790–1838. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 222-243.

Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim in the Berbice slave revolt of 1763-1764

When almost the entire slave population rose up in 1763, the Dutch West Indian colony of Berbice was quickly overrun, deserted, and nearly abandoned. The story of its survival is inextricably connected with the character of its governor, Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim, whose cour age and ingenuity prevented the colonists' being driven into the sea by the overwhelming multitude of rebel slaves, and through whose deter mined efforts the Dutch won back mile after mile of territory until their power was reestablished and the rebels were entirely crushed. Although his activities are mentioned in descriptions of the revolt, little is known about the man himself. Moreover, he appears only in accounts published in books now relatively rare (Hartsinck 1770; Dalton 1855; Netscher 1888;Rodway 1891-3). Despite his crucial role in the Berbice revolt, Van Hoogenheim has received little attention. By way of contrast, his colonial neighbor, Laurens Storm van 's Gravesande, Commandeur of the West India Company's colonies Essequebo and Demerara (Berbice's western neighbors, and later, with Berbice, parts of British later the Republic of Guyana), received praise and biographical attention from the Hakluyt Society, in English, with a Dutch version of much of the same material, published at the beginning of this century (Harris and Villiers 1911; Villiers 1920). Storm's Berbice counterpart has remained nearly forgotten. His term of office was short (1760-1765) and he lacked illustrious family connections. Except for his military record, practically nothing was known about him. It is possible, however, to make a recon struction of possibilities, based on his letters, other writings, and refer ences to him.1 Wolfert van Hoogenheim was born around 1730 in the eastern part of the present Netherlands. Although inconspicuous, his family was pros

The Associated States and Independence

The British experience with federations is not a happy one. Attempts to combine its smaller and poorer colonies into some form of larger political and economic union as part of its decolonization process are generally reckoned to have failed. Almost without exception, the individual colonies decided to go it alone, to seek independence on their own, that is.The former West Indian colonies are a case in point. Notwithstanding several attempts to bring them closer together, they have shown a remarkable tenacity to retain their individual existence and identity. The 1958 Federation, the most ambitious attempt to weld them into a nation, ended in failure after only three years and much internal wrangling. The larger islands of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago went on to become independent on their own. A further attempt to amalgamate the remaining units, the so-called "Little Eight" into a Federation of the Eastern Caribbean also failed, after which Barbados sought independence on its own.

From Plantation to Padi-field: The Origins of the Nineteenth Century Transformation of Java's Sugar Industry

Java's long-established sugar industry was transformed almost beyond recognition during the course of the nineteenth century. Under Dutch East India Company rule, which effectively lasted until the arrival on the island of Governor-General Daendels in 1808, sugar production had been organized almost exclusively by Chinese entrepreneurs, whose dozens of small sugar factories and plantations were scattered across the lowlands around Batavia (present day Jakarta). Their output played a subsidiary role in the prevailing pattern of colonial exploitation, was unable to compete in Europe with the production of West Indian sugar colonies and consequently found a sale, for the most part, only in other ‘protected’ Asian markets. During the nineteenth century, all this changed. First under government auspices—the so-called Cultivation System—and later under the direction of metropolitan-owned Sugar Corporations, the industry was transformed into a paradigm of colonial economic ‘development’. It was efficient, immensely profitable and productive (vast quantities of sugar were exported to the West), heavily capitalized and equipped with the best and most up-to-date machinery.

Early Printing and the Book Trade in the West Indies

This paper considers developments in printing prior to 1865 in the British colonies in the Caribbean plus those Dutch, Danish, French, and Swedish colonial possessions which were influenced by the British islands. The reasons for the establishment of presses in these West Indian colonies are examined. Official printing, newspapers, periodicals, and ephemera formed the mainstay of the West Indian printer's business. Though there was some literary publication at the end of the eighteenth century, accompanied by the start of subscription libraries, the decline of the planter class and the weakening of the sugar colonies' economic position prevented indigenous publishing from developing successfully.

The “Apprenticeship” System in Mauritius: Its Character and Its Impact on Race Relations in the Immediate Post-Emancipation Period, 1839-1879

In the summer of 1833, the British Parliament passed into law a bill designed to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. The Abolition Act conferred freedom on all slave children in the plantation colonies, who were not over six years of age, and declared as free persons children born after the passage of the act. All persons over six years of age became free but were required to work for their former owners as “apprentices” for a limited period: the domestics were to serve for four years, while the agricultural slaves were to work for six years. The act also provided for twenty million pounds sterling to be given as compensation to the owners of the slaves. As the title of the act states, the “apprenticeship” system was designed to promote the “industry of the manumitted slaves …” (Great Britain, Public Record Office [PRO], C.O. 167/205, Glenelg to Nicolay, 6 November 1838). The apprenticeship system was inaugurated in the British West Indies in 1834, and in Mauritius and her dependent colonies on 1 February 1835. Following the examples of Antigua and Barbados, the British West Indian colonies aborted the system in 1838; in Mauritius and its dependencies the system came to an end in 1839.The assessments of the apprenticeship system are varied. The framers of the Abolition Act pronounced the system as one in which “manumitted” slaves performed compulsory labor for a limited period and in their own interests. Some contemporary observers (Baker and Blackhouse, 1838) were inclined to think that the apprenticeship system was a prolongation of slavery.

Nineteenth-Century Black Thought in the United States

By the 1780s Santo Domingo, the French West Indian colony, was considered by many to be one of the finest and richest colonies in the western hemisphere. On the eve of the French Revolution Santo Domingo was exporting to France commodities valued at 205 millions of livres and importing commodities worth some 69 millions. More than 1,200 ships manned by some 15,000 sailors were needed to handle this voluminous and lucrative trade. There were more than 3,000 coffee plantations in the colony, and an equal number of indigo. In addition, there were 800 sugar and 800 cotton plantations. The economic structure of Santo Domingo rested on the backs of almost one-half million African slaves (Logan, 1941: 3-4). In August of 1791, two years after the outbreak of the French Revolution, the slaves in Santo Domingo revolted. The year 1793 witnessed the downfall of white supremacy in the colony and the establishment of black rule under the leadership of the former slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture. In 1800, Napoleon sent an expedition to the Caribbean to put down the black regime and retake the colony for France. The final defeat of Napoleon's expedition in 1803 resulted in the establishment of Haiti, the first independent black state in

The Traffic in Slaves between the British West Indian Colonies, 1807–1833

The Traffic in Slaves between the British West Indian Colonies, 1807–1833

The Traffic in Slaves between the British West Indian Colonies, 1807-1833

The Traffic in Slaves between the British West Indian Colonies, 1807-1833

The Independence of Brazil and the Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Anglo-Brazilian Relations, 1822–1826

For 300 years, from the beginning of the sixteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade—the forced migration of Africans to work as slaves on the plantations and in the mines of British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch colonies in North and South America and the Caribbean—was carried on legally, and on an everincreasing scale, by the merchants of most Western European countries and their colonial counterparts, aided and abetted by African middlemen. On. 25 March 1807, however, after a lengthy struggle, inside and outside Parliament, it was declared illegal for British subjects (and at this point during the Napoleonic Wars at least half the trade was in British hands) to trade in slaves after 1 May 1808. During the previous twenty years there had been a marked growth of intellectual and moral revulsion against the trade (and, in particular, the horrors of the ‘middle passage’) and changing economic conditions, which to some extent reduced the importance to the British economy of the West Indian colonies for whom the trade was a major lifeline and created new interest groups unconnected with and even hostile to them, facilitated its abolition.

Summary statistics on indenture and associated migration affecting the West Indies, 1834–1918

Abstract This paper presents summary statistics of immigration into the West Indies, under indenture or government sponsorship, during the period 1834-1918. The sources reveal a few discrepancies, but are sufficiently consistent to permit the construction of a series for each of the ethnic groups introduced. Most of the problems involved in constructing these series centre around the fact that a variety of sources have to be utilised. Immigration figures of East Indians, Portuguese, Chinese, Europeans and others into the several West Indian colonies have been prepared for each calendar year or season, but to conserve space are presented here in summary form. In the case of African immigration it is possible to give their country of origin. The only group of immigrants who were involved in return movements of any consequence are the East Indians.

The Beverly (Massachusetts) Historical Society

During the American Revolution, the British blockade succeeded in destroying virtually all of the Massachusetts navy, a considerable amount of the state's privateers and fishing vessels, and most of New Bedford's whaling fleet. At the end of the war, England closed her own ports, as well as those of her West Indian possessions, to American trade France and Spain similarly forbade American commerce with their West Indian colonies. In addition, the former American colonies themselves imposed state tariffs that discouraged coastwise trade.

The Nature and Structure of the Commonwealth

The structure of the British Commonwealth of Nations is peculiar. If it did not exist, you could not invent it. Its peculiarities reveal themselves at once if we try to find an answer to what looks like a fairly simple question, namely: How do we know whether a country is inside the Commonwealth or outside it? This question has never been very easy to answer. It is not enough to say that a country is within the Commonwealth if it is one of the Queen's dominions. That is quite true so far as it goes. It covers the cases of such important countries of the Commonwealth as the United Kingdom itself, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Ceylon, and the British West Indian Colonies. But it will not suffice to describe the position of such countries as Malaya, or Nigeria, or Uganda, or the Gold Coast, or Kenya, or Tanganyika. Large parts or all of the territories of these countries are not part of the Queen's dominions, strictly speaking. They are either protected states (as in Malaya) or protectorates (as in most of the African territories) or, as in the case of Tanganyika, Trust Territories under the United Nations. What we must say of these countries of the Commonwealth is not that they are part of the Queen's dominions but that they are under the Queen's protection or jurisdiction.

Recent migration from West Africa and the West Indies to the United Kingdom

Summary This paper discusses the post-war movement of coloured migrants from the West African and West Indian colonies to the United Kingdom. The reasons for the migration are explained, the scanty statistical evidence assessed, and the difficulties of assimilation discussed.

The Origins of the Commission System in the West India Trade The Alexander Prize Essay

The half-century which followed the capture of Jamaica in 1655 was characterized by the consolidation rather than by the expansion of the English interest in the West Indies. In the political sphere this consolidation took several forms. The acquisition of Jamaica, by far the largest English West Indian colony, and the termination of proprietary rule in, the Caribee Islands in 1663 brought the greater part of the English West Indian empire under the direct administration of the Crown. As a corollary to this extension of Crown rule, the creation of effective institutions for the government of these and other colonies became a matter of urgent necessity. After a series of experiments in the decade following the Restoration, the constitution in 1672 of the Council of Trade and Plantations inaugurated 'a more thorough system of colonial control than had been established by any of its predecessors'. The sum effect of these developments was that London became, in a way that it had never been before, the place where all the major decisions affecting the destinies of the West Indies were taken. From London there issued not only Crown-appointed governors and a stream of Orders-in-Council, but also declarations of the King's pleasure on such minor questions as appointments to colonial judgeships and seats in colonial councils.1 To London there flowed, besides acts of colonial legislatures for approval or rejection, a torrent of complaints and petitions for redress.

A Note on Mortality in Jamaica

Abstract This article analyses briefly various aspects of mortality in Jamaica. After an appraisal of available vital statistics, the mortality trend, as revealed in several measures, is traced and brief comparison with other West Indian colonies made. A discussion of the marked differential between legitimate and illegitimate infant mortality leads to the conclusion that the higher rate of the latter is associated with lower socio-economic status of the parents. Mortality from a few causes of death is also analysed and the possibility of improvement stressed. The probable consequences of declining mortality are illustrated by examining the probable growth of the population to 1951 in three broad age groups.