General History of the Caribbean - III

General History of the Caribbean

Titles in the series

Volume I Autochthonous Societies

Volume II New Societies: The Caribbean in the 'Long' Sixteenth Century
Volume III The Slave Societies of the Caribbean
Volume IV The Long Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth-Century Transfonnations
Volume V The Caribbean in the Twentieth Century
Volume VI Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean
General History
of the
Caribbean
Volume III
The slave societies of the Caribbean

Editor: Franklin W Knight

palgrave
macmillan

UNESCO Publishing
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 CONTENTS

Preface Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO vi

Description of the Project Sir Roy Augier ix

List of Contributors . xii

List of Tables xiv

Introduction Franklin W. Knight . 1

1 The slave trade, Mrican slavers and the demography of the Caribbean
to 1750
Colin A. Palmer . 9
2 The demographic structure of the Caribbean slave societies in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Stanley 1. Engerman and B. W. Higman . 45
3 The slave economies of the Caribbean: Structure, performance,
evolution and Significance
David Eltis . 105
4 The social structure of the slave societies in the Caribbean
GadHeuman. 138
5 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean
Silvia W. de Groot, Catherine A. Christen and
Franklin W. Knight . 169
6 Social and political control in the slave society
Hilary McD. Beckles . . 194
7 Forms of resistance to slavery
Michael Craton . . 222

8 Pluralism, creolization and culture

Franklin W. Knight . . 271

9 Religious beliefs
Mary Tumer . .287

10 The disintegration of the Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

Franklin W. Knight . 322
Bibliography 346
Index. 368

v
 PREFACE

FEDERICO MAYOR
Director-General of UNESCO

How should the Caribbean be defined? It is here understood as encompassing not

only the islands but also the coastal part of South America, from Colombia to the
Guyanas and the riverine zones of Central America, insofar as these parts of the main-
land were the homes of people engaged from time to time in activities which linked
their lives with those of people in the islands. Despite the varieties of languages and
customs resulting from the convergence there - by choice or constraint - of peoples
of diverse cultures, the Caribbean has many cultural commonalities deriving from the
shared history and experience of its inhabitants. In this region, endowed with excep-
tionally beautiful landscapes and still undiscovered ocean resources, there grew up
from the sixteenth century onwards a completely new SOciety, which has in our own
time distinguished itself by producing a relatively large number of internationally
recognized personalities in many fields - poets, novelists, painters, dancers, designers,
musicians, sportsmen, jurists, historians, politicians.
In seeking to promote the preservation of cultural identities and greater under-
standing among peoples through the exchange of cultural information, UNESCO has
found it important to facilitate the writing of a new history of this region. I call this
history 'new' because until quite recently Caribbean histories were more about
exploits of European nation states in the Caribbean - histories of war and trade in the
islands and the mainland. Such histories of the individual islands as were published
before this time tended to be written from the standpoint of resident Europeans. It
was the movement for political autonomy, and the broadening of historiography in
the European and American universities in the first half of the century, that led
initially to changes of emphasiS in the study of the history of single islands, and later
to histories of topics which linked the islands, notably the sugar industry, slavery,
slave laws and Asian immigration.
In the established universities of Havana and Puerto Rico and in new ones
such as the University of the West Indies, departments of Caribbean studies were
opened with the aim of undertaking teaching and research on Caribbean literature,
history, culture and society, the better to understand forces that had shaped the
region and to identify the many elements which constitute Caribbean culture. The
main findings of the scholars since then are reflected in the six volumes of this

vi
 Preface

history, thereby presenting a more regional account than before of the Caribbean past
and of the people who have constituted Caribbean society.
This history traces the development of the region starting with the autochtho-
nous peoples of the Caribbean. This includes the hunters and the gatherers as well as
the incipient cultivators associated with the beginnings of village life. Situated as they
were at what had become the gateway to the New World, these populations were the
first to be enslaved. The inhabitants of the Greater Antilles were decimated by acts of
excessive inhumanity and disease. The Caribs survived longer through their well-
honed fighting skills, but their numbers dwindled nevertheless and in the eighteenth
century those who still resisted were transported to the coast of Belize where they
established communities that exist to this day and from where they now return to
teach their native language - 'Garifuna' - to the few Caribs who remain in Dominica
and in St Vincent. The story of these early societies is told in the first two volumes.
Volume III of this history (The Slave Societies) will constitute a central point of
reference. In examining the creation of new societies, full account is taken of slavery,
the terrible toll of human life and suffering it exacted and its pervasive impact on the
psyche of the Caribbean people, both white and black. Resistance to slavery took
many forms, of which marronnage in Haiti, Jamaica and Suriname, where the
numbers were large, has received the most attention. Revolts and rebellions persisted
throughout the region from the seventeenth century, although the best known is
understandably that which led to Haiti's independence at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. The abolition of the British slave trade left slavery itself intact, until it
gradually succumbed in the decades of the nineteenth century, first to the creed of
the French Revolution, then to the combination of slave rebellions in the islands and
the detennined protestations of humanitarians and free traders in Europe.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the disputes between estate owners
and the emancipated field labourers, referred to in Volumes I and IV, opened the way
for the influx of people from Asia, predominantly from India, thus adding a new
element to the Creole societies which had gradually been fonned since the sixteenth
century. To avoid this supply of new labour for sugar estates becoming the restora-
tion of slavery in a new guise, the recruitment of the labourers and their condition of
work in the islands were regulated by law. Nevertheless, the constraints of indenture
and the indignities attendant on being estate labourers affected the way in which
Creole societies developed in the twentieth century. Undoubtedly, slavery and inden-
ture have influenced the social and economic relations of societies in the circum-
Caribbean in ways productive of ethnic and class conflict. Yet they have not only
been the sources of cruelty and injustice, of acts remembered and resented. By per-
sistent resistance to these oppressive regimes, these societies have also endowed
themselves with the dignity and self-confidence of free men.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the impulse towards autonomy
which was felt by some of the propertied and educated elites was frustrated by inter-
national, political and economic circumstances outside their control. The production
of sugar from cane continued to dominate the Caribbean economies, with oil, miner-
als and tourism becoming important items in the twentieth century. The influx of

vii
 Preface

American capital and the gradual diminution of European interests in the Caribbean
led to the expansion of American influence in the region from the turn of the century
onwards, notably in Cuba, Haiti and Santo Domingo. This was the context in which
the movements for self-determination worked, complicated everywhere by racial
prejudice and disparities in the ownership of property.
In the years following the Second World War, examined in Volume V, the
islands and their immediate mainland neighbours have sought a variety of solutions
to the problems which arise from societies asserting political autonomy while
possessing economies dependent on overseas markets where their goods are pro-
tected from competition. Puerto Rico became the 'Estado Libre', a Commonwealth;
the French-speaking islands became departments of France; the Dutch-speaking
islands, prior to the independence of Suriname, all became part of the Kingdom of
the Netherlands; the British islands first flirted with a Federation, then became
independent states separately; other states, following periods of military dictatorship,
have pursued the path of socialist revolution. Currently, both in the islands and on
the continent, there is a growing tendency for policy to be guided by regionalism, by
the impulse towards association and co-operation, towards the formation of trading
blocs, initially prompted by geographical propinquity.
These subregions have recently begun concerted efforts towards recognizing
and confirming that their mutual interests will be served by closer association. It is
therefore appropriate that the two UNESCO projects of the General History of the
Caribbean and the General History of Latin America are being undertaken simultane-
ously. The two histories should be read together as distinct parts of a unified whole,
as an element in UNESCO's contribution to regional development through mutual
understanding and cultural integration. Every effort will be made for both histories to
reach as wide a public as possible in the major languages of the region, through the
universities, through the schools by means of specially adapted versions (textbooks
and children's books), and eventually through radio and television, plays and films.
I wish, in conclusion, to extend my sincere thanks to the Chairman, Rapporteur
and members of the International Scientific Committee and to the editors and authors
of the various volumes who have come together to participate in this significant
enterprise. My thanks also go to the governments and universities which have
supported the project and to the Association of Caribbean Historians, so many of
whose members have contributed generously to the creation of this work.

Federico Mayor

viii
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

Professor Sir F. R. Augier

Chairman of the Drafting Committee for
the General History of the Caribbean

The decision to commission a UNESCO General History of the Caribbean, taken by

the twenty-first session of the General Conference of UNESCO (1980), was an
instance of the change in cultural policy which resulted in a shift in emphasis from
the 'common heritage of all mankind' to acknowledging the 'diversity of cultures' and
commissioning the histories of Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean,
as well as a revision of the History of Mankind. In all these cases, the brief of the
Director-General was for a history observed from inside the region not from the
outside, as if from the ports and capitals of European colonizers. Cultural identity,
unity in diversity, and therefore the cultural heritages of the regions, were to inform
the themes chosen for the history, giving prominence to those groups, persons and
cultures hitherto either excluded from historical narratives, or treated more as objects
than as actors in the description of events.
By December 1981, when the Working Group for the Preparation of a General
History of the Caribbean met in Paris, the ideas and aims expressed by the UNESCO
General Conferences of 1978 and 1980 were Widely shared by the twenty scholars,
Caribbean and European, whom the Director-General had invited in their personal
capacity to break ground for the project. The aspirations of the ground-breakers
embraced geography, anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, demography, society,
religion, politics, ethnicity, culture, rituals, customs, socio-linguistics, music, dance,
festivals, oral tradition, historiography, and cartography. One is tempted to conclude
etcetera, and rightly so, beca'use their successors noticed that, in 1981, the Working
Group had overlooked gender and the environment. The inclusiveness of their vision
of the history of the Caribbean was, no doubt, due to the desire of the twenty schol-
ars that the history of its people and their habitat should be written as if observed
from inside the region.
How was this vision to be made concrete in a few volumes, limi~d to twenty
chapters each? How, within that general framework, to deal adequately with the wide
diversity of size, ancestry, religion, language, custom, politics? How to set the chrono-
logical limits to volumes without cutting off themes artificially? How to integrate the
material into a Caribbean narrative and avoid writing history as merely summary
accounts of the larger islands?
The task was given to the Drafting Committee which first met in Kingston in
April 1983. Of its nineteen members, twelve were from the Caribbean and seven from
Africa, India, Europe and the Americas. At first, the Committee used the text of the

ix
 Description of the Project

Report of the Working Group (1981) to elicit the themes significant for Caribbean
history. But in the discussion which followed, the form of organization proposed by
the Working Group was abandoned and replaced by five themes which would make
for a coherent history of the Caribbean region while being consonant with the
UNESCO guidelines.
These were Autochthonous Societies, New Societies: The Long Sixteenth
Century, Slave Societies, The Long Nineteenth Century, The Caribbean in the
Twentieth Century, and they became, with slight elaboration, the titles for the first
five volumes of the history. The Drafting Committee· also promised to consider adding
an annexe containing maps and statistics, and this in time became the sixth volume,
Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean.
Volume 1- :Autochthonous Societies
This volume relates the history of the origins of the earliest Caribbean peoples, and
analyses their various political, social, cultural and economic organizations over time,
in and around the Caribbean region.
Volume II - New Societies: The Caribbean in the 'Long' Sixteenth Century
The subject of this volume is the evolution of Caribbean society through the intrusion
of Europeans, and it examines the dramatic changes in politics, society and culture
which occurred until 1680. These changes are studied in conjunction with the rapidly
dwindling presence of the Amerindians and the increasing numbers of Spanish
English, French and Dutch Settlers.
Volume III - Slave Societies of the Caribbean
The slave societies were more than societies with enslaved Africans, so this volume
examines the demographic and economic as well as social and cultural aspects of all
those communities which resulted from the establishment of the Caribbean slave
systems.
Volume IV-The 'Long' Nineteenth Century: Nineteenth-Century Transformations
Emphasizing themes rather than chronology, this volume covers the period from the
end of slavery (although this varies in time from territory to territory) to the twentieth
century. Its major themes are dependent labour groups, especially emigrants from
Asia, the development and diversification of local economies, and the emergence
throughout the region of varying degrees of national consciousness as well as forms
of government.
Volume V-The Caribbean in the Twentieth Century
The prevalence and persistence of the plantation, the ubiquity of underemployment,
the vulnerability of dependent Caribbean economies, popular and labour protests,
decolonization and neo-colonialism are all considered in this volume. It also explores
the effects of migration, mass communications and modernization on the cultures of
local societies.
Volume VI - Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean
This volume has three sections. The first examines sources of historical evidence and
the techniques used to study them for the purpose of writing Caribbean history. In

x
 Description of the Project

the second, the historiography of the region is treated thematically, tracing the
changes in the interpretation of the past. The third is devoted to the historiography of
particular territories and history-writing in all its branches

At its first meeting, the Drafting Committee also made three decisions which should
be noticed here: it appointed editors for the five volumes and the proposed annexe; it
decided that since it had provided in some detail the contents of Volumes II and III,
the editors could complete work on the contents of their volumes and name the
authors by the end of 1983; it acknowledged that the contents of Volume I needed
detailed elaboration and agreed that the editor should have the help of a workshop
of specialists to provide the details. Nevertheless, the Committee proposed that
Volumes I, II and III should be published first and together and set July 1986 as the
date for the final submission of manuscripts to UNESCO.
Provisional calendars for producing histories in several volumes and with
chapters from scores of authors are not dates that are likely to be met. As has been
the case with other multi-volume histories, inviting the most competent historians to
be editors and authors has also meant taking the risk that the publication of the work
will be long-delayed, since such persons normally have many other commitments.
The estimates made in April of 1983 were soon wildly out. The first meeting of the
Bureau of the Drafting Committee scheduled for September 1984 was held in May
1985. The new date proposed for the submission of manuscripts of Volumes I, II and
III was December 1987. Volume III, which is to be published in 1997, was submitted
in 1992.
When the General History of the Caribbean was first proposed, there were just
enough historians who had researched their topics across the barriers of language.
Ten years later, the existence of the Association of Caribbean Historians has made
possible a substantial increase of our comparative knowledge of the region's past. At
its meetings, papers on similar topics and related themes pertaining to different terri-
tories, are presented in the languages of the Caribbean, thus giving historians access
to the results of research done across the barriers of language. To that extent these six
volumes can be said to be a work in progress, a marker towards a fully integrated
Caribbean history.

xi
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

JInARy McD. BEcIWlS (Barbados) is Chairman of the Department of History, and

Professor in Caribbean Economic and Social History in The University of the West
Indies, Cave Hill campus, Barbados. He is the author of numerous books including
White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627-1715 (1989), 'Natural Rebels': A
Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (1989), A History of Barbados:
From Amerindian Society to Nation State(1990). He is also an editor of the journal of
Caribbean History..
CATHEIUNE A. Cmusn!N (USA) obtained her doctorate in the Department of History of
the johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She continues to work on
the political, social and economic impact of tropical forest conservation in Costa Rica
during the twentieth century.
MIcaAm. CaATON (Canada) is Professor of History at the University of Waterloo,

Ontario, Canada. He is the author of several publications including A jamaican

Plantation (1970), Sinews of Empire (1974), Searcbingfor tbe Invisible Man (1978), A
History oftbe Babamas (1989), and Breaking tbe Cbains (1990).
Sn.VIA W. DE GIIooT (The Netherlands) has published extensively on the history of
Suriname, with an emphasis on Maroon societies, including From Isolation towards
Integration, The Surinam Maroons and their Colonial Rulers (184~ 1863) (1977) and
A Corps ofBlack Cbasseurs in Surinam (forthcoming).
DAVID &115 (Canada) received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1979. He
is currently Associate Professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada,
where he teaches Comparative Slavery and Atlantic History. He is the co-editor with
James Walvin of The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1981), and author of
Economic Growtb and tbe Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1987) which was
the winner of the Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for 1990 (Institute of Commonwealth
Studies, London). He has authored and co-authored numerous articles in such schol-
arly journals as the American Historical Review, Economic History Review, Hispanic
American Historical Review, journal of Economic History, and the journal of
InterdisCiplinary History.
SrANU!Y L ENGERMAN (USA) is John H. Munro Professor of Economics and Professor of
History at the University of Rochester, New York, USA. He is co-author (with Robert
W. Fogel) of Time on tbe Cross: The Economics ofAmerican Negro Slavery (1974), and
co-editor of several books including Between Slavery and Free Labor (1985) (with
Manuel Moreno Fraginals and Frank Moya Pons), Long-Term Factors in American
Economic Growtb (1986) (with Robert E. Gallman), Quantitative Economic History

xii
 List of Contributors

(991) (with N. F. R. Crafts and N. H. Dimsdale), Without Consent or Contract:

Technical Papers on Slavery (1992) (with Robert W. Fogel), and The Atlantic Slave
Trade (1992) (with J. E. Inikori).
GAD IIEuMAN (UK) teaches in the Department of History and the Centre for Caribbean
Studies at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He is the author of Between
Black and White: Race, PolitiCS, and the Free Coloreds ofjamaica (1981), editor of
Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the
New World (1986), and co-editor of Labour in the Caribbean: From Emancipation to
Independence (1988). He is also co-editor of Slavery and Abolition: A journal of
Comparative Studies, and is currently completing a study of the Morant Bay Rebellion
in Jamaica.
B. W. HIGMAN (Australia) is Professor of History at the Australian National University
and former Head of the Department of History at the Mona, Jamaica campus of The
University of the West Indies. His book Slave Populations and Economy injamaica,
1807-1834 (1976) was awarded the Bancroft Prize in 1977; his Slave Populations in
the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (984) won the Elsa Goveia Prize of the
Association of Caribbean Historians. He is also the author of jamaica Suroeyed:
Plantation Maps and Plans of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (988).
FIlANIWN W. KNIGHT (Jamaica) is Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History,
and former Director of the Latin American Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. His publications include: Slave Society in Cuba
during the Nineteenth Century (1970), The African Dimension of Latin American
Societies (1974), The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism (1978,
1990), Africa and the Caribbean: The Legacies of a Link (1979), co-edited with
Margaret Crahan, The Modern Caribbean (989), co-edited with Colin A. Palmer, and
Atlantic Port Cities. Economy, Culture and Society in the Atlantic World, 1650-1850
(991), co-edited with Peggy K. Liss.

CoUN A. PALMER (Jamaica) formerly William Rand Keenan, Jr. Professor of History at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also served as chairman of the depart-
ments of History, and African and Afro-American Studies. He is presently Graduate
Professor in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His publications
include Slaves of the White God. Blacks in Mexico (1976), Human Cargoes. The British
Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700-1739 (1981), The Modern Caribbean (1989),
co-edited with Franklin W. Knight, and Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black
America (1993).
MARY TUIINER (Canada) is Professor of History at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada. Her publications include Slaves and Missionaries: the disintegration of
jamaican Slave Society, 1788-1834 (1982), The Baptist War and Abolition (1982), and
Chattel Slaves into Wage Slaves (1988),

xiii
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Muster records, 1689 26

Table 1.2 Mortality rate of the slaves carried in the Royal African
Company's ships, 1680-88 29
Table 2.1 Caribbean populations, 1750, 1830, 1880 48
Table 2.2 Estimated net slave imports, 17~1870 (in 'OOOs) 60
Table 3.1 Estimated plantation output, 1770 113
Table 3.2 Estimated plantation output, 1850 117
Table 4.1 Freedmen, whites and slaves at the end of the eighteenth
century 144
Table 4.2 Growth of the freedmen population in the nineteenth
century 158

xiv
 PLATES

1 Subversive rebel message from Barbados, 1683

2 Toussaint Louverture, architect of the free state of Haiti (probably 1802)
3 Private in the Fifth West India Regiment, 1814
4 Leonard Parkinson, last Jamaican Maroon rebel, 1796
5 The French trying to exterminate the Black Army, post-I800
6 General Henri Christophe at a Court Martial
7 Training bloodhounds in French St Domingue in the late eighteenth century
8 The Black Army taking revenge on the French in St Domingue
9 Maroon ambush, Dromilly Estate, Jamaica, 1795
10 A slave being hung alive
11 A rebel slave armed and on guard
12 Eastern Maroons negotiating their treaty in St Vincent
13 El Cimarron
14 Dance
15 ReligiOUS worship
16 Sunday morning in town
17 Free market in Falmouth, Jamaica, c.1840
18 From Harper's Weekly Punishing slaves in Cuba, 1868
19 Certificate for slave sale in Cuba, 1814
20 The Kalinda, or stick dance, Dominica (probably nineteenth century)
21 Three scenes from Cuba: i) Semi-mechanized sugar manufacture, c.1850
ii) Cart for transporting canes, c.1860 iii) Slaves dancing, c.1865
22 Boiling house, c.1800
23 Cutting, cleaning and stacking sugar-canes manually

xv
 The Caribbean

GULF OF MEXICO A TLANTIC OCEAN

----
----------
---- -5~--~ ----

0«,
Cayman Is

J~

CARIBBEAN SEA
~.

PACIFIC OCEAN

_ Land over 200m

o,
500km
I
 INTRODUCTION

Franklin W. Knight

T HROUGHOUT the tortuous history of the Caribbean region nothing

exceeded in fundamental importance the twin experiences of slavery
and the plantation system. Together these two overlapping experi-
ences constituted the paramount defining episode of Caribbean social reality.
Together they produced for the Caribbean its historical watershed, its illustri-
ous moment, its before and its after. No other occurrence came close to that,
including the accidental arrival of Christopher Columbus and his 'doom
burdened caravels' in 1492.
Slavery and the plantation society were, without much doubt, the over-
whelming crucible that fashioned the indelible mould of the present
Caribbean reality. What the Hundred Years' War did for France or England,
or the Reconquista for Spain, or the Civil War for the United States, slavery
and the plantation society together accomplished for the Caribbean territo-
ries. That experience permanently shaped their entire social structures, their
economic organizations, an9 gave them their unusual distinctiveness as well
as their collective identity. The importance, then, of understanding the
complex course of Caribbean slave systems cannot be exaggerated. For the
Caribbean today represents the singular legacies of that long and compli-
cated link between discovered place, opportune time and fortuitous circum-
stances.
Neither slavery nor the plantation system was, independently or in
association, unique to the Caribbean. Independently the separate histories of
slavery and the plantation construct go back to a far more distant antiquity
than that chance encounter of Christopher Columbus that precipitated the
eventual integration of the Caribbean into the Atlantic and wider world.
Slavery constituted one of several categories of servitude. In one form
or another slavery had been an organizing construct, a social ascriptive
mechanism, or a symbol of power in human societies everywhere - among
Europeans, Asians, Africans and indigenous Americans., Slavery traces its
etymology back to the commonly accepted custom of merchandising Slav
peoples in and around the Black Sea and the Levantine Mediterranean in the
Middle Ages. Participants in the European crusades - the Christian equivalent

1
 General History of the Caribbean

of the Islamic Jihad - were still buying Slavs to supplement their labour force
in the areas captured from the Muslim peoples in Palestine between the
eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Eventually this supplementary labour force
came to involve not only ethnic Slavs but also a wide variety of Africans, first
from the southern Mediterranean littoral, and increasingly from areas up the
Nile river and beyond the Sahara. By the time the Europeans began their
serious task of reconstructing the Americas sometime during the seventeenth
century, the word slave had undergone a sea-change and had slowly become
a synonym for sub-Saharan Africans.
A similar semantic transformation took place with the word as well as
the idea of the plantation. Like slavery, the plantation also underwent
profound change in the Americas.
Originally plantation connoted a group of settlers who went out to
establish a new colony (another word of chameleon-like metamorphosis) in
a new location. The term, then, was frequently applied to English and
Scottish settlers in Wales and Ireland, as well as the hardy adventurers who
expanded the organized frontiers of Western Europe eastward across the
Rhine. (To a lesser extent it also could be used to describe Christians relo-
cating into the reconquered parts of Iberia, although the Spanish, perhaps
influenced by the Romans, preferred to called such pioneers colon os, or
colonists.) By the middle of the seventeenth century, about the time that
Richard Ligon was writing his interesting history of Barbados, the word plan-
tation had apparently already acquired a new and specific meaning for
Europeans, at least among the English, Dutch and French. The term referred
not to people and their social organization but to a manner of plant cultiva-
tion and production culture, or the specialized locales specifically created for
the production of deSignated export commodities, usually tropical staples:
the sugar plantation; the cotton plantation; the coffee plantation. All three
types of plantations, as well as many others that were to be added through
the later years, represented new crops introduced into a different ecological
and human environment.
The Caribbean experience, then, was enormously significant in the
radical semantic transformation of many conventional European terms
(including both slavery and the plantation) since the various languages con-
tinuously responded creatively to novel changes that the Europeans con-
sciously or aCcidentally effected throughout the region after the sixteenth
century. Indeed, all the languages introduced by the variety of immigrants to
the region underwent an inevitable quantitative expansion and colourful
enrichment, as they borrowed freely from one another as well as from the
indigenous and African peoples. One example of this is the word Negro in
English, a word that became a synonym for African (and in some cases
people of African descent). It most likely originated with the Portuguese

2
 Introduction

term, 0 povo negro, frequently shortened to 0 negro, and used to refer to an

African from south of the Sahara. An enduring by-product of this inescapable
linguistic expansion and enrichment is the complex dialects and Creole
languages characteristic of the contemporary Caribbean populations.
By the end of the eighteenth century the system of slavery, as well as
the intimate links between slavery and the plantation, were already begin-
ning to disintegrate; and by the end of the nineteenth century slavery was no
longer an accepted legal form of labour organization anywhere in the
Americas. The plantation structure continued as a labour and production
complex, however, employing wage labourers for the largely manual - and
frequently menial - occupations previously performed by coerced slaves.
New creative forms of servitude replaced the degrading and destructive
system that channelled millions of Africans to the Americas and the
Caribbean through the long, lucrative transatlantic slave trade. By that time
the Caribbean region had largely lost its primary role as the principal fulcrum
for the creation of international capitalism or as the principal source of
tropical staples designed for the European and North American markets.
The collective changes introduced by the Europeans during the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries represented an intricate series of trans-
formations that permanently altered every facet of the Caribbean, though
unquestionably some more so than others. The most dramatic and far-
reaching of these changes comprised the interconnected succession of trans-
formations usually called the 'sugar revolutions' in the historical literature.
But the sugar revolutions were by no means the first fundamental change in
the history of the Caribbean. Indeed, the penetration of the Europeans into
the American sphere initiated cataclysmic changes everywhere, permanently
shattering all notions of self, history and cosmological calculations of the
indigenous peoples. This creation (or recreation) of the Americas is not
germane to an examination of the Caribbean slave systems but constitutes an
integral part of the general context against which the history of the sugar
revolutions must be viewed.
The sugar revolutions conveniently and dramatically highlight the before
and after of Caribbean societies. Before the advent of the sugar revolutions
Caribbean societies could be described as microcosmic colonies of
Europeans in the New World. Another term used to describe them is 'settler
colonies' indicating a direct connection with the sending society. Regardless
of their location, their dominant imperial system, their language or their
demographic composition, each colony shared some common characteristics.
By and large their mores and their identity derived from the commonly
accepted understanding of the leading colonists' attempts to reproduce an
articulated concept of their mother country in a strange and alien land and
often among strange and alien peoples. These creative endeavours could

3
 General History of the Caribbean

not be achieved without considerable modifications imposed by the local

circumstances. Inevitably over time the colonists and their metropolitan
contemporaries slowly came to realize that home state and colony - and by
extension, home folk and colonists - shared certain core recognizable
features but were patently not identical. The more the consciousness of dif-
ferences became evident to the separate parties the greater grew the friction
between metropolis and colony.
That differentiation represented the essential process of creolization.
Before the sugar revolutions, therefore, English colonists in Barbados repre-
sented the majority demographically and they organized their communities
with the clear understanding that English laws and English ways of doing
things would be the unquestioned norm. Barbadian communities then could
be accurately described as English yeoman communities, even though they
included a number of non-English persons. In a comparable way, the
Spanish settlers in their various American colonial enclaves represented a
distant overseas extension of Spanish Iberian SOCiety. In all situations class
and rank were important, although some situations made it difficult to main-
tain consistency or clarity between the ranks and classes.
All the early American colonial communities constructed by the
Europeans possessed slaves, most of whom were originally from Africa. Yet
the distinctiveness of those communities did not derive from the common
fact of their having slaves - but rather from their European provenance. One
way to denote these communities, therefore, is to describe them as 'slave-
holding societies'. Slaves comprised merely one element in the labour force,
but not necessarily the dominant element. By contrast, the more mature
tropical staple-producing colonies were true slave societies. In such cases
slaves not only comprised the majority (or in a few examples such as
Cuba, a significant proportion) of the labour force but also of the overall
population.
As Colin Palmer illustrates persuasively in Chapter 1, the proportion of
slaves in the overall population of any Caribbean territory represented a
major index of the degree of transformation of the local society from a slave-
holding to a slave society. He shows that before the transformation of the
economy and society of Barbados in the 1640s the population of the island
included some 5680 African slaves and a free, mostly European, white group
of approximately 37 000 inhabitants. Most of the free were not entirely free
but serving some sort of indentured, or contracted, obligation - the so-called
'indentured' servants. The perceived difference between servants and slaves
remained ambiguous - especially in frontier areas undergOing fluid change -
and often masters, servants and slaves shared a common culture. B" the time
that Barbados attained the status of a mature sugar colony arouno 1680
the free population had stabilized at approximately 17 000 and the slave

4
 Introduction

work-force had grown to more than 46 000, or about 70 per cent of the pop-
ulation of the island. In the same manner, white English settlers were almost
equal to the number of their slaves shortly after the capture of Jamaica from
the Spanish in 1655. By the time that Jamaica became a major sugar pro-
ducer, sometime around 1774, slaves outnumbered the white population by
130000 to 12000. The pattern could be repeated for most Caribbean islandS
where intensified sugar production depended on considerable expansion of
the slave population, eventually accounting for between 70 and 90 per cent
of the local population.
Nevertheless, exceptions existed. The demographic trajectory of
Puerto Rico varied from the rest. In 1530 the Puerto Rican population had
only 327 white settlers and 2292 slaves. In 1775 the white population had
soared to 29263 while the number of slaves remained a modest 7437. The
sugar revolution of the nineteenth century in Puerto Rico, mainly localized
in the Ponce valley, failed to follow the normal pattern elsewhere in the
Caribbean. Slaves failed to dominate the labour force or to become a
significant proportion of the population. Puerto Rico, then, failed to make
the full transformation to the classical Caribbean slave society, at least in
the demographic sense.
After the sugar revolutions the ambiguities between servants and slaves
as well as others would be gradually clarified among the sweeping changes
made to Virtually every aspect of the Caribbean. As we have indicated
before, all of these changes were intimately interrelated. There was a funda-
mental change in the nature of crop cultivation and the pattern of land
holding. Large-scale, labour-intensive cultivation of a major crop such as
sugar, coffee or cotton replaced the small-scale farming of mixed food crop
cultivation designed for self-sufficiency with an exported cash crop such as
tobacco that promoted economic viability. This was tantamount to an agricul-
tural revolution. The labour force expanded enormously, and the populations
moved from predominantly European (or a mixture of European, mestizos
and indigenous) to overwhelmingly African. The predominantly free popula-
tion became a largely slave population rigidly organized for the narrow
purpose of productive efficiency.
Slavery and the plantation complex created a demographic revolution
throughout the Caribbean, but they also resulted in communities of sharply
delineated, mutually reinforcing social cleavages. A complex, overlapping
structure of castes internally subdivided into classes replaced the conven-
tional class-based divisions of the initial settlers. Above all, both the social
structure and the economic organization of the community derived from the
exigencies of the plantation. Such communities represented not slaveholding
societies, but rather slave societies with the raison d'elre the goal of
maximum tropical staple production at minimum cost.

5
 General History of the Caribbean

The essays in this volume review the current historiography as well as

accessible archival data to highlight many aspects of the Caribbean slave
society during the course of its long and erratic evolution.
Chapter 1 reviews the slow genesis of the Caribbean slave system up to
1750. It provides the general Atlantic background to the establishment of the
various Caribbean slave societies, and shows how they varied significantly
between the various European colonial administrations. Based extenSively on
records of the traders - especially the more voluminous records of English
traders - it seeks not only to describe the ways in which the trade developed
but also to reconstruct the human levels of involvement and the human costs
involved for the slaves, for the slave merchants, and for the participating
societies. It carefully illustrates the tentative trial and error methods that
eventually stabilized into a fully organized and conSistently conducted
transatlantic slave trade by the middle of the eighteenth century. Of particular
importance is the examination of the complex ways in which the practice of
slavery created and disseminated images of Africans in general and of slaves
in particular. Such images eventually hardened into a generally negative
stereotype of the African and Afro-American even before 'the pseudo-
scientific racism of the Enlightenment'.
Much has been written about the volume of the transatlantic slave
trade. In Chapter 2 the authors demonstrate that the true significance of the
volume lies not in the isolated importance of numbers - even if such could
be ascertained - but rather in the correspondence between volume flow and
societal development. They show that the demographic history of the
Caribbean is a rich and complex one in which timing of arrival, sexual com-
position, material conditions, diet and disease all operated in different ways
to convert a random collectivity of predominantly males into a community of
workers and eventually a society of citiZens. The demographic experience
also reinforces the point that almost without exception in the Caribbean, high
mortality, low fertility and negative rates of natural increase coincided with
intensive sugar-cane cultivation.
Chapter 3 places the Caribbean slave economies in a wider Atlantic per-
spective in order to attempt to evaluate some basic questions about the nature
of production, comparative levels of productivity, the value of the region to
the rest of the world economy, and the relationship between local economic
activity and larger imperial economic trends. At a macro level major differ-
ences may be observed between the regional economy at different periods of
time. The'growth of a domestic economy in many of the territories during the
eighteenth century - represented in some areas by a flourishing internal mar-
keting system - meant that considerations of time, place and circumstances
were essential to any understanding of each Caribbean economic unit. The
Caribbean effected, and was affected by, changes in the wider world

6
 Introduction

economy. Even within plantation America economic zones were important at

different times. The major sugar producers in the nineteenth century - Cuba,
Brazil and the United States of America - were not the major ones during the
eighteenth century. The chapter notes that mercantilism resulted in crop
diversification before 1770 but that the gradual expansion of free trade after
that date intensified the tendency toward monoculture. The outstanding obser-
vation is, perhaps, the inextricable link between slavery and economy
reflected in the assertion that 'most of the major ports anywhere in the
Americas before 1800 were major because of their links with slave economies.'
Chapter 4 examines the social structure in terms of a fluid interplay of
race, colour, gender, occupation, caste, class and economic status. The
Caribbean represented a constantly changing mosaic in which the common
patterns of social differentiation exhibited considerable local variations -
especially when viewed at different stages of development - depending on
tradition and physical size of the island as in the case of Puerto Rico,
Barbados, St Kitts and Grenada, or the availability of land for alternate forms
of economic activity to the plantation as in Cuba, Hispaniola CSt Domingue/
Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Trinidad.
The slave plantation society, while the dominant form of the region as
a whole, masked a number of competing communities. Some of these
derived from the very existence of slavery and the innate opposition of
slaves to their circumscribed condition. Chapter 5 examines the most import-
ant and the longest surviving of these communities: the Caribbean Maroon
communities. It explores the symbiotic relationship with the neighbouring
organized communities, and analyses some strengths and weaknesses of
Maroon communities under the changing conditions of geographical location
and international political circumstances.
To explain how a numerical minority of free slave owners, often isolated
personally and geographically, could for so long perpetuate a system as aston-
ishingly complex, as potentially explosive and as inherently contradictory as
the Caribbean slave society is the goal of Chapter 6. Social and political control,
the author points out, depended on the careful and continuous balancing of a
hegemony of force, astute self-serving legal constructs and negotiated incen-
tives that retained authority and power in the hands of a small number of prop-
erty-owning inhabitants and their managerial associates. The difficulty of that
task and the success with which it was accomplished is all the more fascinating
given the elaborate forms of resistance that slaves developed, not only to miti-
gate the cruel reality of their existence but also to protect and preserve their
psychological well-being. This is elaborately detailed in Chapter 7.
Despite the artificial, erratic and accidental nature of their formation,
and despite the numerous adverse forces continually aligned against them,
the communities of masters, hangers-on, bureaucrats and slaves in the

7
 General History of the Caribbean

Caribbean eventually constituted a plural society with a complex culture.

Chapter 8 attempts to understand the myriad ways and means by which this
regional creolized culture evolved, and the ways in which the various
contributing elements related during the process of formation.
Basic to this cultural construction in the Caribbean was the multitude of
religious beliefs that found expression among the diverse groups of individu-
als who composed the changing population of the region. Chapter 9 exam-
ines the ways in which imported elements of African and European religious
beliefs were moulded eclectically within the context of the local towns and
plantations to create a series of coherent religions that served their adherents
in a number of ways. The author indicates that religious beliefs in the slave
society 'explained the manifest contradictions of material life, provided access
to supernatural powers to resolve crisis, and generated within the slave com-
munity leaders whose spiritual powers reinforced political capacities.'
The slave system of the Caribbean lasted for nearly four hundred years.
But for almost one-third of that period it manifested pronounced signs of dis-
integration. No single event, nor any single factor by itself explains the erosive
collapse of the legal framework of slavery in the Caribbean. Except for the
singular case of the French colony of St Domingue, slavery throughout the
Caribbean died less with an explosive bang than with a muffled whimper.
Chapter 10 examines the odd combination of forces, internal as well as exter-
nal, and the changing circumstances, local as well as international, that even-
tually led to the progressive dismantlement of the Caribbean slave system.
The authors who have explored these important dimensions of the
Caribbean slave society have by no means exhausted this powerfully protean
subject. Such a productively rich and singularly important theme could not
conveniently be compactly confined to a single volume. The more so when
the area is so diverse. But all the authors have sought, each in his own way, to
provide a broad historical canvas that captures the intriguing diversity of the
entire region. Moreover they have sought to combine the latest available schol-
arship in their assessment of what is presently known about these slave soci-
eties. Inevitably, since this volume constitutes one of a series of studies dealing
with the Caribbean - and the one that most sharply deviates from a chronolog-
ical examination - some degree of repetition was unfortunately unavoidable.
Yet if in the end this volume complements rather than contradicts the others in
the series, then both editor and authors will have been. satisfied that their work
served its designed purpose. Like Antonio Nebrija's grammar of the Castilian
language offered to the Catholic monarchs in the auspicious year of 1492, the
UNESCO general history could also become a tool with which the more than
thirty million people of the Caribbean region could gain a better understanding
of their collective past. An understanding of that tortured past could also be of
inestimable help in the process of Caribbean nation building.

8
 1

THE SLAVE TRADE, AFRICAN SLAVERS AND THE

DEMOGRAPHY OF THE CARIBBEAN TO 1750
Colin A. Palmer

T: E contemporary Caribbean societies are the products of a unique his-

torical experience. With few exceptions, these islands have been
peopled principally by individuals of African descent since the latter
part of the seventeenth century. Yet these were not migrants seeking to
improve the quality of their lives or individuals escaping from oppressive
political systems. They were the involuntary participants in a transatlantic
voyage as well as the shoulders upon which the economic edifice of the
Caribbean was constructed. These African immigrants and their progeny
contributed their sweat, in a very significant way, to the making of the
Caribbean.
This chapter discusses the circumstances that led to the peopling of the
Caribbean· islands by African slaves. It discusses the commercial arrange-
ments that the Europeans, particularly the Spaniards and the English, made
to supply their colonists. with African labour and the impact of the slaves on
the demography of the islands up to the mid-eighteenth century. Much of the
chapter is devoted tQ an analysis of the nature of the slave trade in Africa,
African-European relationships and the psychological and physical responses
of the slaves to their condition. Since the European traders also paid a high
price for their involvement in the enterprise, there is an extended discussion
of the social costs of the trade to them. The human, as opposed to the
institutional aspect of the trade is emphasized. Much of the information, par-
ticularly that which relates to the human aspects of the traffic, is taken from
the accounts of the English traders since their records are the most complete
in this regard for the formative period of the trade.
It may be doubted whether the Spaniards - the first European colonists
in the Caribbean - recognized that they would play an enduring and
irreversible role in the transformation of the human landscape. No one could
have predicted the extent of the demographic catastrophe that followed in
the wake of Columbus and the Spanish occupation. The indigenous peoples
experienced a drastic reduction in their ranks as a consequence of epidemic

9
 General History of the Caribbean

diseases, warfare, and mistreatment by the invaders. They possessed no

immunity to such diseases as the smallpox, typhus and measles that the
Spaniards brought with them from the Old World. A series of vicious
epidemics struck the native peoples with great ferocity throughout the six-
teenth century. The smallpox epidemic of 1519 and that of measles in 1529
were particularly devastating in their demographic consequences.
In time, the combined forces of disease, warfare, mistreatment, along
with other factors such as overwork and poor diet, resulted in the virtual dis-
appearance of the Indian population. By 1600 the population of the islands
had fallen to just a few thousand souls. The situation was much the same on
the mainland. In Central Mexico, for example, the number of Indians fell
from an estimated twenty-five million in 1519 to slightly more than a million
by 1605. Scholars, however, are not all agreed on the magnitude of the
decline of the Indian population of the Americas in the aftermath of the
Spanish Conquest. In spite of their differences, there can be no doubt that
the imposition of Spanish colonial rule had catastrophic demographic and
other consequences for the indigenous peoples. 1
While the Indians had, perforce, to adjust to the profound diminution
in their numbers, the colonizers had to seek an alternative labour force to
exploit. In time, the Spaniards, and the other powers - the English, the
French, the Dutch and the Danes - would come to depend upon black
Africans to build the European world they wanted in the Caribbean. The
Spaniards, as the earliest colonizers, did not settle in Hispaniola, Cuba,
Jamaica and elsewhere with the expectation that they would be the sources
of their own labour. Once they were confronted with that awful prospect,
they looked to Africa to provide an alternative labour supply.
For the Spanish colonists, the use of slave labour was nothing particu-
larly new. Slavery had constituted a significant feature of Spanish society
since the Roman occupation. It must be noted, however, that this institution,
unlike that which developed in the Americas, cannot be characterized as
racial slavery. Spanish slaves included such diverse groups as Jews, Turks
and Moors, as well as individuals who were enslaved for their religious
beliefs or captives taken in war. Black African slaves did not form an import-
ant part of Spanish society until the late fifteenth century, although they were
present in relatively small numbers prior to that time.
African slaves were brought to Spain originally by merchants who
acquired them during their trans-Saharan trading expeditions. It was not until
the fifteenth century that Portuguese explorations and discoveries on the
African coast led to an expansion of the slave trade between Africa and
Europe. In 1479, for example, the Spaniards signed the Treaty of Alca~ovas
that granted the Portuguese the right to supply Spain with the African slaves
she needed. By 1500, Seville had developed into one of the principal trading

10
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

centres for African slaves in Europe. Accordingly, the Spaniards were intro-
ducing into the Caribbean an institution with which they were already
familiar, although its character would undergo a fundamental transformation
in the New World environment. 2
Past practice and economic necessity provide, at best, unsatisfactory
explanations for the enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean. It must be
stressed that there was nothing inevitable about the enslavement of these
peoples, no magic wand that drew the Portuguese and Spaniards inexorably
to Africa's shore to purchase and transport her peoples to the American
colonies as slaves. Consequently, we must be carefullest we conclude that
the enslavement of Africans represented the normal, predictable unfolding of
events and the realization of a tragic destiny. African slavery in the
Caribbean, and in the Americas as a whole, must be seen as one part of a
series of atrocities that came in the wake of Columbus and the momentous
events of 1492.

The image of black Africa

Much scholarly energy has been expended on the elusive question of the
nature of European images of Africa and her peoples prior to the start of the
Atlantic slave trade. The assumption that gives motive force to the debate is
that there was a relationship on the one hand between the unflattering
stereotypes that Europeans may have held of Africans and their willingness
to enslave them without any moral compunction on the other. Scholars
arrayed on the other side of the argument are more inclined to see slavery
primarily as a function of economic imperatives and embrace the view that
the negative images of Africa and her peoples emerged as a consequence of
that pernicious institution. This debate may well be an exercise in futility
since it is incapable of resolution and may, in the final analysis, not be all
that significant.
Suffice it to say that no easy generalizations about the perceptions of
black AfriCa by the Europeans, even by the ancient Greeks and Romans, are
possible. After the most careful research, the classical scholar, Frank
Snowden, concluded that: 'The Graeco-Roman view of blacks [was] a funda-
mental rejection of colour as a criterion for evaluating man.'3 Individuals with
black skins were often celebrated in the art and the literature of the classical
periods although they appear to have been caricatured as well. 4 Whether
those persons who possessed a black skin were always accorded the same
basic worth as other human beings is, however, uncertain. Examples abound
in the ancient world of blacks who occupied prominent positions, but it is
still unclear as to the overall status of blacks as a group in society.

11
 General History of the Caribbean

Much the same observations can be made about the perceptions of the
colour black and of black persons in medieval and Renaissance Europe. In
fact, about all that can be said confidently is that social relations between
blacks and whites were characterized by ambiguity and ambivalence. The
image of Africa and Africans was also framed in a climate of profound
ethnocentrism and there is no gainsaying the fact that the concepts of
cultural relativism were not a part of the prevailing zeitgeist anywhere. 5
Whatever the nature of European perceptions of Africa may have been
prior to the start of the transatlantic slave trade, the evidence is clear that
after the sixteenth century, the images had become almost uniformly
negative. In time, the trade in slaves and the entrenchment of slavery in the
societal fabric of the European colonies in the Americas produced a pejora-
tive discourse about Africa and her peoples that still endures. This was not
an image consciously or wholly created by the imperative to legitimize
African slavery. Rather, as the institution of slavery in the Caribbean and else-
where took shape, those aspects of the image of Africa and Africans that
were negative tended to harden. Over time, whatever positive images that
had also constituted a part of the perception of Africa and its peoples were
filtered out and a full blown racist ideology emerged, particularly in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Well before the ascendancy of the pseudo-scientific racism of the
Enlightenment, slave traders had begun to propagate negative stereotypes of
the Africans and their societies. Not surprisingly, the slave traders who were
themselves cultural chauvinists, paiqted pictures of unrelieved barbarism and
lawlessness in Africa. A few exanWles drawn from the accounts of English
traders will suffice. They are taken from the late sixteenth and the early
seventeenth centuries because by then the negative images had become per-
vasive and dominant and were deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the
Europeans in the Americas.
A report prepared by some English traders in 1697 provides an illustra-
tion of the prevailing image. The authors characterized Africans as a 'people
so treacherous and barbarous ... and they watch all opportunities to kill and
steal.'6 A few years later, in 1709, Sir Dalby Thomas, a representative of the
Royal African Company, observed that:

The natives here have neither religion nor law binding them to human-
ity, good behaviour or honesty. They frequently for their grandeur
sacrifice an innocent man, that is, a person they have no crime to
charge; and to train their children up to cruelty they give them knives
to cut and slash the person that is to be killed, neither have they any
knowledge of liberty and property ... Besides the blacks are naturally
such rogues and bred up with such roguish principles that what they

12
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

can get by force or deceit and can defend themselves from those they
robb (sic), they reckon it as honestly their own, as if they paid for it. 7

And finally Dr James Houston, a surgeon, wrote from Africa in 1725 that:

(The African's) natural temper is barbarously cruel, selfish, and

deceitful, and their government equally barbarous and uncivil; and con-
sequently the men of greatest eminency amongst them, are those that
are most capable of being the greatest rogues; vice being left without
any check on it, becomes a virtue. As for their customs, they exactly
resemble their fellow creatures and natives, the monkeys. H

The importation of African slaves

Such assessments of the African's character were, to be sure, personal ones,
but taken together they provide a consistent pattern of what Englishmen
wrote about Africans and presumably how Europeans in general had corne
to perceive them. The perceptions fed white claims to superiority and served
to justify the slave trade and slavery.
If the aforementioned considerations played any role in justifying
whom the Spaniards and other Europeans enslaved and continued to enslave
in the Caribbean, it was the decline of the Indian population and colonial
economic imperatives that provided the immediacy for the massive impor-
tation of black slaves. African slavery was introduced in the Caribbean in
1501 when the Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, granted their approval
to Nicolas de Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola. The monarchs cautioned
Ovando not to 'give permission to corne there, Moors nor Jews, nor heretics,
nor reconcilables, nor persons newly converted to our faith, except if they
are negro slaves or other slaves born in the power of Christians, our subjects
and natives.'9
The first formally recognized African slaves arrived in Hispaniola from
Spain in 1502, inaugurating a transatlantic trade in human beings that would
last well into the nineteenth century. But the trade was not without its early
difficulties. The slaves in Hispaniola proved to be rather intractable and in
1503 the Crown, acting in response to an urgent appeal from Governor
Ovando, suspended the human traffic. The trade was reopened in 1505 after
it was recognized that the material prosperity of the colonists depended upon
its existence. The Crown, in succeeding years, granted the governor's requests
for slaves to meet the labour needs of the colony. In 1510 Ferdinand
urged that African slave labour be used in place of that of the Indians
because the latter were 'weak and of little strength'. This seemingly erroneous

13
 General History of the Caribbean

characterization of Indian workers and the defence of African slavery would

be echoed by other voices in the Americas. In rapid succession, the institu-
tion of slavery spread to Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto RicO.lO
It can scarcely be maintained that the slave trade to the Spanish
Caribbean was particularly brisk during the year£ immediately following its
introduction. Traders needed licences from the Crown to deliver their human
cargoes and the demand, though constantly expanding, was a far cry from
what it would become by 1750. Although the Caribbean islands, particularly
the Greater Antilles, were not completely neglected by the Imperial govern-
ment and its citiz.ens, the mainland colonies of Mexico and Peru with their
rich silver deposits proved more attractive areas to settle and exploit with
the use of Indian and African labour.
If the Spaniards laid the foundation of the slave trade and slavery in the
Caribbean, the English, the Qutch and the French refined and expanded
the edifices. By the mid-seventeenth century, Spain's nominal suzerainty in
the Caribbean had undergone serious challenges from other European
nations, particularly the English, the Dutch and the French. The English
settled in St Christopher in 1624, Barbados (1627), Nevis (1628), Montserrat
and Antigua (1632), and wrested Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655. The
French colonized Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1635 and acquired St
Domingue in 1697. The Dutch, in their turn, took possession of the smaller
islands of Saba, St Eustatius, St Martin and Cura\;ao between 1630 and 1640
while the Danes settled in St Thomas in 1672. All of these colonial powers, in
varying degrees, imported black Africans to meet their labour needs.

Funding and licensing the slave trade

As a commercial enterprise, the slave trade was funded at various times by

combinations of public and private capital since it excited the pecuniary
interests of public officials and independent entrepreneurs alike. The first
traders in the Caribbean were individuals who purchased licences from the
Spanish Crown to supply the colonists with slaves. During the formative
period of the trade, roughly the years 1502-95, the licensees tended to be
either of Genoese or Portuguese descent, with the latter predominating.
Generally speaking, each licence was valid for one cargo of slaves and the
individual had to reapply if he wished to continue in the slave trading
business.
The number of slaves that could be transported by each licensee
varied. Most, however, received permission to transport fewer than one
hundred captives at one time, although a few traders obtained permissionto
deliver as many as 2000 or 3000 slaves or more. In 1553, for example, the

14
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

financier Hernando de Ochoa was granted the right to deliver 23 000 slaves
to the Indies. And earlier, in 1541, another trader contracted to deliver 2000
slaves to Santo Domingo and 'other ports'Y Variations in these contracts
allowed some traders to sell their slaves in two or more specifically named
ports.
In awarding licences, the Spanish authorities were usually careful to
stipulate that two-thirds of the slaves be male and one-third female. If poss-
ible, such slaves should be between the ages of 15 and 26, the years when
they were at the peak of their physical strength and productivity. It is im-
possible to determine whether the licensees fulfilled such details of their
contract since the African suppliers retained a great deal of control over the
age and sexual composition of the groups of slaves offered for sale at any
one time.
The licensing system, unlike the monopoly contracts that characterized
the seventeenth century, meant that several traders were simultaneously
supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies. Yet the colonists were never sure if
their demands for slaves would be consistently satisfied since some licensees
did not always fulfil their obligations. Although the system survived for
almost a century it was administratively cumbersome and unreliable and it is
not surprising that it was replaced.
In fact, as the sixteenth century wore on and as the indigenous popu-
lation declined, the demand for African slave labour increased in all of the
Spanish colonies. Clearly, from the imperial and the colonial perspectives
more reliable and sophisticated arrangements had to be made to meet the
demand. The union of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns in 1580 greatly
facilitated this process of reorganization of the trade. It provided the
Spaniards with an opportunity to break their dependence on Portuguese
traders, revise the terms of trade, and exercise more influence and control
over its conduct.
Since the dynastic union did not result in the merger of the two
national bureaucracies, Spain sought to improve the terms of the conduct of
the slave trade in her favour. In practice, Spanish authorities moved quickly
to change the nature of the licenSing system. They issued a series of new
contracts to the traders, waived the traditional licence fee and in its place
collected a proportion, usually one-third or a quarter of the selling price of
each slave. This new system was short-lived as the colonists continued to
complain about the tardiness of the arrival of the cargoes and the increas-
ingly inflated prices of the human merchandise.
In response to colonial protests and in an attempt to regulate more
closely the conduct of the trade, the Spanish Crown formally introduced the
monopoly contract or asiento system in 1595. Under this system, a trader or a
trading company would be given monopoly rights to deliver slaves to the

15
 General History of the Caribbean

colonies. Normally, the asiento contract stipulated the number of slaves or

piezas de Indias to be supplied annually or over a given period of time. The
first of the asientistas, Pedro Gomez Reynel, signed a contract in 1595 to
deliver 4250 slaves annually to the Indies until a maximum of 38 250 was
reached. In order to facilitate equitable distribution, the Crown reserved the
right to determine the ultimate destination of 2000 of these slaves annually.
The Crown awarded additional asiento contracts- at various times during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The terms of these contracts were
infrequently fulfilled, if at all, and interlopers from various nations often filled
the breach.
One of the earliest interlopers in the Caribbean was the English bucca-
neer, John Hawkins. He made three slaVing expeditions in the 1560s and had
no difficulty selling his cargo to the Spanish colonists. In contrast to the
Portuguese, the English were relative latecomers to the trade in human
beings. Hawkins was a pioneer in this regard but his trading forays were not
repeated by other Englishmen until the 1640s and the 1650s when a few
private traders brought slaves to Barbados. It was not until 1660 that the first
of the English joint-stock companies engaged in the trade - the Company of
the Royal Adventurers into Africa - received its charter. This Company was
evidently mismanaged and in 1663 it was reorganized as The Royal
Adventurers Trading into Africa. It established forts on the African coast and
delivered at least 3000 slaves to Barbados by March 1664. It soon ran into
difficulty as a result of its debts and the seizure of some of its African
settlements by the Dutch and folded in 1671.
The Royal African Company, which was chartered in 1672, proved to
be more durable than its. predecessor and initially more successful. The
charter granted the company a monopoly to trade for a period of 1000 years
between Cape Blanc in the north and the Cape of Good Hope in the south.
It was empowered to deal in slaves and to establish forts and factories on the
African coast. For the next several years, the Royal African Company
supplied the English colonies with the majority of the slaves they needed,
although it faced serious competition from interlopers.
The assaults on the Company's monopoly and its increasing inability to
meet colonial needs for slaves led Parliament to reorganize the African trade
in 1698. Private traders were allowed to participate legitimately in the trade
for an experimental period of twelve years and to pay a fee equivalent to
10 per cent of the value of the export cargo for the privilege. These experi-
mental years saw the gradual ascendancy of the private traders and a steady
decline in the fortunes of the Royal African Company until its eventual
demise in 1752.
The South Sea Company which won the asiento contract in 1713 was
hardly more successful. The contract gave the English exclusive rights to

16
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

supply the Spanish colonies with slaves for the next thirty years, amounting
to 4800 piezas de Indias annually, an overall total of 144000 piezas. The
company soon fell on hard times and sporadic warfare also helped ensure
the failure of the asiento. Between 1718 and 1721 the trade had to be
suspended because of hostilities between Spain and England. Trade was
reopened in 1722, only to be interrupted when war resumed in 1727. When
peace was signed in 1729, trade resumed but the War of Jenkins' Ear, which
began in 1739, halted commerce between the two countries for the next ten
years. The war ended in 1748, but the asiento contract was permanently
crippled. By then, however, the age of the company trade was effectively
over and private traders, particularly those who flew the British flag, had
established their supremacy in the human traffic.
The other major participants in the slave trade - the French and the
Dutch - also granted charters to jOint-stock companies. The Dutch played a
significant role in the slave trade to the Caribbean, particularly after 1630.
Prior to that time, Dutch interest in it was sporadic, if not ambivalent. In
15%, for example, when Pieter van der Haagen, a Rotterdam captain,
brought 130 black slaves to Middleburg in Zeeland they were immediately
freed by the city councillors. Not until 1606 did a Dutch slaving expedition
arrive in the Caribbean. In that year, the trader Isaac Duveme, sold 470
slaves in the island of Trinidad. Even when the Dutch West India Company
was chartered in 1721, the trade in slaves did not immediately become one
of its priorities.
Dutch involvement in the trade changed radically after the capture of
the major Portuguese slaving fort at Elmina in 1637. This gave the Dutch a
secure foothold on the African coast and a welcome opportunity to partici-
pate aggressively in the expanding slave trade to the Caribbean and Latin
America. Eight years earlier, in 1629, the Dutch had taken control of Brazil
from the Portuguese and had recognized the need to supply their colonists
there with slaves. The acquisition of Elmina Castle, therefore, not only
allowed the Dutch to supply slaves to New Holland, as Brazil was renamed,
but to the citizens of other nations as well.
Possessed of enormous commercial energy and acumen, an aggressive
spirit and backed by the wealth of Amsterdam and other cities, Dutch traders
engaged in a brisk and lucrative commerce with other European colonists in
the Caribbean. The island of Curacao became a significant entrepot for the
human traffic. But the Dutch involvement went beyond supplying slaves to
the markets of the Caribbean. Financiers in Amsterdam, Zeeland and
elsewhere underwrote the slave trading ventures of other nations as well.
The Danish West India Company, the Swedish African Company and the
Brandenburg African Company all depended upon Dutch capital for their
existence. The role of the Dutch in the slave trade, however, diminished by

17
 General History of the Caribbean

the tum of the eighteenth century as the French and the English in particular
developed the capacity to supply their colonists with the slaves they needed.
Frenchmen began to demonstrate an interest in the slave trade in the
seventeenth century and in 1642 Louis XIII approved the importation of
African slaves into the French West Indies. Twenty-two years later, in 1664,
as the demand for slaves increased, the French Company of the West Indies
received its charter. Although the Company enjoyed a monopoly of the slave
trade to the islands, it failed to dislodge the well-entrenched Dutch, a factor
that led to its dissolution in 1674. It was succeeded by the Company of
Senegal which was given a monopoly of trade in the Senegambia. This and
other companies were relatively unsuccessful in advancing French interests
in the slave trade. Although the French Guinea Company, which was
chartered in 1685, won the asiento in 1701 it failed to meet its annual con-
tractual obligations prior to the abrogation of the contract in 1713. Not until
the demand for slaves in St Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe
increased in the decades after 1710 did the French share of the slave trade to
the Caribbean expand.

The human experience of the slave trade

So far we have discussed the institutional aspects of the trade. But what of its
human dimensions? It must be stated at the outset that any recounting of the
nature of the trade in persons on the African coast poses enormous problems
for the contemporary historian. One has to rely substantially on the records
of the European traders to tell the story and this means that the picture must
remain incomplete. A careful and sensitive reading of the extant sources does
provide, however, some glimpses of the process of trade and the responses
of the victims to their fate. The follOWing account is based primarily,
although not exclUSively, on the records of the British traders since their
reports from the African coast are the most comprehensive for the early years
of the trade and they tell us much about the human dimensions of the traffic.
Thus, for lack of similar data for the other branches of the commerce during
its formative years, we focus on the experiences of the slaves who were pur-
chased by the British traders, and they provide the prism through which the
trade to the Caribbean is being viewed.
In order to foster, develop and protect their trade in Africa, the char-
tered companies established a series of settlements or trading posts along the
coast. The- Portuguese at Elmina had begun to construct fortified settlements
as early as 1492. The European nations competed among themselves for the
choice locations and even attacked, on occasion, each other's settlements.

18
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

These enclaves ranged in importance and ostentation from well-fortified

enclosures consisting of several buildings to small factories with no more
than one or two crude structures. The Royal African Company's principal
settlement, for example, was Cape Coast Castle situated on the Gold Coast
(Ghana). It was fortified with outworks, platforms and bastions and was the
chief repository of goods for the other forts and factories.
The European slave trader in Africa was at once a businessman, a
diplomat and a soldier. To be sure, his primary responsibility was to conduct
trade as profitably as possible. But the successful execution of his business
obligations required him to utilize whatever diplomatic skills he had to estab-
lish friendly relations with the various African peoples and his European
rivals. And on occasion he might be involved in a military skirmish with
Africans and with other European traders. In general, white traders knew that
good relations with the African peoples constituted the basis for successful
business operations. The Royal African Company's instructions to its employ-
ees to treat the Africans 'gently and courteously' and to 'keep friendly
correspondence with the kings, cabashiers (caboceers) and other great men'
was typical. 12
But civil conduct was not enough. Friendship between Europeans and
Africans could be strengthened in other ways. To this end, European traders
competed with one another in bestowing attractive and valuable presents
upon African rulers and traders. 'Those who make the most acceptable
presents has the most friendship from them', wrote an English trader, 'and
tho' the great men are seldom traders, yet it is very much in their power to
command and influence the traders to the place they recommend to them.'13
That the Europeans expected kinder treatment from the Africans after
presents were distributed is illustrated in the case of the king of Whydah,
who received a beaver hat from the Royal African Company in 1698. At the
time the company dispatched the present, it informed the agents that 'this is
a fine beaver hat trimm'd with right gold lace and neatly equip't, suppose it
will please very well, and that we may reap a considerable benefit by his
(the king's) allegiance.' The beaver hat was apparently well received, for five
years later when the Dutch sought permission to build a fort at Whydah, the
king refused to grant it unless the resident English agent, Peter Duffield,
approved. The English did not welcome the competition of a Dutch fort, so
Mr Duffield hastily wrote to his superiors recommending that a present to the
king 'is in order, a crown may be very proper.'14
The exchange of gifts created a favourable disposition toward the
European, but an enduring and successful trading relationship required much
more. The Europeans had to stock the kinds of commodities the Africans
wanted. One trader summarized the situation very well: 'Your presents and
power ... may subject these waterside people to your interest but if your

19
 General History ofthe Caribbean

warehouses are not kept constantly supplied with all sorts of goods, your
presents and power is to no consequence.'lS
Political alliances between the Europeans and the leaders of the African
states were a concrete and effective way of ensuring regular supplies of
slaves. In return for slaves, the Europeans supplied their African friends with
military advice, anns and ammunition. When the English supported AkWamu
against Accra in 1709, for example, the traders reported that Akwamu, if
victorious, promised that 'great things shall be done' .16 The English could
count on having the first choice of slaves that Akwamu captured in the war.
Such alliances could lead, ultimately, to direct involvement in African domes-
tic affairs and could and did entangle the Europeans in a series of local
disputes and wars. Africans, understandably, did not always acquiesce to the
wishes of the white traders. In the final analysis they based their conduct on
a sophisticated evaluation of their own interests. On occasion they showed
their dissatisfaction by interrupting trade or attacking the forts or the traders
themselves. Europeans were apt to characterize such behaviour as black
ingratitude or 'villanous' actions.

Categories of slaves

There were at least four principal, but not exclusive, categories of slaves who
were offered for sale: prisoners of war, criminal offenders, the victims of
abductions, and dependants. It can never be determined precisely what pro-
portion of the whole each category constituted. Yet there are good reasons
for concluding that the majority of the slaves were victims of the numerous
wars that wracked their societies. Dutch trader William Bosman's observation
in the early eighteenth century that: 'Most of the slaves that are offered to us
are prisoners of war, which are sold by the victors as their booty' appears to
be substantially accurate. 17
Political unrest among the African states fed the human traffic. West
Africa, which was one of the central arenas of the slave trade during the
period, consisted of numerous competing nations in constant struggle with
each other. All the usual causes of warfare were present: political reprisals,
disputes over succession, trade rights, territorial expansion and so on. The
slave trade exacerbated tensions already existing between some of the states.
Disputes between states which might not normally have led to warfare now
did so because the captives could be sold to the Europeans. The European
traders, particularly the English and the Dutch, ensured that firearms and
powder were available to keep the flames of war burning.
Unlike the incidence of warfare, abductions of slaves for the market
declined as the trade expanded, became better organized, and the supply fell

20
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

essentially under Mrican control. The practice, however, did not cease
entirely as Europeans engaged in people stealing if they thought that they
could get away with it. The abduction of Mricans who came on board ships,
especially those belonging to the private traders, appears to have occurred
with some regularity all along the coast. Trader William Snelgrave observed
that on the Windward Coast French and English traders abducted Mricatl
traders 'under some slight pretence of having received an injury from them.'18
Some traders also abducted other Mricans, particularly individuals from
other states. The incidence of such acts is unknown. If discovered, such
practices could lead to war so abductions were fraught with considerable
risk. On the other hand, some individuals undoubtedly abducted unsus-
pecting fellow citizens, but these atrocities do not appear to have occurred
with much frequency ... 'Not a few in our country fondly imagine that
parents here sell their children, men their wives, and one brother the other',
wrote the Dutchman, William Bosman, about Whydah, and by extension
about all of the Mrican coast. 'But', he added, 'those who think so deceive
themselves.'19
The third category of slaves included individuals who had lost their
freedom as a consequence of judicial punishment. This category of persons
included thieves, murderers, adulterers, debtors and others. Such slaves
formed but a small minority of the total number of Mricans shipped to the
Caribbean. Trader Francis Moore's claim that 'Since this trade has been us'd,
all punishments are chang'd into slavery. Not only murder, theft, aduhery are
punish'd by selling the criminal for a slave, but every trifling crime is punish'd
in the same manner' appears to have been a considerable exaggeration.2<)
A fourth and more amorphous category of slaves offered for sale in
various markets consisted of individuals who may be classified as depend-
ants. These were individuals who enjoyed rights in particular societies that
were granted to them on sufferance. Lacking kinship ties they could become
expendable in difficult times. Individuals characterized as pawns, that is to
say, persons who were enslaved in their own society because of indebted-
ness also ran the risk of becoming a part of the external slave trade.

Areas slaves originated from and ethnic groups

Mrican traders obtained their slaves during the period from a variety of
regions and ethnic groups. Generally speaking, the black cargoes originated
in an area bounded by the Senegal River in the north and contemporary
Angola in the south and extending a few hundred miles into the interior.
This slaving frontier kept changing in accordance with supply considerations;
traders flocked to areas where slaves were available for purchase. The

21
 General History of tbe Caribbean

coastal regions that were most popular at various times during the period
included Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, the Gold Coast, the
Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa. A number of
slaves also came from the coast of south-eastern Africa, an area extending
from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Delgado, and including the island of
Madagascar. Ethnic groups such as the Fulbe, Wolof, the Serer and the
Malinke were shipped from Senegambia and Sierra Leone. From the Gold
Coast came the Akan, the Guan and the Ga-Adangbe. The Ibo inhabited the
Bight of Biafra and the Bakongo and other groups hailed from the Congo
Basin. By 1750, the Caribbean islands may have received as many as
1 500 000 of these peoples.
The planters in the Caribbean islands developed clear preferences for
Africans of certain ethnic groups. Some African peoples were alleged to be
more adaptable to life in the New World and were more easily controlled
and hardworking; others were accused of being rebellious and troublesome.
The Coromantine from the Gold Coast, for example, were considered to be
hard workers but prone to rebelliousness. Caribbean purchasers also had
distinct preferences as to the physical appearances of the slaves, particularly
the women. In 1704, Barbadian planters were reported to prefer 'young and
full breasted women', presumably because such women were stronger and
would be required to render sexual favours to their owners.21 Spanish slave
owners seem to have desired slaves who were phenotypically black as
opposed to being racially mixed, but the basis for this aesthetic preference is
not entirely clear. In 1736, the South Sea Company urged the selection of
slaves 'who are not too much of the yellow cast' for the Cuban market. 22

The price of involvement: disease and death

The European trader and the African slave paid an enormous human price
for their involvement in the trade. The Europeans, of course, were willing
participants in the endeavour; most Africans were victims. Yet, it is important
to underscore the fact that the white traders were also unwitting victims of
the trade as well since they suffered high mortality rates on the African coast
throughout the period. Settled in areas given to much contagion and subject
to the often lethal ministrations of contemporary medical practitioners,
Europeans participated in an enterprise whose practices maximized every
risk of disease. No wonder the comment of a Bristol merchant in 1726 was
expressive of the common notion: 'Those settlements (the African forts)
being so sickly ... they are certain graves for Britons.'23
The traders diagnosed the most prevalent African sickness under the
general heading of 'fevers', an amorphous classification that included many

22
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

ailments, but chiefly designated malaria. Both species of malaria-carrying

mosquitoes (Anopbeles gambiae and Anopbeles junestus) throve in West
Africa; the malarial parasite Plasmodium jalciparnm was particularly vicious.
Infants who survived an infection by the latter normally acquired immunity
for life; but adult Europeans died of it with appalling frequency.24
Malaria was not the only danger. White men in Africa were subject to
yellow fever, smallpox and dysentery (the 'bloody flux'), 'venereal accidents',
gripes, colics, 'sore legs' and 'dropsies'. Speaking of the African disease envir-
onment in the 1690s and of its impact on white men, French merchant, Jean
Barbot, noted that dysentery and colic were 'not so common amongst the
natives as the Europeans, many of whom are snatched away before they can
become naturalized to that unwholesome air; who generally, before they die
grow so benumbed in the limbs, and so lean, that they are frightful to
behold.' At Sierra Leone a Royal African Company agent reported that 'boils
and ulcers are every man's lot, white and black,' and at Cape Coast Castle Sir
Dalby Thomas complained, 'The worms and common ulcers (are) frequent
and too often the lethargy or sleeping disease.' Finally, surgeon George
Wooley wrote from Cape Coast in 1716: 'Everyone in the castle, chiefs and
others have been very ill once or more in this year ... their distempers were
yaunders (jaundice?), dysentery and violent and malignant fevers, but mostly
the two latter.'25
The annual rainy season invariably brought an upsurge of the ubiqui-
tous 'fevers'. The deadly Plasmodium jalciparnm in particular took its grim
toll. A typical account of conditions in the rainy season came from trader
agent, James Phipps, at Cape Coast Castle in July 1712: 'We have a very
sickly season, and lost many of our new soldiers and many are still sick and
daily dying.' Three weeks later there was no improvement: 'Our new people
still continue sickly and are daily dropping off... ,26
Dismal reports of sickness and death came from all the African settle-
ments. In 1716 David Walsh and William Branston, two traders, described
William's Fort as 'so mortal a place' as they watched their colleagues die. In
that same year, a surgeon described Cape Coast Castle as 'a dangerous place'
because 'most that have gone there lately are dead.' The Gambia in 1712 was
termed 'a burying place for all that go there.>27
The frequency of death for the European traders on the African coast is
starkly revealed in the records of the Royal African Company. Between
1684-1732, for example, the average annual death toll for men in the
Company's service on the Gold Coast was 27 per cent. There was, under-
standably, some variation in the annual mortality rates. In 1691, eVidently a
good year, only 13 per cent of the men at Cape Coast Castle succumbed.
Three years later, in 1694, the death rate jumped to 57 per cent. The Dutch,
although similarly affected by the African disease environment, were

23
 General History of the Caribbean

somewhat more fortunate. Only about 20 per cent of the men in the employ
of the Netherlands West India Company on the Gold Coast died annually
between 1719 and 1760. 28
Contemporaries were aware that their first months in Africa were the
most critical period for white men on the coast. In 1721, the Royal African
Company wrote to its chief merchants at the Gambia: 'We are sorry to find
the mortality and sickness so great amongst you, which we presumed might
be occasioned by the rainy season coming on so soon after your arrival, but
as we hope those who have survived are this time pretty well seasoned ... '
The frequency of death was highest in the first four months of arrival.
Between 1695 and 1722, one-third of the new arrivals at the Gold Coast,
Whydah, Gambia and Sierra Leone died within the first four months, and
three-fifths within the first year. The majority of the men died during their
second month but those who survived the first eight months stood a good
chance of making it. K. G. Davies concludes that 'out of ten men going to
Africa at this time, six died in the first year, two more in the second to
seventh years, and one was discharged: the fate of the tenth is best left in
doubt. '29
The mortality rate was subject to much seasonal variation. The rainy
season, roughly from June to September, exacted the greatest toll. On the
Gold Coast, June and July saw the highest mortality rate and July and August
were the deadliest for the Gambia. The deadly Plasmodium fakiparum para-
site flourished in such conditions and the traders paid the inevitable price. 30
It must not be concluded that the slaves were unaffected by the local
disease environment. Not only did they fall victim to their indigenous dis-
eases but they were infected by the new ones brought by the Europeans.
'The natives are incident to our diseases,' wrote one trader in 1704, noting
that they had 'the common sort of clap or pox' (gonorrhoea). Also, as the
trader observed, the Africans had sores and yaws which he erroneously
attributed to 'their coarse eating' Y
It is difficult to determine the proportion of slaves that died between
the time of their capture and that of their purchase by a European trader. Of
every group of captives, several succumbed before being sold. Some died
from disease, others from infected wounds. Dead bodies marked the routes
to the coast. Traders frequently reported that some of their slaves had been
'burried {sic] on the road' Y
Losses 'on the road' were only the beginning of the sad tale of slave
mortality, many more would die in captivity on the coast while awaiting
shipment to the Caribbean and elsewhere. Still more would perish during the
Atlantic passage. The captives' survival on the coast depended partly on their
physical condition when they arrived, partly on what care they received
while awaiting shipment, and partly on the length of the waiting period. The

24
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

longer the wait the greater was the probability that an epidemic of smallpox
or some other malady would carry off many of them.
Sick slaves received medical care from a doctor, if there was one.
Medical supplies were not always available; in any case it is doubtful
whether any of the remedies did any good. From time to time, the resident
traders tried to learn what treatment the Africans themselves used for
illnesses. As early as 1699 the Royal African Company urged its factors at the
River Sherbro to 'keep friendship with some natives that understand the best
remedies for their distempers,.33 Africans, traditionally, possessed many kinds
of remedies for disease. At the tum of the seventeenth century Dutch trader,
William Bosman, reported from the Gold Coast that lime juice, malagueta
pepper, cardamom, several varieties of herbs, and the roots, branches and
gums of trees were 'the chief medicaments'. He found that the local remedies
were 'very successful' in their results and was amazed at the 'strange efficacy'
of the herbs with which 'the negroes cure such great and dangerous
wounds'. Bosman deplored the fact that European physicians had not both-
ered to study African herb lore in order to understand 'their nature and
virtue'. He felt sure that those herbs 'would prove more successful in the
practice of physic than the European preparations'.34
Not surprisingly, Bosman's enthusiasm for African medicine was not
shared by all European traders. English trader Sir Dalby Thomas was one
such example. Thomas reported in 1704 that he had given 'directions to all
the factories to enquire after things ... but the blacks, even those that are
Trafficquers are so stupid and so ignorant, know nothing thereof ... and their
cures are by Fettish men.'3S Thomas' acute ethnocentrism evidently got the
better of his judgement.

The Atlantic passage

The sickness and death that were the fate of European and African alike
demonstrate the high social cost of the slave trade on the African Coast. But
this was only the first stage of the journey to the Caribbean; the horrors of
the Atlantic passage awaited the human cargoes and the crew. The cramped
conditions under which the slaves travelled, the high incidence of disease,
the frequent shortage of food and water combined to ensure that many indi-
viduals would perish along the way. The psychological consequences of the
slaves' travail can only be surmised.
During the voyage to the Caribbean, each slave occupied a tiny area in
the hold, since space was at a premium. In theory, a ship's tonnage deter-
mined the number of slaves it could carry. The Royal African and South Sea
Companies seem to have allocated 0.62 tons per slave on their ships; at least

25
 General History of the Caribbean

this was the average on thirty ships dispatched by both companies between
1713 and 1725. These ships, with a combined weight of 7837 tons, were
registered for 12 590 slaves. It was not until 1788 that the British government
set a requirement of 0.6 tons per slave for vessels of 160 tons built for the
slave trade or less and 0.66 tons for larger ships. For ordinary ships used in
the trade, the ratio was fixed at one ton per slave.
Traders could hardly avoid being aware of the harmful effects on the
slaves of inadequate space and the apparent role it played in producing a
higher mortality rate. Trader Sir Dalby Thomas opposed overcrowding as bad
for business, pointing out in 1704 that such a practice 'will occasion a great
mortality'.36 To keep them alive and saleable, the slaves were periodically
taken on deck for exercise and fresh air. In some ships, depending on the
weather, exercise was a daily routine. The crew also used the occasion to
'muster' the slaves to see which ones were ill and how many were dead. The
Hannah which left Ardra on 10 March, 1689 for Jamaica via Barbados, had
nine musters before arriving in Jamaica on 19 June (Table 1.1). The ship
carried a cargo of 398 slaves (266 men and 132 women). Only 9 per cent died
during this passage, a very good figure for the time. The muster records of an
unusually successful voyage made an eloquent statement about slave trade.
The hold of a slaver was a perfect environment for disease. Smallpox,
measles, scurvy, a variety of 'fevers', the 'bloody flux' (dysentery) and
ophthalmia were among the most prevalent afflictions. Traders usually tried
to purchase only the most 'healthy and merchantable' blacks, but at best it
was a matter of guesswork. Some traders took the chance of shipping
infected individuals, hoping against their better judgement that the disease

TABLE 1.1 Muster records, 1689 for the Hannah

No. alive
Date of muster Men Women

24 March (689) 266 132

7 April 258 132
25 April 258 130
5 May 257 128
14 May 256 119
30 May 255 119
6 June 249 115
14 June 246 115
19 June 245 111
Source: PROT 70/1217, unpaginated.

26
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

would not spread. The Royal African Company's agents at Cape Coast Castle,
for example, dispatched the Elizabeth in 1713 with 157 slaves, some of
whom had the smallpox. The agents apparently expected the worst, for they
doubted that the ship would make 'a good voyage'. 37
Smallpox was a major scourge of the slave voyages, sometimes killing
a huge percentage of a cargo. In 1706 the Regard arrived in Antigua four
months out from Africa with a loss of 142 slaves to smallpox. The Katherine
arrived in Barbados in May 1708 'with 470 Negroes in a miserable condition
by reason the smallpox was aboard and having a tedious passage.' The
Oxford docked in Jamaica on 24 January, 1713, after three months and two
days at sea, having lost 95 of the 521 slaves put aboard at Whydah. The
agent in Jamaica reported that: 'the great mortality was owing to the small-
pox which went quite through the ship; not a slave escaping it.'38
Dysentery was another illness to be reckoned with on almost all slave
ships. Of the two varieties of dysentery, bacillary and amoebic, the former
was more prevalent in the tropics and more deadly. Contaminated food and
water are the cause of dysentery and there was much of both on the slavers.
The Queen Anne arrived in Jamaica in May 1708 after losing more than 70
slaves to smallpox and dysentery. The following year, the Royal African
Company's agents at Barbados lamented that many of the slaves in a recent
cargo were dying, 'they being too far gone in the flux and scurvy.' And in
1714 the Wooshry lost 26 slaves to dysentery and other diseases in its passage
to Jamaica. Finally, the Castle lost 32 slaves en route to the Caribbean: 12
died from dysentery, four from 'pleuritick' fever, three from apoplexy, and
the remainder from unknown causes. 39
The lack of vitamin C in their diet caused many slaves to develop
scurvy during the passage to the Caribbean. In describing a cargo of slaves
that arrived in St Christopher in 1715, trader John Helden noted that 'most of
them had the scurvy'. Other slaves arrived suffering from dropsy. One trader
said of a cargo that landed at Nevis in 1704 that they were 'very ordinary
being most dropsical and much swelled'. Both slaves and crew feared a
malady they called 'sore eyes', (ophthalmia), which blinded many on the
ships. Others contracted the measles, and severe colds, known as 'ship
colds'. And, of course, there was always malaria. Even the slaves who did
not fall ill during the voyage often landed in a terrible condition. The physi-
cal and psychological trauma of the Atlantic passage was apparent in trader
John Huffam's description of a cargo of slaves delivered to Nevis in 1714:
they 'were very feeble and weak at their landing and many having such a
contraction of nerves by their being on board and confined in irons that
[they] were hardly capable to walk ... ,40
There may have been, among other things, a close relationship
between mortality and the availability of adequate amounts of food on the

27
 General History of the Caribbean

slavers. Copious evidence proves that many slaves fared badly in both the
quality and the quantity of the food they received. Food shortages regularly
occurred aboard the ships. A voyage that lasted more than eight or ten
weeks invariably ran short of provisions, leading to rationing and even
starvation for the slaves. The case of the Dorothy which arrived at Barbados
inJune 1709 was not unusual. The ship delivered only 100 slaves after suffer-
ing a 'great mortality' en route. The agent in Barbados attributed the deaths
to 'povertie for want of provisions, as beefe, oyle, malagetta, etc.' The fol-
lowing year, the Elizabeth. arrived with its cargo in 'a miserable condition,
having suffered for want of provisions' Y
Inadequate diet showed in the emaciated appearance of the slaves.
Judging from the frequency with which agents in the West Indies com-
mented on the 'miserable condition' of the cargoes, hunger was the rule
rather than the exception. When the Royal Consori arrived in Barbados in
February 1706, the agent reported that at least one-third of the 457 slaves
were 'very meagre which was for want of due care taking in the voyage ...
their fault generally being poverty.' In May 1709 traders Bates and Steward
observed that 380 slaves had recently arrived in Barbados 'very mauger for
want of change of diet, having only com and not enough of that, they were
well sorted and young, their only fault was poverty.'42
Not all cargoes, of course, were so starved. Some arrived in such an
unusually good condition as to provoke favourable comment. The Jane
landed at Antigua with 'her Negroes well conditioned.' In 1709 the Berkeley
delivered '350 extraordinary good slaves' at Jamaica. The journey from
Anomabo had taken only five weeks, which helps to explain the excellent
condition of the cargo. And in 1712 the Pindar brought 292 slaves to
Barbados 'in the best condition' the resident agents had seen in six years. 43
Surviving records permit a rough calculation of the mortality rate
aboard the ships for certain periods. These rates appear to have declined
somewhat over time. The mortality rate of the slaves carried by the Royal
African Company, for example, declined between the late seventeenth
century and the 1720s. There is a complete set of statistics extant on the
number of slaves the Royal African Company carried and on the number that
died during the years 1680-88. A total of 194 ships left Africa during these
nine years with 60 783 slaves on board. Of this number, 14388 or 23.7 per
cent died during the passage. A breakdown of these figures is given in
Table 1.2.
Between 1700 and 1725 the death rate declined to an average of about
10--15 per cent. This was probably due to a combination of factors - better
care, improved diet and medical treatment and better sanitary conditions on
board the ships. The construction of faster ships reduced the duration of the
voyage and the opportunity to spread contagion. In 1713, a particularly good

28
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

TABLE 1.2 Mortality rate of the slaves carried in the Royal African Company's ships,
1680--88
No. of No. ofslaves No. ofslaves No. of %of
Year ships shipped delivered deaths deaths
1680 17 5190 3751 1439 27.7']fj
1681 18 6327 4989 1338 21.147
1682 21 6330 4494 1836 29.004
1683 28 9081 6488 2593 28.554
1684 17 5384 3845 1539 25.584
1685 29 8658 6304 2354 27.188
1686 28 8355 6812 1543 18.467
1687 18 5606 4776 830 14.805
1688 18 5852 4936 916 15.652
Total 194 60783 46 395 14388 23.7
Source: PRO, T 70/58, p. 15.

year, of the 2541 slaves dispatched in nine Royal African Company ships,
only 266 or 10.5 per cent died. The company's records for the years 1720-25
indicate that 33 ships sailed for the Caribbean carrying 9949 slaves. These
ships delivered 8638 of their cargoes alive, lOSing 1311 or 13.2 per cent. 44
Although a few traders kept records of slave mortality since they had
invested in the cargoes, it seems that they paid no systematic attention to the
apparently devastating death rate of captains, officers and crewmen. 'It's a
melancholy thing', lamented the Royal African Company in 1702, 'that the
masters of our ships, so many of them die.' The case of the Royal Africa
which arrived in Barbados in February 1704 after losing 19 of its crew was
not considered unusual. The following year, a ship reached Nevis 'with all
the white men except 9 dead.' When the Pindararrived in Barbados in May,
1710, the agent there was moved to observe that the most noteworthy aspect
of the voyage was that 'no white man died.'45

Slave rebellions and resistance

The study of the early slave trade to the Caribbean, however, is not only one
of human suffering, but one that demonstrates the resilience of the human
spirit. It is now generally recognized that rebellions and other forms of resist-
ance frequently occurred on the ships of the various nations involved in the

29
 General History of the Caribbean

trade to the Caribbean. Reports from English traders, in particular, demon-

strate the nature of the Africans' initial reaction to their enslavement. John
Atkins, a British surgeon who travelled to Sierra Leone in 1721, observed that
most of the slaves waiting to be bought were 'very dejected'. Mungo Park,
writing about his travels in Africa in the eighteenth century, vividly described
a girl's despair when she was seized and sold: 'Never was a face of serenity
more suddenly changed into one of the deepest distress. The terror she
manifested in having the load put upon her head and the rope fastened
round her neck, and the sorrow with which she bade adieu to her com-
panions, were truly affecting.'46 And Dr Thomas Trotter, a ship's surgeon
who watched slaves being put aboard ship, reported that they 'show signs of
extreme distress and despair from a feeling of their own situation and regret
at being tom from their friends and connections. ,47
Captors and captives alike knew that the slave's best chance of escape
was while he or she was still close to home, so the new victims were bound
or chained, laden with trade goods, and marched to the coast without delay.
Once delivered to the trading settlement, they must have realized the
insuperable odds against a successful escape. In addition to the problems of
the chains and the guards, the area beyond the settlement might be inhabited
by traditional enemies of the escapee's nation. Probably a few slaves
managed to get away, but certainly the great majority of attempted escapes
must have failed. In 1714, for example, the Royal African Company's agents
at Komenda Fort reported that one woman had escaped but was captured
and returned by the local residents. 48
African captives also tended to rebel while waiting on board the ships
on the coast. Francis Moqre, a trader of considerable experience, explained
that in the Gambia the slaves were 'apter to rise in a Harbour than when out
at Sea, since if they once get Masters of a ship, in the River, their escape to
shore is almost certain, by running the ship aground; but at sea it is other-
wise, for if they should surprize a Ship there, as they cannot navigate her,
they must have the assistance of the White Men, or perish. ,49
Despite precautions, there were many uprisings aboard slave ships on
the coast. Unfortunately, these struggles in the early period of the trade are
known principally from letters written by the Royal African Company's
agents, which casts doubt on whether all or even most of these mutinies
were reported. If only a few slaves were involved or if the threat to ship and
crew was insignificant, the agents probably made no mention of the matter.
The independent traders, who had many more ships in the trade than the
joint stock companies, have left few records of the slaves' attempts to liberate
themselves. On occasion, a Royal African Company agent would mention a
disturbance on a private trader's ship, but keeping abreast of the inde-
pendent trader's problems was not his responsibility, so we can assume such

30
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

reports to have been made only by chance. Obviously, we can never know
the frequency and extent of the slave rebellions that occurred on the African
coast and during the Atlantic passage.
Slaves were quick to take advantage of incompetent guards and inad-
equate defences aboard the ships on the coast. When the blacks on the Mary
rose in March 1708, Sir Dalby Thomas, the Royal African Company's principal
agent at Cape Coast Castle in West Africa, attributed the incident to 'careless-
ness'; the vessel, overloaded with 200 slaves, had not been provided for
'defence against such a parcel of slaves.' Possibly the slaves had capitalized
on a momentary laxity in supervision, since the captain was on shore when
the outbreak occurred. By the time the revolt was quelled, 30 men and three
women had drowned after having jumped overboard, and another three had
died from wounds. 50
Inadequate supervision and laxity of control were definitely factors that
allowed 17 slaves (13 men and four boys) to mutiny against the seven-man
crew of the Cape Coast at Anomabo Fort in 1721. Temporarily released from
their irons, the captives overpowered the crew and escaped. Seven were
never recaptured, but ten were taken by the local townspeople and returned
to the ship. When the Royal African Company heard of the affair, it reminded
its captains to take care 'that their Negroes be so secured as may prevent any
the like attempt of their rising upon them. '51
A ship whose crew was short-handed, whether by illness or death,
gave the slaves another opportunity to rebel. Trader William Snelgrave
reported a rebellion in 1704 on his ship, the Eagle, anchored in the Old
Calabar River. All but ten of the crew were sick, dead, or ashore at the time,
leaving an inadequate guard for the 400 slaves. The revolt, which involved
only about 20 men, took place at four o'clock, when the slaves were at
supper. A slave suddenly seized the chief mate, intending to throw him
overboard, but the mate was rescued by one of the crew who was wielding
a cutlass. The uproar alerted the rest of the crew; Snelgrave, who had been
ill, leaped from his bunk, grabbed two pistols, giving one to his father and
the other to the chief mate. The slaves had been trying to take the sentry's
cutlass, but it was securely fastened to his wrist. Frustrated, the slaves were
about to throw the sentry overboard, cutlass and all, when Snelgrave's father
arrived in time to fire a shot over their heads. A slave hit Snelgrave's father
with a billet and was about to strike again when a seventeen-year-old boy to
whom, according to the younger Snelgrave, 'we had been kind ... interposed
his arm and received the blow, by which his own arm bone was fractured.'
Before the slave wielding the billet could strike again, the chief mate shot
him. Now defenceless against the crew, most of the slaves surrendered and
begged for mercy, but the two ringleaders jumped overboard and were
drowned. They were the only casualties, since the slave who had been shot

31
 General History of the Caribbean

recovered. Years later, Snelgrave attributed the failure of this uprising to the
fact that the slaves had been severely hampered by their irons when the
fighting took place. 52
Another serious shipboard rebellion occurred on the coast in 1704. The
Postillion had just left James Island with a cargo of slaves that agent Thomas
Weaver described as 'young, lusty and most males'. The captain had tried to
improve the morale of the slaves by alloWing them to playa banisoo (poss-
ibly a corruption of bandore, pronounced banjore by the slaves, a stringed
instrument of African origin, the forerunner of the banjo) and drums. The
slaves evidently used the drums to communicate their plans for an uprising;
for, according to Weaver, 'by the noise of ... (the) music the blacks rose and
nocked [sic] down 7 sailors.' The fight was short but desperate, and many of
the slaves leaped overboard in a frantic bid for freedom. Thirty-one slaves
lost their lives in this fracas, and seven whites suffered head wounds. 53
The odds against the rebellious slaves at coastal stations were length-
ened by the readiness of nearby traders to join in the fight against them.
When the slaves on the London, a galley belonging to a private trader, rose
in the vicinity of James Fort in the Gambia in 1703, the Royal African
Company's agents sent some soldiers to restore order, but not before 30
slaves and three whites lost their lives. Similarly, a rebellion in 1705 on the
privately owned Marlborough was quelled with the aid of men from the
company's Royal Africa. Sir Dalby Thomas reported the death of 30 or 40
slaves in this melee. 54
Although captains regarded the coast as the area of greatest danger
from slave rebellions, experienced traders took no chances on the high seas.
They usually carried a full stock of chains, shackles, handcuffs, whips and
mouth-openers and were not hesitant about using them. The more consider-
ate or clever captains coupled the toughest methods with pleasant distrac-
tions. They might permit music and drumbeating and encourage singing and
dancing. On the better-managed vessels, alcohol, chiefly rum, was provided,
as wen as pipes and tobacco. The women received beads and other trifles
for adornment. Slaves made more contented by such concessions and less
hopeful of escape by close restraints were probably more tractable after the
ships put to sea.
Slave resistance during the Atlantic passage to the Caribbean may be
even more under-recorded than the rebellions on the coast, since the
company agents whose reports form the main body of the evidence were
no longer at hand. There is no doubt, however, that many Africans resisted
enslavement during the voyages. William Snelgrave said he knew of several
voyages during which mutinies had occurred, resulting in either the loss of
ship and crew or in the death and wounding of many slaves. And surgeon
John Atkins wrote, 'There has not been wanting examples of rising and

32
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

killing a ship's company distant from land, tho not so often as on the
coast. '55
Snelgrave never thought of the slaves' desire for liberty as a cause of
rebellions. He blamed such incidents on 'ill usage' of the slaves by the
sailors. In his opinion, 'if a Commander is himself well inclined, and has
good officers to execute his orders, the Negroes on board may be easily
governed; and many difficulties (which unavoidably arise amongst such
numbers) got over with a little trouble.' He did admit that certain ethnic
groups like the Coromantine from the Gold Coast were 'stubborn' and
'particularly given to rebellion.,56
Snelgrave's opinions aside, humane treatment was no guarantee of
quiescence on board the slavers. In fact, many slaves were ready to fight for
their freedom not only on the worst-run but on the best-run ships as well.
Captain Snelgrave said as much, ironically, when he attributed the respons-
ibility for a rebellion on the galley Ferrers in 1722 to the captain, 'who by his
overcare and too great kindness to the Negroes on board his ship, was
destroyed by them, and the voyage at last came to nothing. '57
Although most rebellions did not result in the total loss of the cargo,
some ended in a serious loss of life among the slaves. In an uprising on the
Tiger, sailing from the Gambia to Jamaica in 1702, about 40 slaves and two
crew members died. The frigate Urban had even greater losses when its
slaves mutinied in May 1703: the crew killed 23 men and wounded another
20 men and one boy. A few months later the slaves on the Martba, bound
from Whydah to Nevis, also rose. According to a report, the sailors 'fired on
them and killed two very lusty men and afterwards they were highly peace-
able.' The ship had 273 slaves on board at the time. The Dorotby also experi-
enced an uprising in its passage from Cape Coast Castle to Barbados the
follOWing year. The details are scant, but it is known that several wounded
slaves received medical.attention in Barbados. And in 1707 three slaves on
the Sberbro, bound from Sierra Leone to Barbados, were shot during an
uprising. 58
During one of the more gory voyages, sailors on the Duke of
Cambridge, which left the Gambia in 1714, killed 80 slaves in an uprising.
Consequently, the ship arrived at Barbados with only 100 of the 350 slaves
for which it had been registered. Presumably the remaining 170 had
succumbed to other causes. 59 An extraordinary voyage was that of the Ferrers
in 1722. The captain made a costly mistake by taking most of his cargo from
one town. Since the slaves spoke the same language, they could communi-
cate freely with one another and were able to plan and execute their coup as
a group. One evening at supper time they grabbed the captain 'and beat out
his brains with the little tubs out of which they eat their boiled rice.' The
chief mate had one of the huge quarter deck guns fired into the mass of

33
 General History of the Caribbean

angry slaves with terrific effect. By the end of the uprising, almost 80 slaves
had died of drowning or wounds. In the aftermath, many of the survivors
went on a hunger strike, which led to more deaths. Even after the ship
reached Jamaica, this courageous group of slaves attempted mutiny twice
before they were sold. 60
Slave violence was not always directed at the crew. Speaking of
Africans purchased at New Calabar, Jean Barbot, a French trader, said that
they were 'cruel and bloody in their temper, always quarrelling, biting and
fighting, and sometimes choaking and murdering one another, without any
mercy. ,61 The same could probably be said of slaves from other regions. That
such violence occurred is not surprising. As a rule, the Africans who
comprised anyone cargo came from several different societies and clung to
their age-old rivalries, jealousies and animosities. It is unrealistic to suppose
that enslavement would lead long-standing enemies to immediately compose
their differences. In addition, people who were chained and closely confined
tended to become irritable; consequently, tempers flared at the slightest
provocation.
Slaves who could not rebel found other means of resistance. The
women, according to Snelgrave, were 'the most troublesome to us, on
account of the noise and clamour they made.' The mood of deep despair
that overwhelmed many of the slaves on board ship led inevitably to the will
to death. Traders called this emotional state a 'fixed melancholy', which
nothing could dispel. These slaves remained impassive and motionless, refus-
ing all food and drink. Thomas Butcher, an agent of the South Sea Company,
reported in 1738 that a number of slaves in a recently arrived cargo were
'very lean and thin'. When he investigated the reason for their condition, the
captain of the ship told him that 'there was about 40 of the cargo that were
bought out of one ship and put aboard his ship (and) soon after they were
put on board the most of them began to fall away and grow thin, not-
withstanding the endeavours used to prevent it, and they could never be
recovered afterwards.' Sixteen of these slaves died shortly after arriving in
port. 62 Some of those who manifested this condition had been totally crushed
by enslavement; they never regained their mental eqUilibrium. Then there
were others who, having realistically faced their plight and the possibility of
worse to come, concluded that death was preferable. In a sense, the death
wish was one way, however tragic, of regaining control of one's personal
destiny.
Another, and in a way similar, form of resistance was suicide by
drowning. A striking example of this means of ending an intolerable exist-
ence occurred in the harbour of St Christopher in 1737. More than 100 men
on the Prince of Orange leaped overboard in a mass· suicide attempt. The
crew saved some, but at least 33 drowned. According to the report, these

34
 Slave trade, African slavers and demograpby to 1750

men 'would not endeavour to save themselves, but resolv'd to die, and sunk
directly down.' Many of the survivors who 'were taken up almost drown'd'
died later, but the others were hastily sold 'before any Discovery was made
of the Injury the Salt Water had done them.'63
Hunger strikes were sufficiently common that the crews developed
standard techniques for compelling slaves to eat. John Atkins recalled that it
was customary to 'have an overseer with a cat-o'-nine tails' to force food on
those who baulked. 64 If whipping failed, the slaves could be force-fed with
the help of a barbaric instrument called the speculum oris, which held the
jaws apart. For more stubborn cases, thumbscrews could be applied in order
to force compliance.
With the exception of those who escaped on the African coast, these
attempts at liberation on the ships were practical failures in the sense that
they only resulted in further loss of lives and the imposition of greater
controls. Yet, in a symbolic sense, they were significant. They bore strong
and lasting testimony to the angry refusal of some Africans to come to terms
with a life of SUbjugation.

Developing a new creolized culture

The slave trade, to be sure, was more than just a movement of peoples. It
was also a movement of culture, ideas and world views across the Atlantic to
the Caribbean and other parts of the hemisphere. In spite of the undesirable
horrors of the human traffic and the harsh uprooting of individuals from their
own environments, the Africans did not lose the capacity to reaffirm them-
selves as persons in their new lands. Lives had to be rebuilt, new ties forged,
families formed as these early forced migrants struggled to lay the cultural
and genetic foundations of the black societies of the Caribbean. In the final
analysis and viewed from their perspective, the Africans' success in fashion-
ing new lives and developing a creolized culture with an African core in all
of its dynamic complexity represented one of the remarkably human and
poignant outcomes of their extraordinary odyssey.
In a demographic sense, most of the islands - Jamaica, Barbados,
Antigua, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Domingue among others - had majority
black populations well before the end of the seventeenth century. These
individuals were not only shaping and defining the cultural landscape of
their new homelands but were making profound contributions to the devel-
oping plantation economies. The demographic history of these islands in the
aftermath of European colonization cannot be studied independently of the
economic imperatives that led to the African presence in the first instance.
Thus, as we examine the changing demographic picture up to about 1750,

35
 General History of the Caribbean

we do this against the background of the economic ventures in which the

African slaves were unwillingly engaged.
Shortly after the effective settlement of Hispaniola, the Spaniards began
the exploitation of the island's mineral resources, chiefly gold. The fragile
mining economy that emerged there, and in Cuba and Puerto Rico as well,
was based primarily on the labour of the indigenous population. Much to the
disappointment of the Spaniards, however, the mines soon became
exhausted and the economies collapsed. For the colonists, this was a bless-
ing in disguise because it forced them to engage in a variety of other
economic pursuits. Ultimately, as the indigenous population declined black
slave labour would become indispensable to the successful operation of
these diverse endeavours.
With the acquisition of loans from the Crown, the colonists started to
develop a sugar industry in earnest, consequent upon the collapse of the
mining economy. Actually, the first experiments with the cultivation of sugar-
cane had begun in 1506 almost simultaneously with the colonization and
settlement of Hispaniola. By 1516 that island had its first sugar mill (ingenio)
and in 1521 it began to export sugar. Six years later, in 1527, the island had
19 sugar mills driven by water power and another six powered by animals.
Most of these mills were located in the environs of the city of Santo
Domingo. The number of sugar mills on the island climbed to 35 in 1548,
reaching its peak for the sixteenth century.
Puerto Rico and Jamaica, and to a lesser extent Cuba, also pioneered
the development of the sugar industry in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico boasted
four sugar mills in 1540 and 11 in 1548, while Cuba had one in 1547. The
expansion of the sugar industry in Hispaniola, Cuba and Puerto Rico,
however, was short-lived. Faced with increasing competition from Brazilian
producers on the European market, the planters shifted their energies to
ginger cultivation. This crop was much less labour-intensive than the sugar-
cane and could be grown more cheaply. The increasing price of ginger on
the European markets during the sixteenth century also enhanced its
attractiveness to the colonists.
Cuba also experimented with ginger cultivation in the latter part of the
sixteenth century but it never took much of a hold there. In contrast, and as
a measure of the increasing importance of ginger, fewer than 1000 slaves
were employed on the sugar estates in Hispaniola in 1606 while almost 7000
were employed in the production of ginger, maize, plantains and other
ground provisions. Livestock rearing and the export of hides to Europe also
commanded the energies of the early Spanish colonists in Puerto Rico, Cuba
and Hispaniola. Some of the wealthiest families in Hispaniola were said to
own as many as 30 000 head of cattle by the 1540s. Jamaica and Cuba also
enjoyed a vibrant grazing economy by 1530.65

36
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

These enterprises, to be sure, relied substantially on slave labour and

fed the demand for an increasing number of unfree Africans. But it was the
entry of the English and the French into the sugar-producing business that
largely accounted for the remarkable growth in the African population during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Having acquired the technology
and the capital for successful sugar cultivation from the Dutch in Brazil,
English colonists in Barbados shifted from tobacco grown with white inden-
tured labour to the production of the sweetening substance in the early
1640s. This change had profound demographic and economic ramifications
on that island and in those that followed its example.
The sugar-cane, it was soon recognized, could be most profitably
grown on large plantations. Accordingly, in response to the economies of
scale, Barbadian planters consolidated their farms into large plantations and
purchased slaves in Significant numbers from Dutch traders. As a result of the
process of land consolidation, between 1645 and 1667 the number of planta-
tion owners declined from 1120 to 745. By 1673,74 planters owned 29050 of
the 92 000 acres of cultivable land in the island. A census taken in 1680
revealed that there were 169 planters who owned 100 or more acres of land.
Put another way, 6.9 per cent of the planters owned more than 50 per cent
of the arable land. The age of the big sugar planter and the plantation system
had arrived; the unholy union of sugar, slavery and the plantation system
had been forged. The consolidation of the farms continued throughout the
period so that in 1750 one-third (74) of the sugar planters owned 56.9 per
cent of the plantations.
The process of land consolidation as a consequence of the 'marriage' of
sugar and slavery can also be observed in Jamaica, and St Domingue, as well
as in the other islands. There was, understandably, much variation in the
pace and timing of the process. In Jamaica, for example, it occurred much
more slowly than in Barbados. In 1673, eighteen years after Jamaica became
an English colony, a contemporary observer reported that there were 42
cocoa and 57 sugar plantations in the island. The sugar plantations were
evidently quite small judging from the fact that the island exported only
670 tons of sugar that year. The number of sugar plantations increased as
new areas were cleared throughout the seventeenth and the greater portion
of the eighteenth century. Consequently, Jamaica boasted 70 sugar planta-
tions in 1684, 429 in 1739 and 648 in 1768. Following the example set by
Barbados and coupled with the requirements for successful sugar cultivation,
a small number of planters came to own a disproportionate share of the
land. By 1754, 467 individuals owned 1000 acres of land each or more than
77.8 per cent of the patented acreage.
Thanks to the labour of African slaves, the French colony of St
Domingue began its rise to a plantation society par excellence during the

37
 General History of the Caribbean

eighteenth century. The cultivation of indigo, coffee, and especially sugar-

cane constituted the basis of the colony's economy. St Domingue had 350
sugar plantations in 1739, and a slave population of 117411. The smaller
French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe also had significant numbers
of slaves by the mid-eighteenth century, the majority of them engaged in the
cultivation of the sugar-cane. Martinique, for example, had 55 700 slaves in
1736 and Guadeloupe 33400 in 1739. Possessed of more fertile soils and
square miles of territory (11500 vs 5413 for the English) the French islands
assumed the ascendancy in sugar production in the Caribbean during the
second half of the eighteenth century.
If sugar-cane cultivation, in particular, led to an intensification of the
slave trade, the dramatic growth of the black population, and changes in
land ownership patterns, it was also responsible for a fundamental trans-
formation of the demographic structure of the islands. Population figures for
the island of Barbados show that in 1645 there were 37 000 whites in the
island and 5680 black slaves. As a result of the process of land consolidation
and the resultant displacement and emigration of poor whites, the European
population fell to 17 187 in 1683. On the other hand, the black population
jumped to 46602. By 1748 there were 68000 slaves in the island, or roughly
four slaves to every one white person.
Much the same demographic picture emerged in Jamaica. In 1673, the
island's slave population numbered 9504 and that of the whites stood at
8564. With the expansion of the sugar industry and the changes it brought in
its wake, the white population declined to 7000 in 1703 and that of the
blacks rose to 45000. The ratio of whites to blacks remained unfavourable to
the whites during the period and in 1774 there were 130000 slaves in the
island to only 12000 whites.
It is instructive to examine the demographic changes in the smaller
Leeward Islands as well. Antigua, for example, had a population of 2172
blacks in 1678 and 2308 whites. The eighteenth century, however, saw the
emergence of an overwhelming black majority. In 1724, black slaves
accounted for 79.2 per cent of Antigua's population and this proportion
increased to 90.2 per cent in 1756. St Christopher's white population stood at
1897 in 1678 and that of the slaves at 1436. By 1745, however, there were
19174 slaves in the island and 2783 whites. Montserrat demonstrated a similar
demographic pattern. That island's white population in 1678 was 2682 and the
black population was only 992. The number of whites fell to 1117 in 1745 but
the size of the slave population increased dramatically to 8853. Nevis' white
population fell from 3521 in 1678 to 857 in 1645. On the other hand, the
number of slaves increased from 3865 to 6511 during the same period.
While similar statistical information is not always readily available for
all of the other European possessions in the Caribbean, there is no doubt

38
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

that the number of black slaves increased in all of them. In 1532, for
example, black and Indian slaves formed about 23.4 per cent of Cuba's
population and the Spaniards 47.2 per cent. By 1774, however, when Cuba
had an expanding sugar industry and was well on the path to becoming a
slave society the ratio of slaves to free persons was 1:4.4. Specifically, the
Spaniards numbered 96 440, free coloureds 36 301 and black slaves 38 879.
The sister colony of Puerto Rico also had an interesting, although somewhat
different demographic trajectory. When the first census was taken in that
island in 1530 whites numbered 327 and black slaves 2292. By 1775,
however, the white population had grown to 29 263 and that of the slaves
had increased to 7437. There were, in addition, 2823 freed persons and
31687 pardos or mixed bloods. Unlike the French and the English colonies
(except briefly in the case of Puerto Rico) black slaves, however, did not
constitute the majority of the population in the Spanish colonies by 1750.
The island possessions of the other Europeans reflected similar
demographic trends. In the Danish colony of St Thomas, for example, the
black population reached 4504 in 1720 and the whites amounted to 524. The
French island of Guadeloupe was the home of 12 000 whites and 3000 slaves
in 1656. By 1770, however, the slave population had jumped to 80000 while
that of the whites remained constant at 12000. In a similar vein, the Dutch
colony of Suriname had 30 000 slaves in the 1670s and 60 000 owned by
2823 whites in 1775. Judging from these statistics, the sugar industry and the
other economic enterprises of the Europeans created a demographic revo-
lution of lasting significance in the Caribbean. The islands, with a few ex-
ceptions, had become African societies in their cultural rhythms and
demographic structure by the mid-eighteenth century.
By 1750, the large sugar plantations in the Caribbean employed as
many as 100 slaves each. Some Jamaican plantations even averaged
200 slaves or more. On the largest islands the average plantation consisted of
200 acres or more by the 1730s and their size obviously had a direct bearing
on the magnitude of the labour force of slaves and the productivity of the
islands. Large sugar plantations employed vast numbers of slaves and, of
course, the economies of scale operated. Thus, St Domingue's 350 planta-
tions and a slave population of 117411 produced about 40000 tons of sugar
annually by 1739. With a smaller slave population and less arable land as has
been shown, Jamaica still managed to produce 12000 tons of sugar in 1717,
19641 tons in 1739 and 16910 tons in 1741. Although Jamaica surpassed
Barbados in terms of sugar production by the 1720s, the latter island still
enjoyed a flourishing sugar industry. In 1718, Barbados produced 11 392 tons
of sugar, 12441 tons in 1724 and 9218 tons in 1741. The close correlation
between the size of the black labour force and the growth of the sugar
industry can be observed in the production statistics for the years 1741-5.

39
 General History of the Caribbean

During those years, the colonies of jamaica and St Domingue with their large
slave populations, accounted for %.7 per cent of the sugar produced by the
four islands that comprised the Greater Antilles.

Conclusion

The overall export figures for the English islands during the period further
demonstrated the relationship between sugar, slavery and their economies.
In 1699 these islands exported 427600 cwt of sugar. In 1710, they exported
507770 cwt. In 1730 the figure increased to 1024100 cwt and in 1755 to
1202700 cwt. Taken together, the six principal sugar-producing English
islands - jamaica, Barbados, St Kitts, Nevis, Antigua and Montserrat -
accounted for about 90 per cent of the sugar, rum and molasses imported
into England up to 1763. Although comprehensive export statistics are cur-
rently less accessible for the other European colonies for this early period,
scattered evidence suggests a similar relationship between sugar, slavery and
the size and nature of the export trade. The French islands, in particular,
underwent a dramatic growth in the size of the slave population in the first
decades of the eighteenth century and an expansion of their sugar pro-
duction. By 1767 the French colonies had surpassed the English in the
volume of their sugar exports. In that year, the English islands exported
72000 tons of sugar and the French 77000.
The development of a highly capitalized sugar monoculture dependent
upon slave labour was certainly the defining feature of the Caribbean
economy during the period. Yet it must be emphasized that slaves played a
significant role in a variety of other agricultural enterprises as well. They
were used in livestock husbandry in the larger islands, in the cultivation of
ginger and cotton in Barbados, indigo and coffee in St Domingue, cocoa in
jamaica, bananas, cassava, yams, potatoes and other staples everywhere. The
importance of these activities for the economy of particular islands varied. In
Martinique, for example, coffee and minor staples accounted for one-third to
one-half of the value of that island's exports by 1750. Similarly, in 1767,
coffee, indigo, cotton, cocoa and other minor staples made up 37 per cent of
St Domingue's exports. On the other hand, sugar and its allied products
constituted 89 per cent of jamaica's exports in 1770 and 93 per cent of those
from Barbados in the same year. 66
The demographic patterns, the nature of the colonial enterprises and
the composition of the export trade clearly reveal the roles of the African
slaves in the making of the Caribbean. Initiated in 1502, the slave trade
brought an estimated 1 500 000 Africans to work for the Europeans by about
1750. While the English and the French colonies absorbed the majority of

40
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

these peoples, the other colonists, particularly the Dutch and the Spanish,
also received substantial numbers of Africa's children. The control of the
trade was the source of much competition among the Europeans as the
labour needs of the New World societies increased and there was the realiza-
tion that fortunes could be made from the trade in slaves and the products of
the Caribbean.
By 1750, then, the plantation system had become firmly established
and Africans constituted the foundation upon which it rested. Sugar and
slavery reigned triumphantly and the white masters of the lands reaped the
unholy rewards. Africans and their children, to be sure, would have an
impact on the Caribbean in ways other than the demographic and the
economic. Their contribution to the society and culture was creative, per-
vasive, profound and enduring. As important as these developments were,
however, one salient fact needs to be reaffirmed. Africans provided coerced,
unpaid labour for Europeans in an economic system in which they had no
stake and in societies that accorded them few rights, defined them as
property and tried, albeit unsuccessfully for the most part, to destroy their
humanity.67

NOTES

1 For a discussion of the historical demography of the Indian population, see the
essays in William M. Denevan (ed.), The Native Population of the Americas in
1492 (Madison: University .of Wisconsin Press, 1976); Albert W. Crosby,
'Conquistador y Pestilencia: The First New World Epidemic and the Fall of the
Great Indian Empires', The Hispanic American Historical Review 47: 3 (August,
1967), pp. 321-37; and Woodrow Borah and S. F. Cook, The Aboriginal
Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest (Ibero-
Americana, No. 45), (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1963).
2 For a discussion of slavery in Spain, see Ruth Pike, Aristocrats and Traders:
Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972);
Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, 'La esclavitud en Castilla durante la edad moderna',
in Estudios de historia social de Espana, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1949-1952),
11: 377-428; William D. Phillips, Slavery from Roman Times to the Early
Transatlantic Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).
3 Frank M. Snowden Jr., Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman
Experience (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 216.
4 See Joseph Harris, Africans and their History (New York: 1972) for a discussion
of the caricature of blacks in the ancient world.
5 A good, provocative discussion of these issues may be found in Snowden,
Blacks in Antiquity and in his later work Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient
View of Blacks (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983). See
also St Clair Drake, Black Folk, here and there, vol. 2 (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1990). Winthrop Jordan provides an interesting discussion of
the attitudes of the English to blacks in his White Over Black: American

41
 General History of the Caribbean

Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1968). For the French, see William B. Cohen, The French
Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks, 1530-1880 (Bloomington:
University of Indiana Press, 1980). See also A. C. De C. M. Saunders, A Social
History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441-1555 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982).
6 Great Britain, Public Record Office, Records of the Treasury, no. 70, vol. 170,
no folio no. (hereafter cited as PRO, T 70).
7 PRO, T 70/175, pp. 202-10.
8 James Houston, Some New and Accurate Observations, Geographical, Natural
and Historical ... of the Situation, Product and Natural History of the Coast of
Guinea (London, 1725), p. 34.
9 Antonio Herrera de Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos
en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano (Madrid: 1726-40) dec. 1, bk 4,
chap. 12.
10 One of the best accounts of the early slave trade to the Indies is found in
Fernando Ortiz, 'La Leyenda negra contra Fray Bartolome', Cuadernos
Americanos Aiio XI (September-December 1952), pp. 146-83.
11 See Jose Antonio Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de la raza negra y la abolici6n
en America Latina, 2 vols. (Havana: Cultural, S. A., 1938) ii, 39. Also, Archivo
General de Indias, Contaduria, 5757.
12 PRO, T 70/51, pp. 136-9; T 70/52, pp. 170--3, 6~7; T 70/68.
13 PRO, T 70/175, p. 37; T 70/5, p. 93.
14 PRO, T 70/175, pp. 41, 37.
15 PRO, T 70/26, p. 17.
16 PRO, T 70/5, p. 50.
17 William Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (1705;
reprinted, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976), p. 364.
18 William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade
(London, 1734) no pagination.
19 Bosman, A New and Accurate Description, p. 364.
20 Francis Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa ... with a particular
account of Job Ben Solomon (London, 1739) in Elizabeth Donnan (ed.),
Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America 4 vols. (Washington, DC:
Carnegie Institution, 1930--35) 11, p. 396.
21 PRO, T 70/52, p. 15.
22 London, British Museum, Additional Manuscripts, vol. 25567 (hereafter cited as
BM). See also Shelburne Mss, Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Mich., vol. 44,
pp. 896, 595.
23 Colonial Office Papers, Public Record Office (London) vol. 388, no. 25, p. 343
(hereafter CO).
24 For a good discussion of the disease environment of the West African coast, see
Philip Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), pp. 58--87, 177-97.
25 PRO, T 70/28, pp. 18, 46; John Barbot, A Description of the Coast of North and
South Guinea (London, 1732), pp. 118,227.
26 PRO, T 70/26, p. 33; T 70/5, p. 86.
27 CO, vol. 388, no. 25, p. 295.

42
 Slave trade, African slavers and demography to 1750

28 For a discussion of the incidence of sickness and death, see K. G. Davies, 'The
Living and the Dead: White Mortality in West Africa, 1684-1732' in Stanley
Engerrnan and Eugene Genovese (eds), Race and Slavery in the Western
Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975),
pp. 88-95; H. M. Feinberg, 'New Data on European Mortality in West Africa: The
Dutch on the Guinea Coast, 1719~1760', Journal of African History 15, no. 3
(1974), pp. 357-71.
29 PRO, T 70/35, pp. 78, 53; Davies, 'The Living and the Dead', pp. 88-95.
30 Davies, 'The Living and the Dead', pp. 94-5.
31 PRO, T 70/28, p. 46.
32 PRO, T 70/18, p. 89.
33 PRO, T 70/15, p. 17.
34 Bosman, A New and Accurate Description, pp. 224-5.
35 PRO, T 70/14, p. 35.
36 PRO, T 70/14, p. 66; T 70/26, p. 4; T 70/5, p. 6.
37 PRO, T 70/18, pp. 54, 70.
38 PRO, T 70/13, p. 50; T 70/8, pp. 16, 34, 3.
39 PRO, T 70/8, pp. 33, 55, 85.
40 PRO, T 70/19, pp. 13, 15; T 70/3, p. 59; T 70/14, p. 19; T 70/18, p. 65; T 70/8,
p.85.
41 PRO, T 70/3, p. 59; T 70/8, pp. 20,47,40; T 70/4, p. 45.
42 PRO, T 70/8, pp. 20, 47, 40, 67; T 70/4, p. 45.
43 PRO, T 70/58, p. 22; T 70/8, pp. 5, 62; T 70/38, unpaginated.
44 Colin A. Palmer, Human Cargoes, the British Slave Trade to Spanish America,
1700-1739 (Illinois: University of Illinois, 1981), pp. 52-3.
45 PRO, T 70/58, p. 22; T 70/1445, p. 11; T 70/8, p. 59; Calendar of State Papers,
Colonial PRO (London, 1704-1705), p. 64.
46 Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior Districts ofAfrica (London, 1759), pp. 353-4.
47 John Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, p. 41.
48 PRO, T 70/1464, p. 6.
49 Francis Moore, Travels in Africa, in Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave
Trade, ii, pp. 402.
50 PRO, T 70/1463, p. 66; T 70/14, p. 109.
51 PRO, T 70/4, p. 21; T 70/53, p. 83.
52 William Snelgrave, A New Account, pp. 164-8.
53 PRO, T 70/14, p. 40.
54 PRO, T 70/1463, p. 66; T 70/14, p. 109.
55 Snelgrave, A New Account, p. 173; Atkins, A Voyage to Guinea, p. 175.
56 Snelgrave, A New Account, pp. 163-4.
57 Ibid., p. 184.
58 Donnan, Documents, ii, p. 5; PRO T 70/13, pp. 21, 31; T 70/890, p. 70; T 70/8,
p.89.
59 PRO, T 70/8, p. 89.
60 Snelgrave, A New Account, pp. 185-91.
61 Donnan, Documents, pp. 11, 15.
62 Lord Shelburne Papers, Clements Library (Ann Arbor: Michigan), vol. 44,
pp.617-23.
63 Donnan, Documents, pp. 11,460.

43
 General History of the Caribbean

64 Atkins, Vcryage to Guinea, p. 171.

65 For good general discussion of the early history of these islands, see Luis Diaz
Soler, La historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras: University
of Puerto Rico Press, 1975); Francisco Morales Padron, Jamaica Espanola
(Sevilla: University of Seville, 1972); Frank Moya Pons, Historia colonial de Santo
Domingo (Santo Domingo, 1973).
66 General discussions of the economic history of the Caribbean islands may be
found in Richard Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the
British West Indies, 1623--1775 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973) and his The Development of the Plantations to 1750 (Mona, Jamaica:
Heinemann, 1970).
67 The literature on these issues is voluminous. See, however, John Blassingame,
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York,
1972); Michael Mullin, Slave Acculturation and Resistance in tbe American South
and the British Caribbean 1736-1831 (Urbana, 1992); John Thornton, Africa
and Africans in the Making of tbe Atlantic World, 1400-1680 (Cambridge,
1992).

44
 2

THE DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE OF

THE CARIBBEAN SLAVE SOCIETIES
IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND
NINETEENTH CENTURIES

Stanley L. Engerman and B. W Higman

PART ONE

Population growth, 1700--1900

From the onset of settlement at the end of the fifteenth century the
Caribbean has been rather unusual in terms of its population composition
among those areas colonized by European nations. By 1700 its population
was about three-fifths black, almost all enslaved, and the population of
Amerindians had almost disappeared on the islands and was quite small on
the Guyanese coastal areas of South America and in British Honduras in
Central America. In the two centuries examined, six European nations were
involved in the colonization process. Three of these represented relatively
minor colonies - the Dutch, the Danish and, the smallest, the Swedish (who
owned St Bartholomew between 1784 and 1877), and three were of consid-
erable importance, although their relative shares did vary over time - the
English, the Spanish and the French. The patterns of settlement of the
Spanish colonies (where the shares of non-whites tended to be below one-
halO differed from those of the other European nations. Among the other
European settlers, after 1700, the populations were generally about 70 to 90
per cent black, most enslaved until the ending of slavery - by revolution in
Haiti and by metropolitan legislation in the other areas. For the Spanish
settlements, however, there were smaller percentages of blacks, while the
proportion of non-whites included more free persons of colour than did the
other areas. Since the share of the Spanish Caribbean in total Caribbean
population grew most rapidly over time, there were changes in the racial

45
 General History of the Caribbean

composition of the Caribbean population, even though the racial composi-

tion of each of the colonial areas did not vary dramatically.1
Except for the Spanish areas, it appears that in the eighteenth century
immigration of both blacks and whites was required to sustain the Caribbean
population. The available data indicate that the inflows of population
exceeded the population resident at the end of the century, with the differen-
tial possibly being less for blacks than for whites (for whom indentured and
free labour movements had an even greater excess of males relative to
females than did the slave trade). Overall, the Caribbean population grew at
an annual average rate of 1.6 per cent between 1700 and 1900 (Figure 1).
The slave population expanded at an annual rate of 2.3 per cent until reach-
ing its peak prior to the Haitian Revolution in the last decade of the eigh-
teenth century. 2 Then, with emancipation, the numbers of slaves declined,
with marked drops after emancipation by the British in 1834, by the French,
Danish and Swedish in 1848, the Dutch in 1863, and last, the Spanish
colonies in 1873 (Puerto Rico) and 1886 (Cuba). For the non-Hispanic
Caribbean, there was a decline in immigration in the nineteenth century due
to the ending of the slave trade and to reduced white migration, offset only
in part by an inflow of indentured labour. Even the shift to a positive rate of
natural increase in many areas still meant that the overall population growth
was lower in the nineteenth century than it had been in the eighteenth (2.0
per cent in the eighteenth; 1.2 per cent in the nineteenth). For the Spanish
areas there were large inflows of whites throughout the nineteenth century
and imports of slaves from Africa until the 1860s, although, even here, the
rate of population increase in the eighteenth century exceeded that in the
nineteenth. Yet, by 1900, the Caribbean population had risen from over
300 000 to nearly 7 000 000, to over 22 times its 1700 level. At its overall
peak, 1790, the slave population had risen to almost eight times the 1700
level (and the overall population in 1790 was over six times the 1700 level).
Thus, despite relatively high mortality, apparently low fertility and resulting
low (and frequently negative) rates of natural increase in the Caribbean, the
substantial inflows of population and the natural increase (particularly in the
Spanish areas and elsewhere after the emancipation of slaves) meant a sub-
stantial population increase throughout the period, and one that was, by
historical standards, at rates that were relatively constant. 3
Table 2.1 presents information on the populations of the different
Caribbean regions at three intervals in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The table notes describe the basic procedures and assumptions
adopted in its preparation, but two points should be highlighted here. First,
because data, particularly for the eighteenth century, are not always available
for the year desired, we frequently decided to use information for the year
closest to the years specified in the table, rather than to interpolate between

46
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

10000
9000
8000
7000
6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

0
0
P 1500
:§.
c:
0
;;
.!! 1000
::l
Q. 900
0
0- 800
700
600

500

400

300

200

100 +-~~-r~~~~~r-~~~~~-r~~~~~r-~----

1700 1750 1800 1850 1900

Year
Source: 8ft Table 1. Engerman and Higman. Demographic Structure of the Caribbsa'n.

Figure 1 Caribbean populations, 1700-1900: total and slave

47
 Genera/ History oj the Caribbean

TABLE 2.1 Caribbean populations, 1750, 1830, 1880

(I) 1750·

Free persons
White Slave oJe%ur Total
British: a
Barbados 16772 63410 235 80 417
St Kitts 2783 21 782 109 24674
Nevis 1 118 8299 81 9498
Antigua 3435 31123 305 34 863
Montserrat 1430 8767 86 10283
Vjrgin Islands 1184 6062 59 7305
26722 139443 875 167040
Jamaica 12000 127881 2119 142000

Dominica 1718 5769 300 7787

St Lucia 2524 9764 506 12794
St Vincent 2104 7184 230 9518
Grenada 1285 12000 455 13740
Tobago 238 3082 82 3402
Trinidadb 126 310 295 731
Demerara and Essequibo 380 4185 34 4599
BerbiceC 346 3802 31 4179
8721 46096 1933 56750
British Honduras 50 114 6 170
Cayman Island 70 100 170
Bahamas 1268 1 145 76 2486
Anguilla 350 1962 38 2350
Barbuda 40 150 190
1 778 3471 120 5366
Sub-total 49221 316891 5047 371 159
Freneh:
Martinique 12068 65905 1413 79386
Guadelouped 8848 45238 1036 55122
St Domingue 12799 164 859 4732 182390
French Guiana 706 5471 71 6248
St Martin 102 185 287
34523 281658 7252 323433

48
 Demographic strncture 0/ Caribbean slave societies

TABLE 2.1 Continued

(I) 1750·

Free persons
White Slave o/colour Total
Dutch:
Suriname 2133 51096 598 53827
Cura~ao 3964 12804 2776 19544
St Eustatius 420 1200 1620
Saba 155 130 285
St Martin 639 3518 4157

7311 68748 3374 79433

Danish:
St Croix 1323 8897 10 220
Stjohn 212 2031 2243
St Thomas 315 3949 138 4402

1850 14877 138 16865

Spanish:
Puerto Ricoe 17572 5037 22274 44883
Cubae 116947 28760 24293 170000
Santo Domingd 30863 8900 30862 70625

165382 42697 77 429 285508

Swedish:
Saint Bartholomew 170 54 224

TOTAL 258457 724925 93240 1076622

• The specific years are generally those closest to 1750, but there are about 30 years in these
entries. Thus the totals and broad patterns are for suggestive purposes only and do not
represent the totals at any specific time period. For purposes of consistency of comparison over
time, the placements of nationality reflect the ownership for the greatest part of the period, not
necessarily the ownership at the date to which the table applies. For discussion of the changes
in ownership among nations, see below, pp. 57-9. There are numerous estimates for many
areas, often drawn from the same source with modifications and errors in transcription.
Secondary sources that examined the primary materials are cited for ease in location of data.
While these estimates are to be regar<k>d only as approximations, in very few cases would
alternative choices influence basic pattL'ffls.

49
 General History 0/ the Caribbean

TABLE 2.1 Continued

• For several of the British islands the census closest to 1750 listed blacks, with no breakdown
between slaves and free persons of colour. Various procedures were used to estimate this
division, either interpolation between years for each such ratios were given, use of the ratio for
the closest known, or extrapolation on the basis of other islands or other years. If no
allocations were made, and all blacks were treated as slaves, the total population of the British
Caribbean would be increased by only 1.3 per cent.
h Plus 2082 Amerindians. Between 1782 and 1784 the non-Amerindian population of Trinidad

increased from 731 to 5012. There is a 1777 population estimate of 3432, which includes the
Amerindian population.
c Plus 244 Amerindian slaves.

d Includes Marie-Galante. The estimated number of free persons of colour is based upon the

ratio of free persons of colour to total non-slave population on Martinique.

e The breakdown of the free population into free persons of colour and whites is based upon

the first available census with such data.

f Free population allocated according to that given for 1766. (See McCusker and sources cited

there.}

(n) 1830·

Free persons
White Slave o/colour Total
British: a
Barbados 14812 82026 5312 102150
5t Kitts 1498 19094 2808 23400
Nevis 453 9194 1403 11 050
Antigua 1187 29600 5513 36000
Montserrat 352 6300 848 7500
Virgin Islands 603 5148 1699 7450
18605 151362 17583 187550

Jamaica 18903 319074 40073 378050

Dominica 703 14706 3591 19000

5t Lucia 1012 13395 3993 18400
5t Vincent 1400 23100 3500 28000
Grenada 710 23884 3806 28400
Tobago 453 12551 1 146 14150
Trinidad 3323 22757 15985 42065
Demerara and 3100 67968 6433 77500
Essequibo
Berbice 601 20698 1802 23100
11302 199059 40256 250615

50
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

TABLE 2.1 Continued

(n) 1830·

Free persons
White Slave of colour Total

British Honduras 302 1898 1999 4200

Cayman Island 350 1000 150 1500
Bahamas 5007 9503 2520 17030
Anguilla 300 2600 399 3300
Barbuda 3 500 503
5962 15501 5068 26533
Sub-total 54772 684996 102980 842748

French:
Martiniquea 9362 86499 14055 109916
Guade10upe b 10900 97339 11424 119663
French Guiana 1381 19102 2379 22862

21643 202940 27858 252441

HaitiC 880202

Dutch:
Suriname 2029 48784 5041 55854
Cura~ao 2602 5894 6531 15027
St Eustatius 132 1614 527 2273
Saba
St Martind 500 4000 1500 6000
Aruba 465 393 1888 2746
Bonaire 90 547 839 1476
5818 61232 16326 83376
Danish:
St Croix 1892 19876 4913 26681
Stjohn 208 1971 202 2381
St Thomas 1977 5032 5204 12213

4077 26879 10319 41275

51
 General History of the Caribbean

TABLE 2.1 Continued

(n) 1830·

Free persons
White Slave of colour Total

Spanish:
Puerto Rico 162311 34240 127287 323838
Cuba 332352 310 218 113125 755695
Santo Domingoe 38272 15000 38272 91544
532935 359458 278684 171 077
Swedish:
St Bartholomew 1 723 1387 906 4016
TOTAL 620968 1336892 437073 275135

• For purposes of consistency of comparison over time, the placements by nationality reflect
the ownership for the greatest part of the period, not necessarily the ownership at the date to
which the table applies. For a discussion of the changes in ownership among nations, see
below, pp. 57-9 .
• Between 1831 and 1835 the numbers of free persons of colour doubled on Martinique, and
possibly did the same on Guadeloupe.
h Includes dependencies, Marie-Galante, La Desirade, Les Saintes, and Saint Martin. It is assumed

that the white population changed at the same rate between 1826 and 1831 as it did on Martinique.
C Interpolated between estimates for1805 and 1850.

d Moreau de lonnes's estimate may be too high. According to the Encyclopedia van

Nederlandscb West-Indie (cf. Panerson), the 1816 population was 3559, of whom 72 per cent
were slaves. If we apply the ratio of overstatement for Saint Bartholomew, the population of
St Martin would be only about 2500.
C Non-slave population allocated one-half white and one-half free persons of colour.

(m) 1880·
(NB Information by race and ethnicity was not always provided after the ending of
slavery, so the data are sometimes incomplete)

Free persons
White Asian Slave of colour Total
British:
Barbados 16054 155806 171 860
StKitts 2199 26938 29137
Nevis 209 11 655 11 864
Antiguaa 1 791 32530 34321
Montserrat 241 9842 10083
Virgin Islands 52 5235 5287
20546 242006 262552

52
 Demographic structure 0/ Caribbean slave societies

TABLE 2.1 Continued

Free persons
White Asian Slave o/colour Total

Jamaica 14432 11115 555257 580 804

Dominicab 361 27850 28520
St Lucia 911 1652 35988 38551
St Vincente 2693 2190 35473 40548
Grenada 835 1572 41568 43975
Tobago 15072+ 18051
Trinidad 48820 153128
British Guiana d 13 543 85163 145772 252186

574959
British
Hondurase 375 27452
Cayman Island 864 2202 3066
Baharnas f 43521
Anguilla 202 3017 3219
Barbuda 4 639 643
77901
French:
Martinique 166100
Guadeloupeg 192735
French
Guianah 27333
386 168
Haitii 1272 788
Dutch:
Surinamei 49309
Cura~ao 25015
St Eustatius 1890
Saba 1832
St Maarten 2853
Aruba 3792
Bonaire 4986
89677

53
 General History of the Caribbean

TABLE 2.1 Continued

(m) 1880'

Free persons
White Asian Slave of colour Total

Danish:
St Croix 18430
StJohn 944
St Thomas 14389
33763
Spanish:
Puerto Rico 411 712 319936 731648
Cuba 980096 43298 199094 272 478 1494966
Santo Domingo 2608926
4835540
Swedish:
St Bartholomewk 2390
TOTAL 8116542

• For purposes of consistency of comparison over time, the placements by nationality reflect
the ownership for the greatest part of the period, not necessarily the ownership at the date to
which the table applies. For a discussion of the changes in ownership among nations, see
below, pp. 57-9 .
• The census total differs by 643 from the total implied by the ethnic breakdown.
h Includes 309 Caribs.

c Includes 192 Caribs.

d Includes 7708 Amerindians.

c Includes 2037 Caribs.

r In 1851 whites were 20 per cent of the population of the Bahamas.

K Includes as dependencies: St Martin, Les Saintes, La Desirade, Marie-Galante, and after 1878,

Saint Bartholomew. This includes about 19985 East Indians among 23 675 immigrants. There
was also a populationjlottante of 9171. In 1889 the population of Guadeloupe was 122885 and
that of its dependencies 35 775. (Annuaire de la Guadeloupe.)
h Includes 1972 Amerindians and 5024 immigrant colonists.

i Interpolated between estimates for 1850 and 1900.

j Population excludes Bush Negroes and Amerindians.

k By 1880 St Bartholomew again belonged to France and was a dependency of Guadeloupe

with an 1872 population of 2390. (Hyrenius, Royal Swedish Slaves.)

54
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

TABLE 2.1 Continued

Sources:

(I) 1750

British:
Barbados (1757); St KitLs (1756); Nevis (1756); Antigua (1756); Montserrat (1756); Virgin Islands
(1756); Dominica (1763); St Vincent (1764); Grenada (1763); Tobago (1770): John J. McCusker,
The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirleen Continental Colonies, 1650-1775
(New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1988); Robert V. Wells, The Population of the British
Colonies in America before 1776: A Suroey of Census Data (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1975).
Jamaica (1754); St Lucia (1769); British Honduras (1745); Bahamas (1745); Barbuda (1756):
McCusker, The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments. Trinidad (1782): A. Meredith John,
'Spanish Rose, British Thorn: The Plantation Slaves of Trinidad, 1783-1816' (Unpublished Mss.,
1986).
Demerara and Essequibo (1762); Berbice (1762): Alvin D. Thompson, Colonialism and
Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580-1803 (Bridgetown: Carib Research and Publications Inc.,
1987); Richard Sheridan, The Development of the Plantations to 1750 (Barbados: Caribbean
University Press, 1970).
Anguilla (1774): Elsa V. Goveia, Slave Societies in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University 1956).

French:
Martinique (1751); Guadeloupe (1751); St Domingue (1753); St Martin (1753): McCusker, The
Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments.
French Guiana (1749): Ciro Falmarion S. Cardoso, Economia e Sociedade em Areas Colonias
Periforieas: Guiana Francesa e Para, 1750-1817 (Rio de Janeiro: Edipo General, 1984).

Danish:
(755): McCusker, The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments.

Spanish:
Puerto Rico (1765): James 1. Dietz, Economic History of Puerlo Rico Institutional Change and
Capitalist Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). Cuba (1755): Kenneth F.
Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuha, 1774-1899 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1976).
Santo Domingo (1769): Frank Moya Pons, 'Nuevas Consideraci6nes sobre Historia de la
Poblaci6n Dominicana', Erne Erne: Estudios Dominicanos 3 (November-December, 1974),
pp.3-28.

Dutch:
Suriname (1738); St Eustatius (1775); Saba (1775); St Martin (1770): McCusker, The Rum Trade
and the Balance of Payments.
Cura<;ao (1789): Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).

Swedish:
St Bartholomew (1753): McCusker, The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments.

55
 General History of the Caribbean

TABLE 2.1 Continued

(II) 1830

British:
(1830): B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1984).

French:
Martinique (1831); Guadeloupe (1831); French Guiana (1831): Alex Moreau de Jonnes,
Recherches statistiques sur l'esclavage colonial (Paris: Bourgogne et Martinet, 1842).
Haiti (1830): James G. Leybum, The Haitian People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941).

Swedish:
(1836): Hannes Hyrenius, Royal Swedish Slaves (Gothenburg: Demographic Research Institute,
University of Gothenburg, Report No. 15: 1977).

Danish:
(1835): N. A. T. Hall, 'The 1816 freedman petition in the Danish West Indies: its background
and consequences', Boletin de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 29 (December 1980),
pp. 55-73; Svend E. Green-Pedersen, 'Slave Demography in the Danish West Indies and the
Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade', in David Eltis and James Walvin (eds) The Abolition of the
Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa and the Americas (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), pp. 231-57.

Spanish:
Puerto Rico (1830): Moreau de Jonnes, Recherches statistiques.
Cuba (1830): Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuba.
Santo Domingo (1832): Carlos Esteban Deive, La Esclavitud del Negro en Santo Domingo,
1492-1844 (Santo Domingo: Museo del Hombre Dominicano, 1980).

Dutch:
Suriname (1830); St Martin (1830): Moreau de Jonnes, Recherches statistiques. Cura\;ao (1830):
H. Hoetink, 'Surinam and Cura\;ao', in David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene (eds) Neither Slave
nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), pp. 59-83.
St Eustatius (1830) and Bonaire (1828): Panerson, Slavery and Social Death.
Aruba (1833): Johann Hartog, Aruba: Past and Present From the Time of the Indians Until Today
(Oranjestad, D. J. DeWit, 1961).

(m)l880

British:
(1881): Blue Books for various colonies.

French:
Guadeloupe (1880); Martinique (1880); French Guiana (1880): Statistique Generale de la
France, Annuaire Statistique (Paris: imprimerie Nationale, 1883); Hyrenius, Royal Swedish
Slaves.
Haiti (1880): Nicholas Sanchez-Albomoz, The Population of Latin America: A History (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974).

56
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

TABLE 2.1 Continued

Danish:
(1880): Waldemer Westergaard, The Danish West Indies Under Company Rule, 1671-1754 (New
York: Macmillan, 1917).

Spanish:
Pueno Rico (1877): US War Department: Office, Director, Census of Puerto Rico, Report on the
Census of Puerto Rico: 1899 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900).
Cuba (I877): Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuba.
Santo Domingo (I887): Moya Pons, 'Nuevas consideraciones'.

Dutch:
Suriname (I880): R. A.]. Van Lier, Frontier Society: A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam
(The Hague: Martinus Nighoff, 1971).
St Eustatius (1873); Saba (1870); St Martin (1873); Aruba (I873): Raye R. Platt, et al., The
European Possessions in the Caribbean Area: A Compilation of Facts Concerning Their
Population, Physical Geography, Resources, Industries, Trade, Government and Strategic
Importance (New York: American Geographical Society, 1941).
Bonaire (I 880): Ank Klomp, Politics on Bonaire: An Anthropological Study (Assen/Maastricht:
Van Gorcum, 1986).
Cura~ao (1884):]. Hartog, Cura(;ao: From Colonial Dependence to Autonomy (Aruba: DeWit,
1968).

available years. Thus the totals shown do not apply to any specific year.
Second, for purposes of consistency over time we had listed each region as
belonging to that political and/or language area that it belonged to for the
greatest part of the period, not necessarily that at the date to which the table
applies. The justification, in both cases, was that these provided the greatest
clarity of presentation without distorting the basic patterns found in the
original data.
As seen from Table 2.1 the shares in Caribbean population of the
British and French areas of settlement declined over the period 1750 to 1880.
The decline was relatively minor and gradual for the French, sharper for the
British, particularly between 1750 and 1830 (with the sharpest decline in
the years after the closing of the British slave trade in 1808). Going back to
the start of the eighteenth century, there was also a sharply shrinking share
for the British in the years between 1700 and 1740, at a time of a dramatic
increase in the share for the French. Over the full two centuries, the smaller
colonial powers experienced relatively sharp declines in their share of
population, while the Spanish share increased dramatically, particularly in the
years after 1790. If the division were made between the old sugar colonies,
new sugar colonies and non-sugar colonies, the shift in population
shares would appear even more dramatic than it does among the different

57
 General History of the Caribbean

nationality groups.4 Within the British area the ratio of the population in the
old sugar colonies (excluding Jamaica) fell to almost one-third of its 1750
share of British Caribbean population by 1880, while the share of what are
called the newer British sugar areas (none of which actually belonged to the
British of 1750) more than doubled in this period. The rapid growth of Cuba
in the post-1750 period increased dramatically the share of population in the
newer, emerging areas of sugar production, while the agricultural transforma-
tion of Haiti in the nineteenth century and the continued growth of popula-
tion in Santo Domingo (after Haiti the only large non-sugar producing
territory of the Caribbean - at least down to the end of the nineteenth
century) meant larger shares of population in the non-sugar producing areas
of the Caribbean during the nineteenth century.
The proportion of the Caribbean population enslaved rose to about
70 per cent in 1790, falling to about one-half in the 1820s, just prior to the
British emancipation. Within the non-white population there was a dramatic
rise in the ratio of free persons of colour by 1830 in all except the Spanish
areas, though, even with these sharp increases, in none of the regions which
still retained slavery was the share of free persons of colour in either the
black or total population even close to those in the Spanish colonies. s
The previous paragraphs have concentrated upon the black and white
populations within the settled areas of the colonies. Excluded have been the
Maroons, runaway slaves who set up permanent settlements in several of the
colonies, and the Amerindians. While small numbers of Maroons existed at
times in various colonies, such as St Domingue, Guadeloupe, Martinique and
Dominica, and deserters and runaways were found in most slave colonies
throughout the Caribbean, it was only in Jamaica and Suriname that their
numbers were relatively large and their communities relatively settled and
stable. For Jamaica it is estimated that their numbers fell from 980 in 1739 to
664 in 1749, but by 1830 the Jamaican Maroon population, including their
slaves and 'strangers', had risen to 1404.6 Between the beginning of the
eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century the estimated
number of Maroons in Suriname increased from about 5000 to 6000 to about
8000.7
The number of Amerindians, largely prior to European arrival in the
Caribbean, had declined dramatically before the start of the eighteenth
century. Few of the available censuses or registers record the presence of
Amerindians, except for the declining numbers recorded for Trinidad just
prior to British control and into the eighteenth century (estimates of the
numbers of Amerindians declining from over 2000 in 1782 to 727 in 18258 )
and the approximately 2300 recorded as being on Puerto Rico at the end of
the eighteenth century.9 There were also small numbers recorded for Aruba,
Bonaire and British Honduras as late as the start of the nineteenth century,

58
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

but it is difficult to use these fragments to estimate the number of

Amerindians, their locations, or their changing numbers over time. 10 There
were scattered numbers of Amerindians in each of the settled colonies of the
Guianas - including over 6000 in Suriname in 1830,11 about 2000 estimated
for that year in Cayenne (a decline from an estimated 3500 in 1727),12 and
over 6000 in British Guiana in the 1820s (increasing in numbers to about
7500 by the end of the century).13 In addition, there were several thousand
black Caribs - escaped slaves from the Windward Islands who mingled with
the Carib Indians and assimilated their culture - on St Vincent (several
hundreds of whom were moved to British Honduras in the early nineteenth
century) as well as several hunQred on Dominica during the mid-eighteenth
century.14 While we know little about levels and trends in the Amerindian
population, it seems clear that their numbers were small relative to the other
components of the population in all areas of the Caribbean.
We have made a separate provision in 1880 for several areas in
Table 2.1 for those Asians who came to the Caribbean in the years after the
ending of British slavery and who often remained as permanent settlers in
the British and other Caribbean colonies. While indentured labourers to the
various areas of settlement came from Africa, Portuguese Madeira, Java (into
Suriname at the end of the nineteenth century) and China, it was from British
India that most of the contract labourers came. 15 And, while many of the
areas within the Caribbean did receive contract labourers and maintained
them after indenture, they represented a substantial proportion of the overall
popUlation only in British Guiana and Trinidad. East Indian immigrants com-
prised almost one-quarter of the population of Trinidad and 43.5 per cent of
the population of British Guiana in 1881. There were smaller numbers of East
Indian indentured immigrants in the French areas of Guadeloupe and French
Guiana, and they (and those remaining after the expiration of indentures)
represented over 10 per cent of the total population in 1880. 16 While of lesser
importance as part of the overall Caribbean population, the permanent settle-
ment of indentured labour from India and elsewhere played a crucial role in
the economic expansion of sugar production in British Guiana and Trinidad.
In 1891, they formed 79 per cent of the population residing on sugar estates
in British Guiana, and in 1895, 87 per cent of the total sugar estate labour
force in TrinidadY

The slave trade

The Caribbean was a major receiving region for the transatlantic slave trade.
According to recent estimates by Paul Lovejoy, a total of just under 8 million
slaves reached the Americas from Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth

59
 General History of the Caribbean

centuries. IS Of this number, slightly more than one-half were brought to the
tropical staple-producing colonies of the Caribbean (Table 2.2). The available
data are of variable quality, but the estimates presented in Table 2.2 indicate
the general pattern of retained imports. These numbers differ from the total
volume of the slave trade for the individual European nations since some
Caribbean colonies served as entrep6ts, supplying slaves to the colonies of
other nations. A large proportion of the slaves imported by the Danes were
re-exported, and significant numbers were similarly redistributed by the
Dutch and the British, the principal recipients being the Spanish and French
colonies.
During the eighteenth century, the slave trade was focused on the
British and French colonies of the Caribbean, the British being the major
slave trading nation. 19 St Domingue was the greatest consumer of slaves,
taking about 700000 up to the great slave rebellion of 1791, when the
colony's slave population was over 450000. 20 Its rival was Jamaica, which
received roughly the same number of slaves, but over a longer period
extending to the British abolition of the slave trade in 1808. Jamaica's slave
population then amounted to 354000. 21 Importation of slaves was at a high
level during the last decade of the British slave trade, as planters attempted

TABLE 2.2 Estimated net slave imports, 1700-1870 (in 'ooos)

17~ 1761- 1811-

1760 1810 1870 Total
Spanish Caribbean 20 230 692 942
British Caribbean 626 930 1556
French Caribbean 365 650 95 1110
Dutch Caribbean 239 138 377
Danish Caribbean 25 32 57
TOTAL 1275 1980 787 4042
Sources: David Eltis, Economic Growtb and tbe Ending oftbe Transatlantic Slave Trade (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 245-9; Svend E. Green-Pedersen, 'The History of the
Danish Negro Slave Trade 1733-1807', Revuefran~aise d'bistoire d'outre mer, 62 (1975), p. 205;
Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1969), pp. 35, 89, 216, 234, 268; Johannes Postma, 'The Dutch Slave Trade: A Quantitative
Assessment', Revuefran~aise d'bistoire d'outre-mer, 62 (1975), p. 237; Seymour Drescher,
Econocide: Britisb Slavery in tbe Era ofAbolition (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1977), p. 28; Robert 1. Stein, The Frencb Slave Trade in tbe Eigbteentb Century: An Old Regime
Business (Madison: Universiry of Wisconsin Press, 1979), p. 211; Paul E. Lovejoy, 'The Volume
of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis', Journal of African History, 23 (1982), p. 483; Franklin
W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during tbe Nineteentb Century (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 10; Hubert H. S. Aimes, A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1907), p. 269.

60
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

to build up their labour forces in order to meet the expected impact of

abolition. A similarly large inflow of slaves into St Domingue occurred in the
1780s, but this was a direct response to boom conditions in the plantation
sector.
Martinique and Guadeloupe ranked next in importance as importers of
slaves in the eighteenth century, taking about 250000 each. In the case of
Martinique imports doubled between 1700 and the 1780s but then declined
in response to the uncertain future of slavery in the French territories.
Guadeloupe received a steady flow of slaves down to the time of the
Revolution, followed by a similar decline at the end of the century. Barbados
also took about 250 000 slaves in the eighteenth century, but it was unique in
that the number of slaves imported declined steadily due to the saturation of
the island and the gradual emergence of a positive natural increase. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century Barbados was importing more slaves
than the much larger island of Jamaica, but by the last years of the trade it
took less than one-tenth as many as the still expanding Jamaica. The British
Leeward Islands, on the other hand, tripled their slave imports during the
eighteenth century, taking as a group more than 300000 over the whole
period. The late-settled British colonies of the eastern Caribbean imported
substantial numbers of slaves in the last quarter of the eighteenth century but
never rivalled the older British sugar colonies.
Suriname was the principal user of slaves in the Dutch empire, the
colonies of Cura~ao and St Eustatius serving chiefly as entrepots. The slave
trade of Suriname reached its peak by the middle of the eighteenth century
and then declined. The Dutch traded relatively few slaves after 1794.
In the nineteenth century the focus of the slave trade shifted to the
Spanish empire in the first half of the eighteenth century, receiving less than
a thousand slaves per annum. In that period, their slave populations prob-
ably maintained themselves from the importations of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Large-scale importation of slaves into Cuba began in
the 1760s, the British occupation of Havana in 1763 bringing 10000 slaves
within ten months. 22 The slave trade was stimulated by the demands of the
Cuban sugar revolution and facilitated by the opening of the trade to 'free
traders'. By the 1790s Cuba was regularly importing 7000 slaves per annum,
and the island took about 700000 slaves between 1800 and 1867 in spite of
the fact that the slave trade was illegal for the greater part of the period. 23
The peak decade for Cuba was the 1830s when 181000 slaves were
imported, but numbers remained as high as 121000 in the 1850s. For the
whole period of the transatlantic slave trade, Cuba was the largest Caribbean
receiver. Of the other Spanish colonies, Puerto Rico took only about 47000
slaves between 1811 and 1843, while Santo Domingo, which was still to
experience its sugar revolution, received even fewer. 24

61
 General History of the Caribbean

The illicit slave trade of the nineteenth century also supplied a sub-
stantial number of slaves to the French West Indies, between 1814 and
1831, when Guadeloupe took 39000, Martinique 25000, and French Guiana
15000. Between 1854 and 1862 the French West Indies received 18000
African engages who must be regarded as involuntary migrants since most
were purchased as slaves and given merely nominal freedom before
embarkation. 2s

Free migration
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries free migration into the Caribbean
was as important as the slave trade. The British Caribbean alone received an
estimated 222 000 free persons from the British Isles between 1630 and 1700,
compared to approximately 264 000 slaves. 26 The French pattern was similar,
and the dominant Spanish colonies received many more free persons than
slaves before 1700. As with the transatlantic slave trade, the Caribbean was a
focus of European settlement in the initial colonization waves of the Spanish,
British and French, in tum. More than one-half of all seventeenth century
British migrants, for example, moved to the Caribbean, and most of them got
no further.
This balance was reversed in the period 1700-1880. Slaves then
outnumbered free migrants to the Americas as a whole, and it was only in
the later nineteenth century that the cumulative migration of Europeans came
to rival the numbers of the slave trade. The movement had by then shifted its
focus to the temperate regions. Europeans suffered much lower passage
mortality than slaves, but 'seasoning' mortality was even higher for whites
than blacks. Thus, although European migrants to the Caribbean often
returned to their homelands, there was a heavy mortality which led to a need
for continued migration.
Free migration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of
two distinct streams. First, there were the truly 'free' persons who voluntarily
decided to move to the Caribbean, as entrepreneurs or labourers, to work
without the constraints of a binding contract. Second, were the indentured
labourers and engages whose recruitment was not always voluntary and who
were bound to work for a particular employer for a fixed term of years. It is
difficult to estimate the relative numbers involved in these two streams, but
in the period from 1700 to emancipation the former predominated. Before
1700, and after emancipation, on the other hand, the indentured were often
more numerous. The principal characteristic of migration into the Caribbean
in the period of the mature slave societies, however, was the parallel inflow
of unfettered free persons and of slaves.

62
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

The colonial governments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

actively promoted free migration into the Caribbean. In some cases, white set-
tlers possessing capital were lured by grants of land and other advantages. 27
Elsewhere, 'deficiency' laws required plantations to employ a set ratio of
whites to slaves or pay fines in lieu. The offers of land generated relatively
small, but influential, inflows. This was true of Puerto Rico and Spanish
Trinidad, for example. 28 Attempts to force up the white population through
taxation were, however, generally unsuccessful, since planters preferred to
pay rather than seek expensive free workers. In the main, it appears that the
dimensions of free migration had little to do with governmental policy.
The Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo
possessed by far the largest and most rapidly growing white populations in
the Caribbean. Their growth was fed by migration, but they also achieved
early natural increases, so that it is difficult to estimate the actual numbers of
migrants. In Cuba, free and slave inflows went hand in hand, responding to
the rhythms of the sugar revolution. Between 1834 and 1839, at the height of
the slave trade, some 35000 whites entered Cuba. 29 Continued migration into
Cuba at this level would have brought nearly 300000 whites to the island
between 1830 and 1880, during which period the white population increased
from about 332000 to about 980000. 30 But free migration into Cuba
increased dramatically with the abolition of slavery, some 224000 persons
arriving from Spain alone between 1882 and 1894, whereas only 142000
returned. 31 Puerto Rico received 'thousands' of free settlers in response to its
sugar boom, but apparently few free labourers. 32 Estela Cifre de Loubriel has
identified 13000 free migrants entering Puerto Rico during the nineteenth
century, but most of these were officials and the total number is uncertain. 33
Free migration into the early-developed sugar colonies was substantial,
at least down to the 1780s, as there was a constant demand for replacement
supervisors on the plantations and, in some colonies, for skilled workers.
Even in colonies such as Barbados, with a settled planter class and relatively
large white population, migrants continued to arrive. David Galenson has
estimated a net migration of whites for Barbados of 37000, with 29000 for
Jamaica, between 1700 and 1780. 34 After the Haitian Revolution, however,
the number of truly voluntary migrants to the British, French and Dutch
plantation colonies declined sharply, there often being a net out-migration.
Emancipation was followed by an accelerated outflow of whites, moving to
Europe, the European colonies of settlement, and the United States.
Indentured migration into the Caribbean varied in a complex manner in
response to the fortunes of the plantation economy. It provided a large
proportion of the labour force in the early stages of development in the
seventeenth century for Barbados, the British Leeward Islands and the French
colonies. In the eighteenth century, white indentured servants were generally

63
 General History of the Caribbean

replaced by African slaves, though Jamaica took at least 1275 white inden-
tureds before the American Revolution, most of them in the 1730s. 35 The
post-emancipation period saw a revival of the system, the major source
becoming Asia rather than Europe. Between the abolition of slavery and the
termination of indentureship in the early twentieth century, some 430000
Asian contract labourers migrated to the British Caribbean colonies, most of
them to British Guiana and Trinidad. Another 70000 were brought to
Guadeloupe and Martinique, and 34000 to Suriname. Less than one-third
returned to their home countries on the completion of their contracts.36 Even
before the abolition of slavery, Cuba sought indentured labourers to supple-
ment its voluntary and slave labour forces, the contractual conditions often
becoming blurred. Cuba received 125000 Chinese between 1847 and 1874,
and at least 2000 Amerindians from Yucatan and Sonora, as a result of the
wars there. 37

The geographical distribution of population

Table 2.1 presents detailed estimates of population in each territory and its
composition for three years - 1750, 1830, 1880. 38 The years were selected to
represent the period before the major slave and sugar boom of the late eigh-
teenth century, the period just prior to the legislated end of slavery in the
British Caribbean, and the late nineteenth century, just prior to the end of
slavery in Cuba but after the Moret Law of 1870 had left its pronounced
demographic impact. The data are seldom fully appropriate in terms of years
for which data are available or the inclusion of different racial and legal
categories, although they tend to improve over time with the introduction of
formal registrations and censuses in many areas by the middle of the nine-
teenth century. An attempt has been made to get as good an approximation
to the desired estimates as possible, but often the observed population
estimates are for slightly different years and, at times, interpolations were
needed to separate slaves from free persons of colour. 39 It is doubtful,
however, that alternative procedures and estimates would dramatically alter
the general trends and patterns, with one possible exception. This is the case
of post-1791 Haiti. In Table 2.1 Haiti's estimated 1880 population is about
one-fifth of that of the total Caribbean, about equal to the share estimated for
1830 and, on the basis of the somewhat more systematic colonial data,
slightly above the share for 1750.
In the first section of this chapter several comparisons were made cov-
ering years in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Generally, the analy-
sis for the years 1750, 1830 and 1880 points to similar results, with one key
exception. Whereas population growth for the total of Caribbean territories

64
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

was more rapid in the eighteenth than the nineteenth century, the overall
population growth per annum was approximately the same from 1830 to
1880 as it was from 1750 to 1830. There was some slight acceleration of
growth in the British and remaining French colonies (as listed in Table 2.1),
deceleration in the Spanish territories and in Haiti, while the smaller colonies
either remained at a low rate of increase, as in the Dutch areas, or there was
an absolute decrease, as in the Danish and Swedish areas. In both sub-
periods, however, it was the Spanish areas that were growing most rapidly,
and their share of total Caribbean population rose from about one-quarter
in 1750 to nearly 45 per cent by 1880. The shares of the Dutch and Danish
Caribbean population fell sharply throughout the period, the former from
7.4 to 1.5 per cent and the latter from 1.6 to 0.5 per cent. The British
and French colonies experienced declines in their population shares in
both sub-periods, the decline of the British being particularly sharp in
the period 1750 to 1830, a period in which the Spanish share increased
rapidly. Similarly there were dramatic shifts from the older areas of
original population settlement for sugar production to the newer sugar-
producing areas, with particularly large increases in the populations in
British Guiana, Trinidad, several of the Leeward Islands and Cuba. After the
demographic adjustment to independence, Haiti's population also grew
relatively rapidly.
Overall there was apparently some small decline in the share of the
Caribbean population that was white, from about one-quarter in 1750 to one-
fifth in 1830, with possibly some increase in the last sub-period as a result of
the increased importance of whites in the Spanish areas, particularly Cuba,
and the growing importance of the Spanish areas in the overall Caribbean
population. In the eighteenth century there were some indentured servants
in the Caribbean, particularly in the British and French areas, but these repre-
sented a relatively small proportion of the total white population. 4o Within
the black population there was an increased number of free persons of
colour, due both to the revolutionary, or legislated, ending of slavery and to
the effect of the increases in manumissions on the numbers of free persons
of colour in most of the Caribbean areas. Clearly, however, it was the aboli-
tion of slavery that accounted for most of the free persons of colour at any
time, since, outside the Spanish areas and, of course, Haiti, even as late as
1830, free persons of colour accounted for only one-seventh of the total non-
white population.
The shifts in the shares of the Caribbean population among different
European settlements, as well as within them, generally represented the
outcome of differences in the rates of immigration and differences in the
rates of natural increase (or decrease) rather than direct movements of popu-
lation from one area to another. Such movements, of free and slave

65
 General History of the Caribbean

populations, did of course occur (as will be described below) but their
magnitudes were not sufficient to explain the changing absolute amounts
and shares in the different areas. 41
In general, the occasional changes in the legal possession of various
colonies did not themselves have, initially, much effect upon the changing
shares of the European nationals in Caribbean population. Most of the area
transfers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, such as that of the Ceded
Islands of 1763 (Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and Dominica, transferred from
France to England) had, at the time of change, relatively low population
levels. The two largest transfers resulted in the British acquisitions of
Trinidad and the areas comprising British Guiana at the turn of the nine-
teenth century. In both cases the onset of population growth was most
dramatic only in the decade or two immediately preceding transfer or during
the period of initial British occupation, so there was not a large shift of a
resident population recorded from one European colonial settlement area to
another. Moreover, in Demerara by 1762 some 34 or 93 plantations were
owned by British, and it is believed that the British accounted for a majority
of the colony's white settlers. 42 The most important shift in politico-legal
status resulted from the Haitian Revolution leading to an independent nation
freed of French control, and one which had subsequent control of Santo
Domingo in the period 1822 to 1844. For purposes of consistency in most
calculations presented by nation of settlement and/or language grouping,
Santo Domingo, as well as Cuba and Puerto Rico, have been considered to
be in Spanish colonies, while, in some calculations, Haiti was considered
among the French territories. These decisions as to placement on political
grounds do not, however, influence the basic patterns described and, to
repeat, shifts in shares usually did not reflect either direct migration from one
area to another or changing colonial ownership, but rather differences
among areas in rates of immigration and rates of population change among
the resident populations.
This is not to ignore the impact in specific cases of movements within
the Caribbean, as well as movements within given islands. The latter often
reflected shifts in the crops produced, frequently the expansion of sugar
production at the expense of coffee, cotton and other slave-grown crops,
while the movements within the Caribbean reflected the changing fortunes of
different areas in the production of export crops, mainly sugar, or else
changes due to the termination of slavery for whatever reason. Intra-territory
shifts of population generally reflected the timing of expansions in sugar pro-
duction. In British Guiana and Trinidad this meant movements to the coastal
area and southward, respectively, in the early nineteenth century. In Jamaica,
in the nineteenth century, this meant movement into upland areas with the
expansion of coffee productiOn, a pattern of movement continued in Jamaica

66
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

and seen in many colonies after the ending of slavery, when this meant a
reduction in the importance of the sugar economy and a departure from
sugar-growing regions. Certainly the Haitian movement inland after the
ending of slavery provides the most dramatic example of geographic relo-
cation resulting from the ending of slavery. The transitions in the Spanish-
speaking areas came in the early and mid-nineteenth century, the sugar
boom there generating some eastward movement in the Cuban population
and a south and south-west movement within Puerto Rico. In most cases
these crop-related movements also led to regional differences in the racial
and legal composition of the popUlation, sugar-producing areas having larger
percentages of slaves in their population than those not specializing in
plantation crops.
Population movements within the eighteenth-century Caribbean were
less pronounced than were those in the nineteenth century. In the last
decade of the eighteenth century the whites of St Domingue fled, often to
establish sugar and coffee plantations elsewhere. There were movements to
Louisiana, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and to British Guiana, as well
as returns to the European metropolis. 43 Trinidad was being settled at this
time, with inflows of French from the several French Antilles as well as of
British planters, who quickly came to outnumber the Spanish. 44 Earlier, in the
first decades of the eighteenth century, there was an outflow from British
Leeward and Virgin Islands to provide the largest group of European settlers
on St Croix, and there were other movements of planters from English,
Dutch and French colonies to the three Danish Virgin Islands throughout the
century.45 In addition, there were some movements of planters out of the
British West Indies after the ending of slavery there, some to return to Britain
but others moving elsewhere within the Caribbean to remain as sugar
plantation owners.
While there were some transfers between parts of the British West
Indies prior to 1808, it was only after the ending of the transatlantic slave
trade and the resulting introduction of controls on inter-island movement that
some measure of this movement has been possible. Over the years from
1808 to 1833 it is estimated that a total of over 20 000 slaves migrated, mainly
into Demerara and Essequibo and Trinidad, with the major areas of outflow
being Dominica, the Bahamas and Berbice. 46 In some cases movement was
with owners, in others slaves were sold or otherwise transferred. Some guide
to prior migration of slaves can be obtained from examination of places-of-
birth data in the British colonial slave registrations. Thus, for Trinidad in
1813, 60.9 per cent of the 11633 Creoles (out of a total of 25696 slaves) were
born in Trinidad. 47 In 1819 only 8.1 per cent of Berbice's 10954 Creoles had
been born elsewhere in the Caribbean. 48 These calculations will understate
inter-island movement, since they assume that no Africans moved across

67
 General History of the Caribbean

islands, but they do highlight the importance of movement of Creole slaves

into Trinidad. In the case of Trinidad, the French islands of Martinique and
Guadelope were major sources of slave immigrants, while, among the British
colonies, Grenada and St Vincent were the most important sources of
Trinidad's inflow. 49
There was considerably more migration within the Caribbean after the
ending of slavery in the British colonies in 1834. Rather quickly, movements
toward the expanding areas of British Guiana and Trinidad re-emerged. In
the years from 1835 to 1845 at least 3300 people moved to Trinidad from
elsewhere in the British Caribbean. 50 Less than 800 went from St Kitts and
Nevis to British Guiana, while nearly 8000 moved to British Guiana from
elsewhere in the British Caribbean. 51 Some of this British West Indian migra-
tion to British Guiana came from the smaller islands of the East Caribbean,
but over 40 per cent came from Barbados. 52 After a brief cessation of inter-
island movements imposed by legal constraints, large-scale emigration from
Barbados began again after 1863. It is estimated that the total migration
between 1861 and 1901 amounted to about 39000, an amount approximately
equal to about one-quarter of the population of Barbados in 1861. After
1901, moreover, migration from Barbados further accelerated, and the annual
level in the first two decades of the twentieth century was over three times
that of the last four decades of the nineteenth century. 53 Most of this migra-
tion went to British Guiana and Trinidad. In the 1880s only a few Barbadians
went to Panama, the major movement there occurring in the early years of
the twentieth century. There was, however, a post-I880 outflow from
Jamaica to Panama, which accounted for the major part of the population
outflow from Jamaica in the late nineteenth century. 54 Less can be said about
the magnitudes of inflows to and outflows from other parts of the British
West Indies. Estimating on the basis of place-of-birth data in the various cen-
suses, Kuczynski places the immigration to British Guiana from elsewhere in
the West Indies between 1861 and 1891 at 27000 - a large percentage being
from Barbados. 55 There were about 65 000 migrants for Trinidad between
1871 and 1911, with, it would seem, a large increase in the number of
migrants after 1891 (unlike the pattern for British Guiana). For Trinidad,
Barbados was the major source of population flow, although there were also
relatively large inflows from Tobago, St Vincent and Grenada. 56 And while
there were outflows of population from other parts of the British Caribbean,
it is only from Barbados that out-migration reached a substantial amount by
the end of the nineteenth century.
Less is clear about the nature and magnitude of other intra-Caribbean
flows. Surely the closeness of most islands would suggest that some move-
ments did take place, but the general absence of extended discussions and
records would seem to indicate that those that did were relatively small in

68
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

number and in impact. (There developed, after 1880, an important annual

movement of sugar workers to Santo Domingo from Haiti, but this did not
generally lead to permanent settlement.) There was some outflow from the
Caribbean at the end of the nineteenth century, with the movement of about
5300 Puerto Ricans to Hawaii for work on the sugar plantations, but move-
ments from the British Caribbean to the North American mainland were
generally a feature of the twentieth century. 57

PART TWO

Distribution of the labour force

Most slave labour was used within the agricultural sector, frequently in the
production of sugar. This meant, therefore, that slave colonies generally had
the largest share of their populations in the rural areas, with only a relatively
small percentage located in urban areas - a pattern that was to persist in
most colonies even after the ending of slavery. There was an inverse move-
ment between agricultural production and urban population shares, an
expanding agricultural sector drawing labour from urban areas, while agricul-
tural decline would free labour for relocation into urban areas. And given
that slave labour was dominant on plantations, relatively more of the whites
and free persons of colour resided in urban areas than did slaves. Given,
however, the greater numbers of slaves in the overall population, this still
frequently meant that slaves constituted the largest component of the popula-
tion in urban areas. Within the urban slave population there were generally
relatively more females than males.
In the Spanish areas some cities, such as Havana in Cuba, played a
traditional colonial administrative role. In 1778, Havana's population of
40737 was one-fifth of Cuba's population of almost 180 000, with slaves
making up about 28 per cent, free persons of colour 20 per cent and whites
over one-half, of Havana's population. 58 In 1861 over one-third of the Cuban
population of nearly 1.4 million lived in towns and villages, with the largest
numbers over 200000 residing in Havana. The urban areas accounted for
40 per cent of whites, over half the free persons of colour and only 20 per
cent of the slaves. Thus, unlike in most Caribbean areas, Cuba's urban slaves
in 1861 represented a small proportion of the urban population, comprising
less than 15 per cent of the urban total. Within the urban slave population,
females exceeded males, despite their overall share of the island's slave
population being only 40 per cent. 59 Over the two centuries covered, the
share of urbanized population in Cuba was generally about one-third, with

69
 General History of the Caribbean

the proportion in Havana being about 15 to 20 per cent. 60 At the end of the
nineteenth century, in 1898, the proportion of the total Puerto Rican popula-
tion residing in urban areas of over 1000 was only 21.4 per cent, with only
32048, 3.4 per cent of the island's population, residing in the largest of the
urban areas, San Juan. 61 In the Spanish-speaking territories, as elsewhere in
the Caribbean in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, most of the popu-
lation, and a disproportionately larger share of the slave population, resided
in rural areas, and there were no dramatic movements into urban areas
during these two centuries.
In its days of economic expansion, the extent of urbanization in
St Domingue was relatively small, three large towns accounting for some
5.3 per cent of the population in 1788. These three towns accounted for
about 22 per cent of St Domingue's white population, 9 per cent of the free
persons of colour, and 4 per cent of the slave population. Yet 66 per cent of
the overall urban population was slave. 62 It is doubtful that in the nineteenth
century Haiti had as large an urban share of population as it had before the
Revolution. The share of population residing in towns and villages in the
other French West Indies was, however, higher. In 1835 it is estimated that
12.7 per cent of Guadeloupe slaves, 25.9 per cent of Martinique slaves, and
14.3 per cent of French Guiana slaves lived in towns and villages, and since
slaves generally represented only 50 per cent of the town and village popula-
tion, the overall share of population in towns and villages was greater than
that shown for slaves. 63
On the Dutch and Danish colonies the importance of urban residence
was greater than on the French and British islands. In Suriname the pro-
portion of the population in Paramaribo rose from 19 per cent in 1787, to
27 per cent in 1830, to 37 per cent in 1863, and to 47 per cent in 1883. 64 In
the late eighteenth century, the slaves in Paramaribo, about 15 per cent of
the colony's slaves, represented about three-quarters of the town's popula-
tion, and in 1830 the 17.5 per cent of the colony's slaves in Paramaribo were
still about 56 per cent of its population. 65 The Danish colonies also had
relatively large urban populations, particularly for trading centres such as
St Thomas. In the second half of the eighteenth century over 20 per Gent of
the population of St Croix lived in two urban areas, most in Christiansted, the
proportion rising to nearly one-third in the 1830s. Whites and freedmen were
more urbanized than were slaves, although slaves represented about 60 per
cent of the urban population in the late eighteenth century. Between 1803
and the 1830s the urban slave population declined while the urban free
population doubled, so slaves accounted for only about one-quarter of
St Croix's urban population in 1839. By then, females generally accounted for
55 to 60 per cent of the urban slave population. A similar dramatic change
between the 1790s and the 1830s occurred in the urban population of

70
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

St Thomas, the urban share of the island's population rising from 39.5 per
cent in 1789 to 77.7 per cent in 1838, free persons of colour accounting for
over half the population of Charlotte Amalie. 66
Within the British colonies in the early nineteenth century generally
about 10 per cent or less of the population of slaves lived in urban areas, a
pattern that was rather consistent across islands, with a small decline over
the years of expanding sugar production from 1810 to 1830.67 The major
exceptions were Trinidad, where the ratio of slaves who resided in urban
areas fell from nearly one-quarter in 1797 to less than one-seventh in 1830,
and British Honduras, where about 50 per cent of the slave population was
urban in 1830. 68 In 1797, 27 per cent of Trinidad's non-Amerindian popula-
tion resided in Port of Spain, with the city's population 42.3 per cent slave,
20.7 per cent white, and 37.0 per cent free persons of colour. By 1881 about
one-fifth of the Trinidad population lived in Port of Spain, although allowing
for broader city limits would raise that ratio to nearly one-third. 69 In that year
about 39 per cent of the population of British Honduras was urban, as
was about 21 per cent of the population of British Guiana (where another
44.5 per cent resided in villages)?O
Within Jamaica, Kingston, the largest city in the British Caribbean with
a population estimated at 35000 in 1828, accounted for between 5 to 10 per
cent of the overall population of the island throughout most of these two
centuries, with some small decline in the share in the late nineteenth century.
In 1828 slaves accounted for about 36 per cent of Kingston's population?l In
1730, Kingston had a total of 5.4 per cent of the island's population, with
Port Royal having another 2.9 per cent, both together including 29.5 per cent
of the island's white population and about 5.7 per cent of its slaves.72
Kingston's 33000 in 1812 accounted for 36 per cent of the whites, 16.7 per
cent of the free persons of colour, and 5.2 per cent of the slaves, but, given
the high proportion of slaves on the island, the number of slaves in Kingston
exceeded the total of the other groupS.73 After slavery, the pattern of over-
representation of whites in urban areas in Jamaica continued. The over-
representation of whites (and of free persons of colour) in relatively small
urban populations was found, also, in 1788 in the Leeward Islands. 74

The economic distribution of the Caribbean

population

There are several important aspects to be discussed relating to the economic

distribution of the Caribbean population: the principal crops grown, the size

71
 General History ofthe Caribbean

of and occupational structure on producing units, and the number of slave

owners in the free population. These factors are important not only as the
basis for understanding the economies and societies of the different areas,
but also because they have important implications for Caribbean demo-
graphic performance. The impact of sugar production upon mortality and the
relation of unit size and fertility meant that population growth was sensitive
to the particular crops produced and to the sizes of the producing units for
different crops.
The major crop grown in most areas of the Caribbean was sugar, typi-
cally on plantations of upwards of 100 slaves, with few resident whites and
free persons of colour. Other crops of importance, including coffee, cotton
and cocoa, were grown on plantations, but generally with an average size of
fewer than 100 slaves. Slaves were also used on livestock-producing farms
and for various other forms of agricultural production. In general, however,
the largest single place of residence of the slave population, often accounting
for more than one-half of the number of slaves, was the sugar plantation.
And, given the nineteenth-century development of major non-Caribbean pro-
ducers for cotton and for coffee, there was some general tendency for the
proportion of slaves in sugar production to increase and those in cotton and
coffee production to decrease.
The French colonies showed the great importance of labour in sugar
production in the nineteenth century. In 1832 about two-thirds of all slaves
in agriculture on Martinique resided on sugar plantations, meaning an
amount equal to three-quarters of adult slaves were on sugar plantations.
This was an increase from the 41.5 per cent of all slaves in agriculture in
1751, when the sugar share of the total adult slave population was 40.5 per
cent. In the 1830s coffee was the second leading user of slave labour,
employing an amount equal to about one-third of that on sugar plantations.
The second leading plantation crop in Guadeloupe was also coffee, which
accounted for declining amounts of slave labour in the first half of the nine-
teenth century. For Guadeloupe 74.1 per cent of the slaves in agriculture
were on sugar units in 1832, an increase from 52.7 per cent in 1751. The
1832 population on sugar plantations represented about two-thirds of the
island's adult slave population, while in the 1770s sugar production had
accounted for about two-fifths of the adult slave population. Thus both of
the islands had increased their proportions of the slave population on sugar
plantations in the period from the middle of the eighteenth century to the
middle of the nineteenth centuryJs French Guiana, however, had a more
mixed pattern of agriculture, only about 18.4 per cent of its 1840 slave popu-
lation residing on sugar plantations. 76
There was a very dramatic increase in the proportion of Cuban slaves
on sugar plantations over the course of the nineteenth century. About 1827,

72
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

it is estimated that there were equal numbers of slave workers on sugar and
coffee plantations, while slave workers in tobacco were less than one-sixth
of those in each of the other cropsJ7 In 1861 about 47 per cent of the Cuban
slave population lived on sugar plantations, with only 7 per cent on coffee
plantations, and less than 5 per cent involved in tobacco production. For
sugar and coffee, slaves represented three-quarters of the population resident
on the plantations. In the production of tobacco, however, there were fewer
slaves than there were either whites or free persons of colour. One-sixth of
rural whites and one-quarter of rural free persons of colour resided on
tobacco vegas, where there was a predominance of white residents. 78
For the largest of the British West Indies, Jamaica, about 60 per cent of
its slaves were on sugar plantations around 1770.79 This ratio declined to
about 50 per cent in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, with coffee
accounting for another 15 to 17 per cent of slave labour in the latter
period. so In 1820,60 per cent of all slaves in the British colonies resided on
sugar plantations, ranging from zero in the small, marginal colonies (includ-
ing Barbuda and the Bahamas) to over 85 per cent on St Kitts, Nevis,
Montserrat, and Tobago. Coffee was about as important as sugar in 1820 in
Berbice (but the next decade saw a dramatic decline in coffee production),
while in Dominica there were more slaves on coffee plantations than on
sugar plantations. Between 1810 and 1830 there was a movement of slave
labour from coffee and cotton units to sugar plantations. 81 The data after
emancipation are not fully comparable, but they do suggest some decline in
the allocation of labour to sugar plantations. In British Guiana, in 1881,
about 33.4 per cent of the population resided on sugar estates, most of them
indentured and time-expired Indian immigrants, and while this count
excludes sugar workers who were not resident on estates, it represents a
significant decline from the approximately 71.5 per cent on estates in 1830.82
And, on Jamaica, in 1881, only one-quarter of the agricultural labour force-
18.2 per cent of the total labour force - was involved in sugar production,
with another 8.9 per cent of agricultural workers involved in the production
of minor agricultural staples, compared to an estimated 52.7 per cent of
slaves in 1830 on sugar plantations. 83
In the major Dutch colony of Suriname there was an increase in the
share of the slave population on sugar plantations and a decline in the
number. on coffee plantations in the middle decades of the nineteenth
century. In 1833 the slave population was split, with 32 per cent on sugar
plantations and 28 per cent on coffee, but by 1862 one-half of the colony's
slave population was on sugar units while only 11 per cent remained on
coffee plantations. 84
As noted, sugar plantations tended to be large agricultural units, with
the average size generally in a range of 100-250 slaves in most colonies. This

73
 General History of the Caribbean

meant, further, that most slaves in sugar-producing colonies were concen-

trated on relatively large units, while suggesting that wealth among the free
population was relatively unequally distributed. The influence of sugar pro-
duction on the size of agricultural units can be seen in a comparison of
Dutch colonies in 1862. Less than one-fifth of Suriname's slave population
lived on units of less than 100 slaves, while on the non-sugar island of
Curat;ao the share was over two-thirds. 8s Sugar plantations were also large in
the French islands in the late eighteenth century. In the 1780s, in
Guadeloupe, their mean size was 111 slaves, compared to 42 slaves for
coffee units. 86 And just prior to the uprising in St Domingue, on the Plaine-
du-Nord the estimated average size of a sugar plantation was about 185
slaves. 87
In most of the British Caribbean sugar colonies in the first third of the
nineteenth century, about one-half or more of the slaves lived on units of
more than 100 slaves. The major exception was Trinidad, where the 1813
proportion was only 15 per cent, but the ratios in British islands included
Jamaica (61.5 per cent), Barbados (48.2 per cent) and, with the largest share,
Antigua (76.8 per cent).88 The average number of slaves on a Jamaican sugar
plantation rose from 154 in 1770 to 223 in 1832.89 And the average coffee
plantation increased in size from 35 to 128 between 1791 and 1832.90
Cuba was somewhat unusual for a sugar-based slave economy. Only
one-quarter of slaves belonged to owners holding over 80 slaves in 1857 -
and even if the comparison were restricted to rural slaveholding, the share
would still be only 31.1 per cent, conSiderably below that on most of the
British sugar-producing colonies.91 Sugar plantations, however, averaged 113
slaves in 1862, with the mean being 159 per ingenio in the largest of the
sugar-producing provinces, Matanzas. 92 In Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1838, 56 per
cent of slaves resided on units of 50 or more slaves, with a sharp fall to
41 per cent just prior to emancipation, in 1872.93
Urban slaveholdings were generally smaller than those in rural areas. In
Cuba, in 1857, rural slaveholdings averaged about 11.9 slaves, while the
average size of urban holdings were about three per owner.94 On British
St Lucia, in 1815, the average size of urban holdings was 5.8, with the rural
holdings averaging 20.4 slaves, while in Jamaica the average urban slave-
holding in 1832 was 5.3 slaves, and in the rural areas it was 36.9 slaves. 9s
Data on slaveholding distributions can also be used to make inferences
about the pattern of slaveholding among the free population. In Cuba, in
1857, the proportion of slaveholders to the white male population was about
10 per cent (the ratio to the free population was about 6.7 per cent), but the
1 per cent of slave owners who owned over 80 slaves held 25 per cent of the
slave population. 96 The interpretation of these numbers depends upon both
the size of households which is used to convert the number of holdings into

74
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

the size of population involved in slaveholding, and the number of holdings

per owner. It is probable that the Cuban ratio of slaveholdings to population
was below those for the British colonies in 1830. The estimated ratio of
slaveholdings to white population in the British colonies was about 65 per
cent (the ratio to the total free population was about 21.7 per cent). Given
\
the relatively greater tendency for whites than free coloureds to own slaves,
it has been estimated that in the British colonies in 1830 about 52 per cent of
whites and only 6.5 per cent of free persons of colour owned slaves. In 1832,
the 6697 slave owners who held over 20 slaves owned a total of 560 506
slaves, 82.7 per cent of all British Caribbean slaves. 97 For Jamaica, the 119
units that comprised the top 1 per cent of slave owners had only 45025
slaves, about 14.5 per cent of all Jamaican slaves, considerably less than the
share of the top 1 per cent in Cuba two decades later. 98
There are only a few estimates on slaveholding patterns for the
eighteenth century but they are suggestive of the early introduction of the
sugar economy. On Montserrat, in 1729, 86.5 per cent of free white house-
holds owned slaves, over half having more than ten. Two decades earlier, in
1707, on St Kitts, 61.3 per cent of households owned slaves, with over one-
third having more than ten slaves. In the Bahamas, where a sugar economy
never developed, however, over two-thirds of households in the early 1730s
owned no slaves. 99
There have been discussions of slaveholder residential and place-of-
birth patterns, but at present there are relatively few detailed quantitative
estimates of this breakdown. Thus it is generally agreed that French planters
were residents on the islands where their slaveholdings were, whereas with a
few exceptions (such as Barbados), the British islands were more frequently
marked by absentee ownership. For Jamaica, in 1832, it is estimated that
about 7.7 per cent of slaveholdings were owned by absentee owners, but
these owned over one-half of all the slaves. These absentee holdings were
quite large, averaging about 175 slaves compared to an overall island-wide
average of 25 slaves.lOo It is claimed that elsewhere in the British colonies
absenteeism among the planters was most common in the Leeward Islands
and in Demerara and Essequibo. Among the other nationalities it is claimed
that the Spanish islands, particularly Cuba, tended to resemble the British
patterns.
In most cases the planters were nationals of the metropolitan area of
settlement. There were some exceptions, particularly when areas changed
political metropoles, but also in the Danish Virgin Islands. As noted above,
Trinidad had numbers of both British and French planters in addition to the
earlier-arriving Spanish, during its settlement stage. lOl In St Lucia, acquired
by the British in 1803, roughly 92 per cent of slave owners were French in
1815, while Berbice (also acquired in 1803) had 34.9 per cent of its slave

7S
 General History of the Caribbean

owners with Dutch surnames in 1819 (and 3.2 per cent with French). On
Trinidad the British owned larger plantations than did the French and
Spanish, who tended to own plantations producing coffee and cocoa
rather than sugar. 102 Except for the areas acquired by the British late in
the eighteenth century, almost all slaveholdings in the British colonies
were owned by British planters, and the link of nationality of slave
owners with the ownership of colonies generally persisted through the
Caribbean.

Occupational allocation
Participation in the labour force was at a very high level in the slave societies
of the Caribbean. Slaves were excluded only if they were under about six
years of age or over 70 years, or were diseased or disabled. In the British
Caribbean at the time of emancipation, fully 82 per cent of the slaves were
classified as active in the work force. 103 The proportion must have been even
higher in earlier periods when children and old people were few and the
slave trade vigorous. Similar rates applied to all the slave-dominated sugar
plantation economies, with variations relating to differences in age structure
and stage of settlement. In non-sugar marginal territories with large slave
populations, rates were lower but still high. In the British Caribbean at
emancipation, the lowest rate occurred in Barbuda where 75 per cent of
the slave population was active in the labour force. High participation rates
also applied to white and Asian indentured labourers, and to adult white
males in the sugar colonies. Creole-born poor whites, however, often experi-
enced unemployment as a direct consequence of the maturing of the slave
system. 104 White females and freedmen were effectively excluded from
many occupations and thus were less well represented in the labour
force. It is also probable that in the Spanish colonies dominated by white
nuclear family households, especially in the period before the sugar revolu-
tion, participation rates were significantly lower than in the plantation
economies.
The growth of slavery was associated with a decline in the free labour
force and the parallel employment of slaves in many occupations originally
confined to whites. At the end of the eighteenth century, skilled workers,
such as masons, carpenters, sugar boilers, potters and seamstresses, were
commonly slaves, whereas many of them had been white at the end of the
seventeenth century. Whites gradually surrendered more and more of the
skilled occupations to slaves and remained exclusive only in supervisory
roles on the plantations and in some urban occupations demanding literacy

76
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

and formal education. The extent to which this replacement of whites by

slaves was carried through depended on the black : white ratio and on the
size of the freedman population. It was probably most complete in the sugar
colonies dominated by large plantation units, as in Jamaica and Suriname. In
the Spanish colonies, freedmen and whites played a much larger part in the
skilled occupations. The technological sophistication of the Cuban sugar
industry in the nineteenth century demanded an increasing number of
scientifically trained workers, so that the factory chemist and engineer
replaced the slave sugar boiler and millwright.
Individuals were allocated to particular occupations on the ba1)is of
gender, age, colour and strength. !Os Females, slave and free, were totally
excluded from 'skilled' trades other than sewing. Males were excluded only
from washing and sewing. Among slaves, few females worked in trans-
portation or fishing or as 'watchmen'. Colour was less exclusive than
gender, but male slaves of colour were generally allocated to domestic
service or the skilled trades, and females to domestic work. Ethnic origin
mattered little, African and Creole slaves being distributed in much the
same manner. On plantations, slave children were placed in field gangs
from about five years of age and reached the ranks of the first by 18. Black
and coloured males were sometimes removed from the field gangs to be
trained in the skilled trades, and slave drivers were taken from the first
gang when they reached about 35 years of age. Most plantation watchmen
were old and weak.
Field labour employed the majority of the rural slave population. In
Guadeloupe in the eighteenth century, for example, 70 per cent of the slaves
on sugar plantations were employed in field labour, 20 per cent in the skilled
trades, and 10 per cent in domestic servicey16 The availability of alternative
occupations for males increaSingly forced females into the field gangs,
particularly after the abolition of the slave trade when the sex ratio of the slave
population became more evenly balanced. At age 30 more than 80 per cent of
female slaves were in the field, compared to less than 65 per cent of males.
In the towns, more than 60 per cent of female slaves worked as
domestics, whereas only 20 per cent of males were house slaves. Females
accounted for all of the urban slave seamstresses and washers, and most of
the hucksters, while males monopolized the skilled trades, fishing and trans-
port work. The scattered, small-scale nature of urban slave ownership meant
that gender and age were more important than colour in determining
occupational allocation. The free coloured and free black populations of the
towns competed with slaves as hucksters, tradesmen and porters, and also
worked as domestics. Some freedmen acquired sufficient capital to set them-
selves up as tavernkeepers, shopkeepers and merchants, competing directly
with whites. 107

77
 General History of the Caribbean

PART THREE

Origins and ethnicity

By 1700 the indigenous Amerindian population of the Caribbean was no

more than a remnant and the vast majority of the inhabitants had their roots
in other regions. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries differences in the
proportion of Caribbean-born (Creole) people in the populations depended
principally on the stage of development of the sugar economy and the
dimensions of its associated slave trade. Only in the non-plantation colonies
did Creoles constitute a substantial part of the colonial populations before
emancipation. The Spanish territories contained large Creole populations
until the 1760s, but the introduction of African slaves on sugar and coffee
plantations were African-born in the period 1791-1822. By 1845-68,
however, the proportion had fallen to 53 per cent. 108 In the case of Puerto
Rico, 53 per cent of the rural slaves in Ponce in 1838 were African-born. 109 In
the sugar colonies of the other European nations, the Creole sections of the
populations generally grew only slowly during the eighteenth century, with
the rate depending on the chronology of settlement. Immediately before the
revolution in St Domingue, Creoles made up 55 per cent of the plantation
population, but in Guadeloupe they were less than 45 per cent. 110 At the time
of the abolition of the British transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the recently
developed sugar colonies of British Guiana and Trinidad had slave popula-
tions of which nearly two-thirds were African-born. In the British Windward
Islands, developed after 1763, and in Jamaica, Creole and African slaves were
evenly balanced. In the early-settled colonies of Barbados and the Leeward
Islands, however, less than 20 per cent of the slaves were African-born by
1807. 111 By the time of emancipation, in 1838, a mere 2 per cent of the
Barbados slaves were African-born, compared to one-third in British Guiana.
Since indentured immigration, after emancipation, was distributed across the
areas in much the same way, these contrasts in foreign-born: Creole ratios
remained until the late nineteenth century, the African-born being replaced
by Asians.
Free migration was generally channelled within the imperial systems.
Thus most of the whites who migrated to the Spanish Caribbean colonies
were Spanish-born, those who settled the British West Indies were British,
and so on. This was particularly true of the eighteenth century. Exceptions
were the Danish West Indies, where British, Dutch and French people were
encouraged to establish themselves as merchants and planters. 112 The
Spanish government's Cedula de Gracias of 1783 encouraged the settlement
of non-Spanish persons in Trinidad, requiring only that they be Roman

78
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

Catholic and possess slaves. When the British took Trinidad in 1797 it already
had a cosmopolitan free population, of French and Spanish nationality, and
the former French colonies of Dominica, St Lucia and Grenada became simi-
larly cosmopolitan following their cession to the British. A Cedula de Gracias
was applied to Puerto Rico in 1815. By 1845 only 26 per cent of the sugar-
planting hacendados of Ponce were Creoles, whereas 21 per cent were
Peninsular Spaniards, 17 per cent French, 11 per cent Spanish South
American, 5 per cent German, with a sprinkling of Dutch, British and
Arnerican. ll3 Cuba, on the other hand, supported a much larger Creole plant-
ing class, at least until the 1880s. The French sugar colonies and Barbados
also possessed large resident planter classes. Absentee-proprietorship
became very common in Jamaica and the Leeward Islands by the end of the
eighteenth century, but most of these planters resided in metropolitan
Britain.
White indentured servants were generally drawn from the imperial
nations themselves. The movement of Asian indentured labourers after
emancipation, however, was more complicated. British India supplied the
British West Indies, and Suriname drew from the Dutch East Indies. But
British India also supplied the French West Indies and Suriname, and the
Chinese fell outside the formal European imperial systems.

Apart from a small number of Amerindian slaves,114 most slaves were

brought to the Caribbean from the great length of the African coast stretching
from Senegal to Mozambique. To some extent, the slave trade was organized
along national lines, companies and independent traders working through
the forts established by their own European countries. But the trade became
so extensive and the competition for slaves so great, that these distinctions
had relatively little Significance by the later eighteenth century, and the
origins of the slaves brought to the Caribbean colonies did not vary greatly
according to the nations involved. The mixing of slaves from different ethnic
groups was increased by the re-exportation that occurred within the
Caribbean and by the conscious strategy of planters seeking to control their
slave labour forces. In spite of these preferences and market mechanisms,
there were significant long-term changes in the regional origins of the slaves.
Thus, although the mixture of African ethnic groups was always the domi-
nant feature of the Caribbean slave populations, colonies settled at different
times tended to receive varied ethnic contingents.
In the early eighteenth century, the slave trade was concentrated along
the stretch of coast from the Senegambia to the Bight of Benin. More than
one-half of the slaves taken by the English and the French in this period

79
 General History of tbe Caribbean

came from the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin. The trade gradually
moved east and south, so that by the last decades of the British slave trade
over 80 per cent of the slaves were taken from the Bight of Biafra and
Central Africa, the Igbo and Kongo ethnic groups predominating. ll5 This was
.a geographical shift in the illegal slave trade of the nineteenth century, with
Mozambique becoming a major source of slaves for Cuba. But the spread of
the sources of the slave trade remained very wide.116

Gender and age

Migrant flows into the Caribbean, both slave and free, were dominated by
young adult males. Wherever the territories continued to depend on migra-
tion for the maintenance and expansion of their populations, males out-
numbered females, and children and old people were scarce. The long-term
tendency, however, was towards a balanced sex ratio and more stable age
structure. This process was hastened by the higher mortality experienced by
males, but it was principally determined by differences in stage of settlement
and the demands of the sugar economy.
In the transatlantic slave trade the sex ratio (males per 100 females)
varied between 150 and 180. A similar range applied to East Indian contract
labourers, but for the Chinese the ratio exceeded 500. For white indentured
servants in the eighteenth century, the sex ratio reached as high as 4000.117
The balance in the flow of voluntary white migrants never approached this
level, but varied according to the type of colony.
In the case of Jamaica the slave sex ratio, for Creoles as well as
Africans, was about 130 in the early eighteenth century. By 1817, ten years
after the abolition of the slave trade, it was exactly 100, and by emancipa-
tion it had fallen to 94. The sex ratio of the black population of Jamaica
remained at this level for the rest of the nineteenth century. The white
population had an even higher ratio, exceeding 200 for most of the eight-
eenth century, falling to 143 by 1844, but still exceeding 110 at the end of
the nineteenth century. In 1881 the East Indian population had a ratio of
170 and the Chinese 421. The free coloured population, on the other hand,
tended to be largely female, due to differential manumission, with a ratio as
low as 42 in the early eighteenth century; even after emancipation the
'coloured' segment of the Jamaican population recorded a sex ratio lower
than that for blacks, but this is more difficult to interpret. lJB The free
coloured population was concentrated in the towns, and the urban popula-
tions in general had more female than male slaves, and relatively large pro-
portions of white women. The Maroons had a sex ratio of 119 in 1749, but
it fell to 83 by 1773.11 9

80
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

The early-settled British colonies of the eastern Caribbean had slave sex
ratios of less than 90 by 1817, while the new sugar colonies had ratios as
high as 130. 120 The sugar-producing Ponce region of Puerto Rico showed a
slave sex ratio of 175 in 1838, reflecting the presence of a large contingent of
Africans. 121 On Cuban sugar and coffee plantations the pattern at the end of
the eighteenth century was even more exaggerated, with ratios exceeding
500, but they fell to about 125 by the 1850s. 122 For Cuba as a whole, in 1855,
the rural ratio was 173 and the urban ratio 88. 123 The white populations of
the Spanish colonies were, however, relatively more balanced than in the
case of Jamaica. Barbados, too, showed an even balance of white males and
females throughout the period of slavery.124
Territories with high proportions of males in their populations, the
product of heavy migration inflows, exhibited distorted age profiles with
a distinct bulge between years 20 and 40. For the slave population, this
pattern can be illustrated by the examples of Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico
(Figure 2). Nicole Vanony-Frisch has calculated the age structure of 8820
slaves on Guadeloupe, using probate inventories for 1770-89, distinguishing
the African-born, Creole-black, and Creole-coloured segments. These data
suggest that the slave trade to Guadeloupe was fairly evenly balanced, but
show a heavy concentration of Africans in the 10-40 years age groups, with
these slaves accounting for 50 per cent of the total. For the Creole-blacks,
on the other hand, 56 per cent were aged under 20 years, and 64 per cent
of the Creole-coloured slaves fell into this group. Francisco Scarano's
analysis of the slave population of Ponce, Puerto Rico, in 1838, shows the
product of a slave trade much more heavily male and a slave population
more completely dependent on the transatlantic slave trade. Slaves were
also brought to Puerto Rico from other parts of the New World, but these
showed an age profile similar to that of the African-born. The age profiles
of the slave populations in the other colonies conformed to these general
principles, matching their stage of settlement and the dominance of sugar.
Abolition of the slave trade and of slavery resulted in an ageing of the
black population in the short term, but the bulges were removed by the
end of the nineteenth century except in those colonies which turned to
indentured labourers.
During slavery, the white populations of the major plantation colonies
were relatively old, matching the pattern for the slaves. The available data
are crude, but in Jamaica in 1730, for example, barely 20 per cent of the
whites were 'children' (under 16 years of age). In the free black population,
at the same date, fully 47 per cent were recorded as children. 125 In Barbados
and the Leeward Islands, on the other hand, the proportion of white children
hovered around 40 per cent throughout the eighteenth century, and similar
ratios applied to the free black and free coloured populations. The black

81
 General History of the Caribbean

a) Guadeloupe, 1770-89
1) Total .Iav. population
80
Mal•• F.mal••
70

60

50
CD
~ 40

30

20

10

O~----,-----,---
15 10 5 o 5 10 15
Percentage

2) AfricarH»orn
80
Mal•• Female.
70

60

50
CD
~ 40

30

20

10

0
15 10 5 0 5 10 15
Percentage

Figure 2 Age-sex pyramids of slave populations in a) Guadeloupe 1770-89, and

b) Ponce, Puerto Rico, 1838

82
 Demographtc structure of Caribbean slave societies

3) Creole-black
80
Male. Female.
70

60

50
G)

«
C)
40

30

20

10

0
15 10 5 0 5 10 15
Percentage

4) Creole-coloured
80
Mal.. Female.
70

60

50
G)

«
C)
40

30

20

10

0
15 10 5 0 5 10 15
Percentage

Figure 2 continued

83
 General History of the Caribbean

b) Ponce, Puerto Rico, 1838

,) Total .Iave population
80
Male. Femal••
70

60

50
G)

«
Q
40

30

20

10

0
15 10 5 0 5 10 15
Percentage

2) African-bom
80
Male. Female.
70

60

50
G)

«
Q
40

30

20

10

0
15 10 5 o 5 10 15
Percentage
Figure 2 continued

84
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

3) Creole-bom
80
Males Females
70

60

50
G)

~ 40
30

20

10

0
15 10 5 o 5 10 15
Percentage

Source for bJ: AHp, c.52-A, leg. 54, exp.1, Census of 1838

Figure 2 continued

Maroon population of Jamaica achieved a proportion of 38 per cent children

by the time of the American Revolution. 126

Colour

There was no perfect correlation between colour and status in the slave
societies of the Caribbean. Whites were free by legal definition. The children
of white fathers and slave mothers inherited the status of their mothers
unless they were more than four generations removed from black ancestors,
in which case they were defined as white. Thus miscegenation resulted in
the invention of a whole range of colour categories, varying in terminology
from colony to colony but always having significance for status. Some slaves
of colour (mixed race) were manumitted, but others remained in slavery.
Some blacks also gained freedom, and both free coloured and free black
people became the owners of slaves. For these reasons, the slave: master
ratio was never equivalent to the black: white ratio.
In the sugar monocultures of the British Caribbean the pattern was
relatively simple. Access to manumission was difficult, so the free coloured
and free black population was always small. As late as 1830, freedmen

85
 General History of the Caribbean

accounted for barely 5 per cent of the total population of Barbados, and aver-
aged less than 10 per cent in the old sugar colonies (Table 2.1). The new
sugar colonies had larger proportions of freedmen, but this pattern was inher-
ited from the pre-sugar era of French and Spanish settlement. Whites made up
10 per cent of the population of the British old sugar colonies around 1830,
but only 5 per cent in the new. In the Spanish colonies the pattern was strik-
ingly different. In 1830, 46 per cent of the population of Cuba, Puerto Rico
and Santo Domingo was white, and 24 per cent free coloured.
Including the free coloured and free black populations with the slaves
to form a generalized 'black' category, the black: white ratio at about 1830
was 1.2: 1 in the Spanish colonies, 14.1: 1 in the British colonies, 10.7: 1 in
the French colonies, 13.3: 1 in the Dutch colonies, and 9.1: 1 in the Danish.
In the eighteenth century the contrast between the Spanish colonies and the
others had been even greater, whites outnumbering blacks. In Cuba in 1774,
at the beginning of the sugar revolution, the black: white ratio was 0.8: 1,
whites making up 56 per cent of the total population. From the 1790s,
however, blacks probably formed a majority. The 'Africanization scare' of the
1850s resulted in the promotion of white migration into the island. By 1861
the black: white ratio had returned to its earlier level of 0.8: 1. In 1887 the
ratio was a mere 0.5: 1.127 Whites outnumbered blacks in Puerto Rico and
Santo Domingo throughout most of the slave period. In Puerto Rico, whites
slipped to 49 per cent of the population only at the end of the 1840s, when
slaves made up a mere 12 per cent of the total. 128
In the non-Hispanic colonies the long-term trend was toward a sub-
stantial increase in the black : white ratio. In Berbice the ratio moved from
11 : 1 in 1762 to 28: 1 in 1785, and 46: 1 in 1811. 129 In Barbados, the British
colony with the largest white population, the ratio was as low as 3.8: 1 in the
1750s, but rose to 5.9: 1 in 1830, and 9.7: 1 in 1880. This trend was the
product of growth in the black population rather than the emigration of
whites. Elsewhere in the British Caribbean, however, there was a substantial
emigration of whites after emancipation, so that their numbers were reduced
absolutely as well as relatively. The British Virgin Islands' census of 1881
found only 52 whites, compared to 1184 in the 1750s, the black : white ratio
moving from 5.2: 1 in 1750 to 11.4: 1 in 1830, and 100.7: 1 in 1881.
Abolition of the slave trade, and low levels of importation generally,
resulted in higher proportions of slave and free people of colour. The
proportions also tended to increase with length of settlement. But this
pattern did not emerge in the Spanish colonies, where the coloureds
steadily lost ground to blacks and whites during the nineteenth century. A
common feature of the coloured population, both slave and free, was its
urban concentnition. In most colonies, coloured slaves were twice as
numerous in towns as on plantations, and the proportion of free coloured

86
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

in the towns was even greater. no A consequence was that coloured slaves
in the towns very often were the property of free people of colour and of
women.

Family and household structure

Slaves brought from Africa to the Caribbean rarely came on ships with kin
and even fewer found themselves living on the same plantation with kin.
African-born slaves were alienated from their lineages and family networks,
and forced to create new systems of organization within slave society. The
demographic selectivity of the slave trade meant a surplus of young adult
males in the population. The imbalance applied equally to white indentured
servants, Chinese and East Indian contract labourers, and to voluntary white
migrants in the sugar colonies. For the slaves, however, the possibility of
establishing a stable family system was further reduced by the separation of
kin through sale and transfer, restrictions on residential mobility, and the
sexual intervention of white males.
Data on family and household organization, for the free population as
well as the slave, are hard to find and difficult to interpret, 13 1 Studies of slave
family listings, from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, show
that the proportion attributed to family units varied with the size of the hold-
ings to which they belonged. On large plantations, slaves could find mates
and form residential units within the holding's own community, whereas
slaves attached to small holdings could rarely do so. Thus town slaves were
less likely to live in families than rural slaves. In St Lucia in 1815, for
example, 69 per cent of rural slaves were attributed to families, compared to
55 per cent of town slaves.132 African-born slaves were most often left
outside family households, because of the weighting of the sex ratio in the
slave trade. With the growth of the Creole population, however, the larger
plantation communities became vast kinship networks. Cross-plantation
mating became common, and the family provided the basis for extensive
networks of exchange. 133
Significant numbers of slaves lived in mother-child units iIi nuclear
family households, but extended and polygynous residential units were rela-
tively rare. The latter were always more common on large plantations than
on small holdings, as were families of more than two generations. Nuclear
and extended families also seem to have been more common in the high-
fertility Creole populations of the marginal colonies, as in the Bahamas for
example, than in the high-mortality sugar colonies. Creole slaves of colour,
on the other hand, generally lived in mother-child units, their mates and
fathers most often being whites or freedmen.

87
 General History of the Caribbean

Where the free coloured were relatively few, the sexual relationships of
the women frequently involved white males. Such relationships sometimes
took the form of open residential households rather than mere concubinage,
but legal marriage between whites and others was rare. In the French
colonies family units composed of free coloured and white persons were
common in the eighteenth century, but the maturing of the sugar economy
was followed by attempts to·prohibit intermarriage. 134 Notions of racial purity
were equally important to the whites of Cuba in the nineteenth century. 135
Free black and coloured males established family households with slave
women, especially where the number of free females was limited, but in the
Spanish colonies where the freedman population became very large the
families were generally contained within the community.
In the non-Hispanic sugar colonies, where white migration was dom-
inated by single males, white nuclear families were relatively rare and fragile.
The frequency of nuclear households on plantations depended on rates of
absentee-proprietorship. But even in the case of Barbados, with a large
resident planter class, only half the adult white population was married in
1715 and the average household contained only 3-4 persons. 136 Heavy male
mortality meant high rates of widowhood, and the possibilities of remarriage
were limited. White males had children within the slave population, and
where estates were increasingly placed in the hands of transient overseers and
bookkeepers the frequency of stable white nuclear families was very low.
In the Spanish colonies, white migration was to a large extent focused on
family units. 137 The slow development of the sugar sector and the emergence of
a Creole population brought long-term dominance of the nuclear family among
all classes of whites. This dominance was interrupted only temporarily, in the
case of Cuba, by the impact of the slave trade and contract labour.

Fertility

It was a distinguishing feature of the slave population of the Caribbean that

positive natural increase was a rarity, confined almost entirely to the marginal
economies. The white population of the non-Hispanic sugar colonies per-
formed at least as poorly. Dependence on the transatlantic slave trade and
free white immigration were consequences of these failures to reproduce.
Freedmen, on the other hand, achieved positive natural increase in most
places, and the settled white populations of the Spanish colonies were
equally successful. Emancipation was followed by growth in all sections of
the Caribbean population.
The extent to which the poor reproductive performance of the popula-
tions during slavery should be attributed to low fertility or to high mortality is

88
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

a matter of debate, the resolution of which is hindered by the inadequate

nature of the available data.l3S In general, it appears that fertility was highest
among those sectors of the population living in stable nuclear families. Such
a relationship matches that found in modem Caribbean societies. 139 During
slavery, it was the free coloured and free black populations, the Maroons,
and the settled white groups, that achieved relatively high fertility, while low
levels of fertility were typical of slaves and transient white populations. To
take the example of Jamaica, data from the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries suggest that free blacks were more fertile than whites,
and that whites were no more fertile than slaves. These relative rates must be
inferred from the proportions of children in the population, however, and so
are distorted by differences in age structure created by migration, mortality
and manumission. l40 By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Maroon
population of Jamaica had achieved a crude birth rate of 47 per 1000,
whereas the slave population had a rate of only 27.141 Very soon after
emancipation the birth rate for the population of Jamaica as a whole stood at
40, and this level was maintained until the end of the nineteenth century.142
Fertility varied with the intensity of the sugar plantation economy. Thus
there was no uniform long-term trend throughout the Caribbean. The initial
expansion of sugar cultivation was generally associated with fertility decline,
due to changes in the age and sex structure of the slave and white popula-
tions. Following the abolition of the slave trade, however, the smaller of the
old sugar colonies of the British in the eastern Caribbean showed significant
improvement in slave fertility, with Barbados experiencing the highest levels.
The new sugar colonies of Trinidad and British Guiana, on the other hand,
experienced declining fertility down to the time of emancipation, the crude
birth rate in Trinidad falling from 44 per 1000 in 1813 to 31 in 1834.143
Suriname showed a birth rate of only 31 in the 1850s. 144 In the Danish West
Indies in the 1840s the slave birth rate was approximately 40. 145 It seems
probable that fertility was higher among the slaves of the late-developed
sugar colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico, but with a similar pattern of
decline. l46 This contrast between the new sugar colonies of the Spanish and
the British has to do with the maintenance of relatively stable populations in
the Spanish colonies in the long period of settlement prior to the 1770s.
The fertility of Creole slaves was significantly higher than that of
African-born slaves. This contrast was not a result of differences in age
structure. In the age-group of peak fertility (generally 20-24 years) Creoles
were in some cases more than half as fertile again as the African-born.147
African women may have practised longer breast-feeding periods, sometimes
continuing for up to three years, so increasing the intervals between births.
They may also have had greater difficulty finding mates. Among the Creole
slaves, coloured women were generally more fertile than blacks, and the

89
 General History of the Caribbean

mating patterns of the coloureds may help to explain the differential between
the Creoles and the African-born.
It has been noted that slaves tended more often to form a nuclear
family household where they belonged to large slaveholdings and that fertility
tended to be higher for nuclear families than other household types. It is not
surprising, then, to observe that fertility generally increased along with slave-
holding size. A consequence of this pattern was the tendency for slave fertility
to be at relatively high levels on large sugar plantations, exceeding by a small
margin the birth rates found on plantations producing other crops and by a
larger margin those living in towns or attached to very small units. There seem
to have been few differences according to occupation, field labourers and
domestics on large sugar plantations experiencing similar fertility rates. But
total fertility at the colony level was consistently higher wherever sugar was
not grown, as in Curacao, St Maarten, St Bartholomew, the Bahamas, Anguilla
and Barbuda, for example, without regard to slaveholding size. l48
Slave birth followed a distinct seasonal pattern. The peak generally
occurred in September and the lowest numbers from February through April,
suggesting an association with the sugar crop cycle. Conceptions, therefore,
seem to have been most common in December, the month immediately pre-
ceding the onset of the sugar harvest; to have declined during crop to a
minimum by July, at the end of the harvest; and to have gradually increased
during the out-of-crop season. The very long hours worked by slaves during
crop may have reduced the chances of conception, and the nutritional
variations associated with the crop cycle may also have been significant.
In the early eighteenth century most Caribbean planters preferred to
depend on the slave trade rather than seeking to increase the fertility of their
slaves. Abolition of the slave trade forced a reconsideration of this attitude.
From the late eighteenth century, some planters in the British and French
Caribbean had adopted a pro-natalist policy as part of a general amelioration
of slave conditions. l49 Slave owners attempted to encourage fertility by offer-
ing cash and other material rewards to women producing children, redUCing
the working hours of pregnant and nursing mothers, providing additional
medical care, and giving goods to slaves establishing and maintaining
nuclear family households. The overseers of estates received rewards when
slave births increased. Other direct incentives included the attempted limita-
tion of breast-feeding periods and prevention of extra-plantation mating. It
has been argued by some historians that the planters of Barbados and
Barbuda went further, intervening directly in the sexual lives of their slaves
with the intention of breeding 'slaves for sale'.lso But there seems little
evidence to support this contention. lSl In general, it appears that slave
owners had little capacity to manipulate the fertility of their slaves, within the
system of slavery. Only freedom ensured Significant improvement in the fer-
tility of the black population of the Caribbean.

90
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

Mortality

Persons entering the Caribbean from Africa, Asia or Europe found themselves
in a strange disease environment. They encountered diseases to which they
did not possess inherited immunities and consequently suffered heavier
mortality from those diseases than did the indigenous and Creole populations
of the region. Europeans were exposed to a wider range of unaccustomed
deadly diseases than were the indigenous and Creole populations of the
region, and the Africans or Asians, and their mortality tended to be higher as
a result. But the death rate of slaves, both African-born and Creole, was also
extremely high in the regions dominated by plantation agriculture. Thus the
relative advantage possessed by the Creole and African-born slaves in terms
of the disease environment was lost when they were employed in the devas-
tating regime of sugar cultivation and manufacture. In general, the only
groups in the Caribbean to experience relatively low mortality in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were free Creole blacks and coloureds
and, to a lesser extent, Creole whites. Emancipation and the growth of the
Creole populations naturally resulted in long-term improvement in mortality.
The differential mortality of whites and blacks was demonstrated most
clearly in the report of Alexander Tulloch and Henry Marshall on the experi-
ence of the troops of the British West Indies between 1817 and 1836.152 For
Jamaica, they found average annual death rates of 121 for white troops and
only 30 for black troops. In the eastern Caribbean the rates were 79 and 40,
respectively. Tulloch and Marshall showed that most of this differential was
to be explained by the very high rate of death from 'fevers' among the
whites. These fevers were principally yellow fever and malaria, mosquito-
borne diseases to which blacks had developed relative immunity. Such
immunity was not to be acquired by mere 'seasoning' or acclimatization.
What was needed was Creole birth, for many generations. The British troops
who occupied St Domingue between 1793 and 1797 suffered even more than
those at the relatively settled stations, roughly 62 per cent of the 20000 men
dying, most of them from yellow fever. 153
Mortality data for population groups other than the troops are more
difficult to evaluate. The quality of record-keeping varied from group to
group, and the study of infant mortality involves special problems. Before
civil registration was instituted, in the later nineteenth century, births in the
free population are often known only from ecclesiastical records of baptisms
and those of slaves from the plantation journals of slave owners. Infant mor-
tality was high throughout the period, and death frequently occurred before
baptism or entry in the plantation journal. For the slave population, it is pos-
sible to derive reliable estimates of mortality, for the nineteenth century at
least. This is not always true of the free populations, inhibiting comparisons.

91
 General History of the Caribbean

High levels of infant mortality in the slave populations were in some

cases associated with high fertility, contributing to high overall mortality rates.
Barbados, for example, had a slave death rate of about 43 per 1000 in the
1820s, a rate approaching that of the new sugar colonies. 154 This was due in
part to heavy infant mortality in Barbados, and the high fertility of the island's
slaves permitted it to achieve a positive natural increase whereas the new
sugar colonies fell far short of an excess of births over deaths. Death rates of
less than 25 per 1000 were typical of the slave populations of the marginal
colonies in the early nineteenth century. The old sugar colonies, with rela-
tively large proportions of Creoles, had rates around 35 per 1000. In Jamaica,
the slave death rate rose from 30 in 1820 to 35 by the time of emancipation.
Slave mortality was generally higher in the eighteenth than in the nine-
teenth century, due to the larger proportion of African-born in the population
and the greater intensity of the plantation regime. Death rates of greater than
60 per 1000 were common wherever the slave population included Africans
undergoing seasoning.155 In Guadeloupe, the death rate for plantation slaves
was about 50 to 60 per 1000 in the 1770s. 156 In Cuba the death rate of
plantation slaves remained as high as 62 as late as the period 1830-60, a
Significantly heavier rate than that of the eighteenth century.157 The Danish
islands had an estimated slave death rate of 50 in the 1840s. 158 On the
Vossenburg Plantation in Suriname, the slave death rate declined steadily
during the first half of the eighteenth century, but reached its maximum of 45
in the 1840s. 159 Slave death rates were always lower in the non-sugar territ-
ories. In Cura~ao the rate was as low as 24 by the 1850s, and similar levels
were recorded in Anguilla and Barbuda in the 1820s. 160 Thus there was no
single homogeneous long-term trend in slave mortality. Emancipation,
however, seems always to have been followed by reduced mortality, even
though epidemic disease and poor conditions of public health remained
chronic. By the 1880s, the death rate in all of the British and French West
Indian sugar colonies, with the exception of British Guiana, was less than
27 per 1000. 161 In Santo Domingo, at the end of the nineteenth century, the
death rate was 14 per 1000. 162
As in most populations, males died at younger ages than females.
Infant male slaves appear to have suffered death rates ranging from between
240 and 580 per 1000, whereas female infants had rates between 200 and
480. 163 In the French, Danish and Swedish colonies the rate was 400 to
500. 164 By the 1880s, most territories of the Caribbean showed infant mortal-
ity rates of less than 250 per 1000, though Barbados maintained rates as high
as 400 until the early twentieth century.165 During the period of slavery, there
were relatively few differences in infant mortality levels between the different
types of colonies or between status groups. Child and adult mortality,
however, differed significantly according to economic type, slaves of all ages

92
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

experiencing higher death rates in the new sugar colonies than in the old
sugar colonies or the marginal economies. These contrasts were sharpest
among slaves under 20 years of age.
African-born slaves generally experienced higher age-specific mortality
rates than Creoles, but this contrast was less significant than that between the
sexes. In general, it seems that slaves in the new sugar colonies were
exposed to similar conditions regardless of gender or birthplace, whereas the
difference between Africans and Creoles was marked in the old sugar
colonies and the marginal colonies. Among the Creoles, slaves of colour
experienced lower mortality than blacks, both in town and country. This
contrast may be explained by differences in material welfare, since the towns
contained relatively large proportions of Africans as well as Creole slaves and
tended to be more healthy (for slaves) than rural areas.
In the rural population, slaves living on sugar plantations consistently
suffered heavier mortality than those on other types of holdings. These
differences cannot be explained by the ecological niches occupied by the
crops. On the homogeneous coastal plain of Demerara and Essequibo, for
example, crude slave death rates in the early nineteenth century were 40 per
1000 on sugar estates, compared to 32 on coffee plantations, and 26 on
cotton plantations. 166 More briefly, from a maximum in sugar production,
slave mortality declined through coffee, livestock, pimento, towns, cotton,
tobacco, cocoa, to a minimum in provisions cultivation. This pattern was
associated with variations in slaveholding size, the ordering of size-groups
matching closely that for crop-specific mortality, except that the towns had
the smallest slaveholdings. On sugar plantations, both mortality and pro-
ductivity were generally at a peak in units of about 200 slaves, suggesting a
maximization of the system of exploitation in plantations of this 'optimum'
scale. On the plantations, mortality differed according to occupation. Slaves
employed as field labourers in some places experienced death rates double
those of privileged drivers, skilled workers and domestics, and the differen-
tial existed everywhere. But the contrasts were most stark on sugar planta-
tions, among young adult males. Diarrhoea and dysentery, dropsy, fever
(yellow fever and malaria), tuberculosis, nervous system disorders, and
digestive system diseases were the principal causes of death in the slave
population. 167 Whites, on the other hand, suffered much more from fevers,
and less from diseases of the lungs. Before the end of the eighteenth century,
smallpox had been an important cause of death for slaves, but inoculation
and vaccination reduced its significance. This was one of the few areas in
which medical science made an impact during the period of slavery.
European-trained physicians and surgeons were plentiful in the Caribbean,
but their capacity to reduce mortality levels was limited. Public health
was little understood. Epidemics were common, cholera being the most

93
 General History of the Caribbean

devastating. Cholera visited the Caribbean three times between 1833 and
1868, killing at least 150 000 persons, 80 per cent of them black. 168

Manumission and marronage

Manumission and marronage shifted individuals from one status group to
another - from slavery to freedom - but generally retained them within the
population of the Caribbean. Few manumitted slaves moved out of the region
on obtaining freedom, and their options were indeed limited so long as the
Americas were dominated by slave societies. Some runaway slaves went to
places where their freedom was guaranteed by law, but again the options
were few. Within the Caribbean, chronological variations in emancipation did
create small flows. For example, slaves on the Danish island of St John could
literally swim to freedom in British Tortola between 1838 and 1848. 169 Other
slaves ran away to places with relatively large freedman communities, into
which they could filter and pass as free. In general, however, manumission
and marronage were contained within the territorial populations.
Rates of manumission cannot be established for the entire period. A
good guide to the variations is provided by the size of the freedman popula-
tions, but it must be remembered that this was also a product of internal
demographic performance. It is certain, at least, that manumission rates were
relatively high in the Spanish colonies throughout the period and much lower
in the British colonies, with the French, Dutch and Danish falling between
these extremes. Manumission was also related to the sugar cycle and the
demand for slave labour. Few slaves were manumitted in the British colonies
in the eighteenth century, but large numbers were in Cuba. In the nineteenth
century, however, manumission became more common in the British colonies,
whereas it was reduced in Cuba with the onset of the sugar revolution. 17o In
the Dutch colonies, the trading island of Cura~ao had a much higher rate of
manumission than plantation Suriname, sufficiently high in fact to turn a posi-
tive natural increase into overall decline in the slave population.l7l
Legal systems were also important. The Spanish law provided for
gradual self-purchase through the institution of coartaci6n. Elsewhere, slaves
had to depend on the generosity of their owners or the ability to accumulate
the purchase price as a lump sum.172 The rapid rise of slave prices in the
Spanish sugar colonies during the nineteenth century, however, put
coartaci6n beyond the reach of most slaves. In 1871 less than one per cent of
Cuba's slaves were in the status of coartadO. 173 Most of them were in the urban
areas, and very few on sugar plantations. In the British and French Caribbean,
on the other hand, the law was used more often to limit the number of manu-
missions in order to maintain the plantation labour force and prevent the
growth of a threatening freedman population. 174 For example, owners were

94
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

prohibited from freeing slaves who were diseased or had no means of support
and so would become a burden on the public revenue.
In the early nineteenth century, manumissions occurred in the British
Caribbean at rates generally less than two per 1000 per annum. 175 Variations
in the rates were only roughly correlated with stage of settlement, the
Bahamas having the highest levels and the new sugar colonies the lowest.
But the Spanish/French traditions of Trinidad, and the island's large freed-
man population, produced a much higher rate than in British Guiana.
Manumission became more frequent between 1807 and 1834, and this
increase was associated with a shift from methods of manumission originat-
ing with the owners to methods in which the slaves or freedmen took the
initiative. Rates of manumission before 1807 were everywhere much lower in
the British colonies. Unfortunately, there seem to exist no comparable statis-
tics for other territories, so it is impossible to measure the reputedly high
rates of the French colonies in the early eighteenth century, for example.!76
Manumission was always more common in towns than in rural areas,
and on small rather than large holdings. In the British colonies, the manu-
mitted slaves tended to be female, Creole, young and coloured. In the
Spanish and French colonies, especially in the early eighteenth century, they
may more often have been male and African-born.177 The offspring of white
men, and the slave mothers of these children, always had better chances of
manumission, and of spending the greater part of their lives free, but white
paternity was by no means a certain ticket to freedom.
Reliable statistical measures of marronage are not available. In the
British and French colonies before 1800, it seems probable that more slaves
escaped from slavery through marronage than by manumission. Long-term
Maroons tended most often to be African-born slaves, many of them fleeing
the plantations during the 'seasoning' period. In the nineteenth century, the
balance of manumission and marronage was reversed. After 1807, less than
one per cent of the British Caribbean slave population was listed as Maroon,
the proportions being higher in the new sugar colonies than in the old,
reflecting differences in the African-born population. Unlike manumitted
slaves, Maroons tended most often to be adult males.

PART FOUR

Conclusion
The rapid growth of population in the Caribbean between 1700 and 1900
was achieved at great cost in human lives. Although there were significant
variations in demographic performance within the region, the slave

95
 General History of the Caribbean

populations faced ultimate extinction and were maintained and augmented

only by means of a massive slave trade from Mrica. Europeans experienced
Similarly heavy mortality on entering the region, but free people in general
managed gradually to establish viable communities. Emancipation was fol-
lowed everywhere by substantial population growth achieved through posi-
tive natural increase. Free and indentured migration into the region
continued until the end of the period, but was directed chiefly to the late
developing sugar plantation economies. By the end of the nineteenth century
the Caribbean was moving, for the first time, from being a voracious con-
sumer of immigrant people to being an exporter of population.

NOTES

1 This is based on sources underlying Table 2.1.

2 From 1700 to 1790 the total population of the Caribbean grew at an annual
rate of 2.1 per cent.
3 This is based on sources underlying Table 2.1.
4 The old sugar colonies are: Barbados, St Vincent, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat,
the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, St Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe,
French Guiana, Suriname, St John and St Thomas. The new sugar colonies are:
Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad, British Guiana, St Croix, Cuba,
and Puerto Rico. The non-sugar colonies are: British Honduras (Belize),
Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Anguilla, Barbuda, St Martin, Cura~ao, St Eustatius,
Saba, Aruba, Bonaire, St Bartholomew and Santo Domingo.
5 This is based on sources underlying Table 2.1.
6 Richard Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica, 1730-1830: Livelihood,
Demography and Health', Slavery and Abolition, 6 (1985), pp. 152-72.
7 Richard Price, The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Biographical
Introduction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), p. 24; Silvia W.
DeGroot, 'The Maroons of Suriname: Agents of Their Own Emancipation', in
David Richardson (ed.), Abolition and Its Aftermath: The Historical Context,
1790-1916(London: Frank Cass, 1985), pp. 55-79.
8 A. Meredith John, 'Spanish Rose, British Thorn: The Plantation Slaves of
Trinidad, 1783-1816' (Unpublished Mss., 1986), Table 4-21. Cf. Linda A.
Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad: A Study in Culture
Contact (London: Academic Press, 1976), p. 187, for the eighteenth century.
9 Rosenblat, La poblaci6n indigena, p. 197.
10 Johann Hartog, Aruba: Past and Present: From the Time of the Indians Until
Today(Oranjestad: D. J. DeWit, 1961), p. 122; Ank Klomp, Politics on Bonaire:
An Anthropological Study (Assen Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1986), p. 13,
quoting Hartog, Bonaire: Ban Indianen tot toemten (Aruba: Gebroeders de
Wit, 1957); O. Nigel Bolland, The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from
Conquest to Crown Colony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977),
pp.I4-24.
11 Rosenblat, La poblaci6n indigena, p. 197.
12 Jean Hurault, Les Indiens de Guyane Fran(:aise: Probtemes pratiques d'adminis-
tration et de contacts de civilisation (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), pp. 16,

96
 Demographic strncture of Caribbean slave societies

19; cf. Mme. Marchand-Thebault, 'L'esdavage a Guyane francaise sous l'ancien

regime', Revuefran~aise d'histoire d'outre-mer, 47 (1960), p. 71.
13 Mary Noel Menezes, British Policy Towards tbe Amerindians in British Guiana,
1803-1873 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 271, 173.
14 Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West
Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 145-52, 204-7; John
J. McCusker, The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen
Continental Colonies, 1650-1775(New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1988),
pp. 642-52; Robert V. Wells, The Population oftbe British Colonies in America
before 1776: A Survey of Census Data (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1975), pp. 254-5; Bolland, Formation of a Crown Colony, pp. 132-5. The 1861
census reported 1825 Caribs in British Honduras, Bolland, p. 4.
15 Stanley L. Engerman, 'Servants to Slaves to Servants: Contract Labor and
European Expansion', in P. C. Emmer (ed.), Colonialism and Migration:
Indentured Labor before and after Slavery (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986),
pp. 263-94; G. W. Roberts and]. Byrne, 'Summary Statistics on Indenture and
Associated Migration Affecting the West Indies, 1834-1938', Population Studies,
20 (1966), pp. 125-34.
16 For British Guiana and Trinidad, see the various blue book census volumes.
For Guadeloupe and French Guiana, see 'Statistique Generale de la France',
Annuaire Statistique (Paris, 1883), pp. 600-1. Cf. Rene Achen, 'The Problem of
East Indian Immigration at the Bar of Public Opinion in Martinique,
1882-1886', (The 4th Annual Conference of Caribbean Historians, Immigrant
Labourers in the Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century, Mona, 1972), pp. 1-19;
Alain Buffon, Monnaie et Credit en economie colonia Ie: Contribution a
l'histoire economique de la Guadeloupe, 1635-1919 (Basse-Terre: Societe
d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe), p. 225.
17 For British Guiana and Trinidad, see the various blue book census
volumes. Cf. Dwarka Nath, A History of Indians in British Guiana (London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953), p. 207; Bridget Brereton, Race Relations in
Colonial Trinidad, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979).
18 Paul E. Lovejoy, 'The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis', Journal
ofAfrican History, 23 (1982), p. 497.
19 Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 216.
20 David Geggus (unpublished mss.).
21 B. W. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 61.
22 Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 7.
23 David Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 249.
24 Eltis, 'The Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade: An Annual Time
Series of Imports into the Americas Broken Down by Region', Hispanic
American Historical Review, 67 (1987), p. 134.
25 Eltis, 'The Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade', p. 133. Cf. Fran~ois
Renault, Liberation d'esclaves et nouvelle servitude (Abidjan: Les Nouvelles
Editions Africaines), pp. 176-7.

97
 General History of the Caribbean

26 Henry A. Gemery, 'Emigration from the British Isles to the New World,
1630--1700: Inferences from Colonial Population', Research in Economic
History, 5 (980), pp. 197-8.
27 Duvon C. Corbitt, 'Immigration into Cuba', Hispanic American Historical
Review, 22 (1942), pp. 280--308; Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole
Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Marlin
D. Clausner, Rural Santo Domingo: Settled, Unsettled, and Resettled
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973).
28 Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation
Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984);
Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad.
29 Corbitt, 'Immigration into Cuba', p. 294.
30 Kenneth F. Kiple, Blacks in Colonial Cuba, 1774-1899 (Gainesville: University
Presses of Florida, 1976). Cf. Table 2.1. .
31 Corbitt, 'Immigration into Cuba', p. 304.
32 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 80.
33 Estela Cifre de Loubriel, La Inmigracion a Puerto Rico Durante el Siglo XIX
(San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, 1964), p. lxxvii; Laird W.
Bergad, Coffee and the Growth ofAgrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century
Puerto Rico (Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 18-19. For Santo Domingo,
see H. Hoetink, The Dominican People 1850-1900: Notes for a Historical
Sociology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982).
34 David W. Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America: An Economic
Analysis(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 218.
35 Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America, pp. 220--7.
36 K. o. Laurence, Immigration into the West Indies in the 19th Century
(Barbados: Caribbean Universities Press, 1971), p. 57.
37 Corbitt, 'Immigration into Cuba', pp. 301-2.
38 The numerous sources are listed in Table 2.1.
39 This, however, was generally either for times in which the pr()portion of free
persons of colour was quite low (as in the British West Indies in 1750) or else
in the Spanish colonial areas where the ratios were generally high.
40 For the British Caribbean, see Wells, The Population of the British Colonies,
pp. 194-251; for flows of indentured servants, see Galenson, White Servitude
in Colonial America, pp. 81-96, 219--27.
41 This refers to slaves re-exported from one territory to another during the
period of the international slave trade as migrants into the ultimate area of
settlement, since they had remained for only a very limited period of time in
the original area of New World contact.
42 Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad, pp. 184-5; Alvin o.
Thompson, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580-1803
(Bridgetown: Carib Research and Publications Inc., 1987), pp. 41-68, 254.
43 Paul F. laChance, 'The 1809 Immigration of Saint-Domingue Refugees to New
Orleans: Reception, Integration and Impact', Louisiana History, 29 (1988),
pp. 109--41.
44 James Millette, The Genesis of Crown Colony Government (Trinidad: Moko
Enterprises, 1970), Tables; Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial
Trinidad.

98
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

45 Isaac Dookhan, A History of the Virgin Islands of the United States (St Thomas:
Caribbean Universities Press, 1974), pp. 72, 140-3.
46 B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 80-1; Cf. Eltis,
Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
47 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 448--53.
48 Ibid., pp. 454-6.
49 Ibid., p. 452.
50 Bonham C. Richardson, Caribbean Migrants: Environment and Human
Survival on St Kitts and Nevis (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983),
pp.81-92.
51 Richardson, Caribbean Migrants, p. 88.
52 R. R. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire, Volume
III, West Indian and American Territories (London: Oxford University Press,
1953), p. 20.
53 G. W. Roberts, 'Emigration from Barbados', Social and Economic Studies, 4
(1955), pp. 245-88.
54 G. W. Roberts and M. A. Johnson, 'Factors Involved in Immigration and
Movements in the Working Force of British Guiana in the 19th Century', Social
and Economic Studies, 23 (1974), pp. 133-41; Velma Newton, The Silver Men:
West Indian Labor Migration to Panama, 185~1914 (Mona, Kingston,
Jamaica: Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the West
Indies, 1984), pp. 91~.
55 Kuczynski, Demographic Survey, p. 20.
56 Ibid., p. 10.
57 James L. Dietz, Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change
and Capitalist Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986),
p. 131.
58 Allan). Kuethe, 'Havana in the Eighteenth Century', in Franklin W. Knight and
Peggy K. Liss (eds) , Atlantic Port Cities (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1991).
59 Cuba, Centro de Estadistica, Noticias estadisticas de la Isla de Cuba, en 1862
(Havana: Imprenta del Gobierno, 1864). Cf. Rebecca J. Scott, Slave
Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 186~1899 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 12.
60 Richard M. Morse, 'Cuba' in Richard M. Morse, Michael L. Conniff and John
Wibel (eds), The Urban Development of Latin America, 175~1920 (Center for
Latin American Studies, Stanford University, 1971), p. 78.
61 US War Department: Office, Director, Census of Puerto Rico, Report on the
Census of Puerto Rico: 1899 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900),
pp. 156--63; cf. Nicholas Sanchez-Albornoz, The Population of Latin America: A
History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 178--9.
62 David Patrick Geggus, 'The Port Towns of Saint Domingue', in Knight and Liss
(eds), Atlantic Port Cities, pp. 87-116.
63 Jacques Adelaide-Merlande, 'Problematique d'une histoire de l'esclavage
urbain: Guadeloupe-Martinique-Guyane (vers 1815-1848)' (Unpublished paper
presented at XV/eme Colloque de l'association des historiens des Caraibe,
Barbados, 1984), p. 3.

99
 General History of the Caribbean

64 R. M. N. Panday, Agriculture in Suriname, 1650-1950: An Inquiry into the

Causes of its Decline (Amsterdam: H. J. Paris, 1959), pp. 43, 171.
65 R. A. J. Van Lier, Frontier Society: A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 31, 149.
66 Neville A. T. Hall, 'Slavery in Three West Indian Towns: Christiansted,
Fredericksted and Charlotte Amalie in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth
Century', in B. W. Higman (ed.), Trade, Government and Society in Caribbean
History 1700-1920: Essays Presented to Douglas Hall (Kingston: Heinemann
Educational Books, 1983), pp. 17-19.
67 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 94, 68-71.
68 Ibid., pp. 68-71; Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad,
p.185.
69 Newson, Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad, p. 185; Trinidad blue
book Census; cf. Brereton, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad, p. 12.
70 Bolland, The Formation of a Colonial SOciety, p. 6; Jay R. Mandie, The
Plantation Economy: Population and Economic Change in Guyana,
1838-1960(Philade1phia: Temple University Press, 1973), p. 19.
71 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 93-4; cf. Colin
G. Clarke, Kingston, jamaica: Urban Development and Social Change,
1692-1962(Berke1ey: University of California Press, 1975), p. 141.
72 Wells, The Population of the British Colonies, pp. 196-8.
73 Clarke, Kingston, jamaica, p. 141; Higman, Slave Populations of the British
Caribbean, p. 77.
74 Elsa V. Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1956),
pp. 203, 240.
75 Christian Schnakenbourg, Histoire de I'industrie sucriere en Guadeloupe aux
XIX" et XX" siecles. Tome I: La crise du systeme esclavagiste (1835-1847) (Paris:
L'Harmattan, 1980), pp. 37-51.
76 See Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 131-2.
77 Ramon de la Sagra, Historia econ6mico-politica estadistica de la isla de Cuba
(Havana: Imprenta de las viudas de Azurara y Soler, 1831), pp. 123-4.
Cf. Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Cuba and
Virginia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 152.
78 Cuba, Noticias estadisticas.
79 Edward Long, The History ofjamaica (London: T. Lowndes, 1774), Volume I,
p.496.
80 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 68-71.
81 Ibid.
82 British Guiana blue book Census; Higman, Slave Populations of the British
Caribbean, p. 70. Cf. Mandie, The Plantation Economy, p. 17; Walter Rodney,
A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1981), p. 230.
83 Richard A. Lobdell, Economic Structure and Demographic Performance in
jamaica 1891-1935 (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 115, 117;
Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 70.
84 E. van den Boogart and P. C. Emmer, 'Plantation Slavery in Suriname in the
Last Decade before Emancipation: The Case of Catherine Sophia', Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences, 292 (1977), p. 210.

100
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

85 Humphrey E. Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations of

the Dutch-Speaking Caribbean', Boletfn de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del
Caribe, 30 (1981), p. 100.
86 Nicole Vanony-Frisch, 'Les esclaves de la Guadeloupe a la fin de l'ancien
regime d'apres les sources notariales (1770--1789)', Bulletin de la Societe
d'Histoire de ta Guadeloupe, 63 (1985), p. 78.
87 David Patrick Geggus (unpublished mss.).
88 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 105.
89 Long, The History ofJamaica, Volume 1, p. 496; Higman, Slave Populations of
the British Caribbean, p. 106.
90 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies
(London: T. Miller, 1819), Volume I, p. 311; Higman, Slave Populations of the
British Caribbean, p. 106.
91 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 135.
92 Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba, p. 22.
93 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 137; Jose Curet, 'About Slavery
and the Order of Things: Puerto Rico, 1845-1873', in Manuel Moreno Fraginals,
Frank Moya Pons and Stanley 1. Engerman (eds) , Between Slavery and Free
Labor: The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century(Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 131.
94 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 135.
95 Higman, Slave Population and Economy, pp. 58, 274-5.
96 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 135.
97 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 100--3.
98 Higman, Slave Population and Economy, pp. 274-5; Knight, Slave Society in
Cuba, p. 135.
99 Wells, The Population of the British Colonies, p. 189.
100 Higman, Slave Population and Economy, pp. 9, 274-5.
101 Millette, The Genesis of Crown Colony Government, Chapter 1, Tables; Newson,
Aboriginal and Spanish Colonial Trinidad, pp. 184-91.
102 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 109-10.
103 Ibid., p. 46.
104 Handier, The Unappropriated People, p. 124.
105 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 189; Vanony-Frisch, 'Les
esclaves de la Guadeloupe', pp. 86-90.
106 Schnakenbourg, Histoire de l'industrie sucriere en Guadeloupe, p. 51. See also
Hans Chr. Johansen, 'Slave Demography of the Danish West Indian Islands',
Scandinavian Economic History Review, 39 (1981), p. 10.
107 Handier, The Unappropriated People, pp. 122-38.
108 Manuel Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba: A Quantitative Analysis of the
African Population in the Island of Cuba', Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences, 292 (1977), p. 192.
109 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 138.
110 Gabriel Debien, Les esclaves aux Antilles Fran(:aises (XVlI'-XVlII' siecles)
(Basse-Terre and Fort-de-France: Societe d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe and
Societe d'Histoire de la Martinique, 1974), pp. 55-65.
111 Higman, Slave PopulatiOns of the British Caribbean, p. 116.
112 Neville A. T. Hall, The Danish West Indies: Empire Without Dominion,
1671-1848 (US Virgin Islands: Division of Libraries, Museums and Archaeolo-
gical Services, Occasional Paper No.8, 1985), pp. 3-9.

101
 General History of the Caribbean

113 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 82.

114 Jerome S. Handler, 'The Amerindian Slave Population of Barbados in the
Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries', Caribbean Studies, 8 (969),
pp. 38-64; Menezes, British Policy Towards the Amerindians in British
Guiana.
115 Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 221.
116 Ibid., p. 247.
117 Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America, pp. 220--7; Higman, Slave
PopulatiOns of the British Caribbean, p. 117; G. W. Roberts, The Population of
jamaica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 73.
118 Michael Craton and James Walvin, A jamaican Plantation: A History of Worthy
Park, 1670-1970 (London: W. H. Allen, 1970), p. 151; Wells, The Population of
the British Colonies, p. 201; Higman, Slave Populations of the British
Caribbean, p. 116; Roberts, The Population ofjamaica, p. 73.
119 Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica', pp. 157-8.
120 Higman, Slave PopulatiOns of the British Caribbean, p. 116.
121 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 142.
122 Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba', p. 192.
123 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 79.
124 Handler, The Unappropriated People, pp. 24-5.
125 Wells, The Population of the British Colonies, p. 200.
126 Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica', p. 58.
127 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, pp. 22, 86.
128 Bergad, Coffee and the Growth ofAgrarian Capitalism, p. 69.
129 Thompson, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, p. 112.
130 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 152.
131 Michael Craton, 'Hobbesian or Panglossian? The Two Extremes of Slave
Conditions in the British Caribbean, 1783 to 1834', William and Mary
Quarterly, 35 (1978), pp. 324-56; Craton, 'Changing Patterns of Slave Families
in the British West Indies', journal of Interdisciplinary History, 10 (1979),
pp. 1-35; B. W. Higman, 'The Slave Family and Household in the British West
Indies, 1800--1834', journal of Interdisciplinary History, 6 (1975), pp. 261-87;
B. W. Higman, 'African and Creole Slave Family Patterns in Trinidad', journal
of Family History, 3 (1978), pp. 163-80; Orlando Patterson, The SOCiology of
Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development, and Structure of Negro Slave
Society in jamaica (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967); Patterson,
'Persistence, Continuity, and Change in the Jamaican Working-Class Family',
journal of Family History, 7 (1982), pp. 13~1; Karen Fog Olwig, Cultural
Adaptation and Resistance on Stjohn: Three Centuries of Afro-Caribbean Life
(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1985); Vanony-Frisch, Les esclaves de
la Guadeloupe, pp. 67-8.
132 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 365.
133 Olwig, Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on Stjohn.
134 Leo Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', p. 154, and G. M. Hall, 'Saint Domingue',
p: 187, both in David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene (eds), Neither Slave Nor
Free (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972).
135 Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century
Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

102
 Demographic structure of Caribbean slave societies

136 Patricia A. Molen, 'Population and Social Patterns in Barbados in the Early
Eighteenth Century', William and Mary Quarterly, 28 (1971), p. 298.
137 Corbitt, 'Immigration into Cuba'.
138 See Higman, Slave Populations in the British Caribbean, pp. 25-33; Jack
Ericson Eblen, 'On the Natural Increase of Slave Populations: The Example of
the Cuban Black Population, 1775-1900', in Stanley L. Engerman and Eugene
D. Genovese (eds), Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative
Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 211-47.
139 Roberts, The Population ofJamaica, p. 296.
140 Wells, The population of the British Colonies, p. 200.
141 Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica', pp. 167--8; Higman, Slave Populations of
the British Caribbean, p. 308.
142 Roberts, The Population ofJamaica, p. 269.
143 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 308-10.
144 Humphrey E. Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations of
the Dutch-Speaking Caribbean', p. 88.
145 Johansen, 'Slave Demography of the Danish West Indian Islands', p. 20.
146 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, pp. 142-3; Eblen, 'On the Natural
Increase of Slave Populations', p. 245, and Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba',
p.196.
147 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 358; Vanony-Frisch, 'Les
esclaves de la Guadeloupe', p. 59.
148 Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations of the Dutch-
Speaking Caribbean', pp. 88-9; Hannes Hyrenius, Royal Swedish Slaves
(Gothenburg: Demographic Research Institute, University of Gothenburg,
Report No. 15, 1977), p. 28; Higman, Slave Populations of the British
Caribbean, p. 310.
149 Roberts, The population o/Jamaica, pp. 234-7; Richard B. Sheridan, Doctors
and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West
Indies, 1680-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 222-30;
Vanony-Frisch, 'Les esclaves de la Guadeloupe' p. 57; Debien, Les esclaves aux
Antilles Franffaises, p. 35l.
150 Eric Williams, 'The British West Indian Slave Trade after its Abolition in 1807',
Journal of Negro History, 27 (1942), pp. 175-91; R. Keith Aufhauser, 'Profitabil-
ity of Slavery in the British Caribbean', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5
(1974), pp. 45-67.
151 David Lowenthal and Colin G. Clarke, 'Slave-Breeding in Barbuda: The Past of
a Negro Myth', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 292 (1977),
pp. 510-35. Cf. Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations
of the Dutch-Speaking Caribbean', p. 93.
152 Philip D. Curtin, 'Epidemiology and the Slave Trade', Political Science
Quarterly, 83 (1968), pp. 190-216; Kenneth F. Kiple and Virginia Himmelsteib
King, Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet, Disease, and Racism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; Kenneth F. Kiple, The
Caribbean Slave: A Biological History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1984); Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves.
153 David Patrick Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of
Saint Domingue 1793-1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, p. 363.
154 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 308-10.

103
 General History of the Caribbean

155 Michael Craton, Searchingfor the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in
jamaica (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 103.
156 Vanony-Frisch, 'Les esclaves de la Guadeloupe', p. 65.
157 Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba', p. 196.
158 Johansen, 'Slave Demography of the Danish West Indian Islands', p. 16.
159 Humphrey E. Lamur, The Production of Sugar and the Reproduction of Slaves
at Vossenburg, Suriname, 170~1863 (Amsterdam: Centre for Caribbean
Studies, 1987), p. 109. See also Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two
Slave Populations of the Dutch-Speaking Caribbean', p. 88.
160 Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations of the Dutch-
Speaking Caribbean', p. 88; Higman, Slave Populations of the British
Caribbean, p. 310.
161 Roberts, The Population ofjamaica, p. 185; Annuaire de la Guadeloupe, 1893
(Basse-Terre: Imprimerie du Gouvemement, 1893), p. 78.
162 Hoetink, The Dominican People, p. 40.
163 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, pp. 317-18.
164 Debien, Les esc/aves awe Antilles Fran~aises, p. 345; Johansen, 'Slave
Demography of the Danish West Indian Islands', p. 15; Hyrenius, Royal
Swedish Slaves, p. 26.
165 Roberts, The Population ofjamaica, p. 188.
166 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 325.
167 Ibid, p. 341.
168 Kenneth F. Kiple, 'Cholera and Race in the Caribbean', journal of Latin
American Studies, 17 (1985), pp. 157-77.
169 Neville A. T. Hall, 'Maritime Maroons: Grand Marronage from the Danish West
Indies', William and Mary Quarterly, 42 (1985), pp. 476-98.
170 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 93.
171 Lamur, 'Demographic Performance of Two Slave Populations of the Dutch-
Speaking Caribbean', p. 88.
172 Handler, The Unappropriated People, p. 34.
173 Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba, pp. 13-14.
174 G. M. Hall, 'Saint Domingue', Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', Handler, The
Unappropriated People.
175 Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, p. 381.
176 Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles'.
177 Debien, Les esclaves awe Antilles Fran~aises, p. 370; Elisabeth, 'The French
Antilles', p. 140.

104
 3

THE SLAVE ECONOMIES

OF THE CARIBBEAN: STRUCTURE,
PERFORMANCE, EVOLUTION
AND SIGNIFICANCE

David Ellis

T H E drive to establish colonies and migrate has always been fundamen-

tally economic, but in the case of the Caribbean the economic motive
seems particularly stark. Here people from one continent forced those
from a second to produce a narrow range of luxury goods in a third - having
first found the latter's aboriginal population inadequate to their purpose.! All
other chapters in this third and indeed, all subsequent volumes of the
UNESCO General History of the Caribbean, whether concerned with social,
demographic, cultural or political history, follow from this central fact. To
make sense of what has happened in the Caribbean since the seventeenth
century, we must begin with Europe and the economic system Europe
imposed on the region.

The influence of the European economic system

European expansion, and more particularly the overseas imperial systems

that followed upon it, were functions of general improvements in technology
and Europe's resulting ability to produce goods and services more efficiently
than the rest of the world, particularly the non-Asian world. 2 This expansion
quickly came to involve slaves from Africa wherever sugar was grown, but
not initially in the Caribbean. For a few decades in the mid-sixteenth century
a minor sugar export economy flourished in the major Antilles. Thereafter,
with the Portuguese concentrating on Brazil, and the Spanish on the
mainlands of North and South America, the three Spanish strongholds of the
Antilles - Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico - became strategic settlements
protecting trade routes, that also produced some non-plantation exports such
as hides, ginger, cacao and eventually a little tobacco.

105
 General History of the Caribbean

The key developments shaping Caribbean history occurred in north-

western Europe, over a century after the Columbian contact. In Holland,
strong growth of domestic industry and an international trading network
were the basis of the Dutch attack on the Portuguese south Atlantic empire -
centred by 1600 on Brazilian sugar. The French had the largest economy in
Europe by the early seventeenth century, with a far greater potential for
sustaining an overseas empire than any country in Europe, including the
Spanish. The English, comprising less than 6 per cent of the European
population in 1600, nevertheless led the way both in overseas European
settlement from that year, and the sugar revolution that transformed the
tropical Americas later in the seventeenth century. Thus the English were
the major organizers of both free European and coerced African migration
to the Caribbean until the nineteenth century. The roots of this leadership
in colonization probably lay in profound structural changes in the English
economy involving early emergence of the nuclear family, the non-feudal
nature of land-holding, and the related productivity improvements in food
production. These produced a population able to respond to economic
opportunities separate from the land, some of which lay across the ocean.
Significantly, the early English and French migrations occurred with little of
the heavy government participation that characterized their Spanish coun-
terparts. But while Spanish, English, French and Dutch overseas expansion
took different forms, it always coincided with domestic economic growth.
Overseas expansion and the migration that accompanied it was a sign of
economic strength, not a flight from deprivation or an inability to make
profits at home. Hence Iberian domination of transatlantic migration in the
sixteenth century and north-west European domination from the seven-
teenth century.
The first English and French diasporas - the Dutch focused on the East
Indies and exporting capital rather than on the Americas and labour - had
few implications for Africa down to the mid-seventeenth century. From an
Atlantic perspective, the peak years of the slave trade, say 1670 to 1830, were
sandwiched between early Spanish then English and some French emigration
on the one side, and the later mass emigration from first northern and then
southern Europe on the other. The French islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe
and St Kitts, and the English settlements on the mainland of North America,
and Somers (Bermuda), Providence and Association Islands were peopled
with Europeans before the advent of sugar. Between 1601 and 1660, over
half a million people emigrated from England, one of the highest migration
rates in English, indeed European history. In the mid-seventeenth century
there were probably a little over 100000 English settlers evenly split between
mainland North America and the Caribbean, and perhaps another 15000
French. Between them they owned only a few thousand slaves. 3 They pro-

106
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

duced tobacco, cotton, some indigo, and in the case of Providence, booty
from raids on the Spanish.
The Caribbean sugar revolution began in Barbados and Guadeloupe in
the 1640s with large technical and capital assistance from Dutch merchants at
about the time of the Portuguese reconquest of Brazil. Sugar-cane had
reached Brazil on a circum-global, 2500 year odyssey which began in the
Pacific islands from where it is thought to have been native, and included
stops in India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic islands.
The culture was to shift across the sub-tropical Americas and back into the
Pacific to be grown in Hawaii and Australia by the end of the nineteenth
century. Sugar from Brazil dominated European markets in 1600, but output
there changed little between the 1620s and 1690s. The economic growth of
north-west Europe fuelled demand, generated capital, modified Brazilian
production methods, and hastened the new shipping technology and rising
wage levels that underpinned the switch from European non-slave to African
slave labour. As a consequence, the seventeenth century Caribbean saw
sugar converted from a medicinal and luxury item, into a replacement for
honey normally sold by grocers.
Despite the century-old sugar industry of Brazil, Caribbean develop-
ments were of a different order of magnitude and intensity to what had gone
before. The minutes of the English Committee for Foreign Plantations for the
mid-1660s marvelled at:

Barbados ... being then (1625) an intire wood with greate trees wch by
the incomparable Industry of the Planters is brought to that perfection
so that years since they shipped out of that Island ... as many ... goods
in tunnage yearly as the Spaniards doe out the two famous empires of
Mexico and Perew ... and out of there famous islands of Porto Rico,
Espanola, Jamaica when it was theres, and Cuba ... 4

The comment may ignore the contribution of indentured servants and slaves,
but the idea of an island a little more than 20 miles long and 14 miles across
at its widest point producing more exports than the Spanish Americas is as
striking today as it was then. Compared to the Brazilian industry English
plantations were organized on a much larger scale. In Pernambuco in partic-
ular, cane farming by small proprietors organized around a central mill was
common, albeit with African slaves involved. As the Eastern Caribbean
moved into large-scale production, Brazilian sugar production stagnated. And
unlike its Portuguese counterpart, the English Caribbean plantation complex
was part of a large self-sufficient imperial system. 5
African slaves were present from the earliest days, but it is probable
that the first plantations were worked with mainly European convict and

107
 General History of the Caribbean

indentured rather than African slave labour. The English Civil War and the
Cromwellian defeat of Scots and Irish ensured a steady supply of prisoners in
the early 1650s, and it now seems clear that in the early English Caribbean
the sugar revolution was effected with white as well as black labour. 6 Sugar
was always produced in the Americas with forced labour, and it is possible
that the parallel evolution of sugar cultivation in the Caribbean and civil and
foreign wars in what became the British Isles were linked. Despite the wide
use of the term 'slavery' (both then and now) in relation to Europeans
working on early plantations, no European was ever sentenced to a lifetime
of labour in the Americas, much less were his or her offspring born to
slavery. But felons, political prisoners and prisoners of war - unlike most
indentured servants - could not choose the colony to which they were sent
or the conditions under which they would labour.
The foundations of the eighteenth-century Caribbean plantation
economies based on African slave labour were laid in the 1650s and 1660s.
The key factors in this process were probably the restoration of peace in
England, and declines in both emigration from and population in England
that began in the later 1650s. Strong productivity growth in the slave ship-
ping business also helped. Above all, however, Europeans were unable to
contemplate chattel slavery and slave trade-like shipping conditions for
Europeans. African participation in transatlantic migration was much larger
than European before the nineteenth century, but it was for a century and a
half after 1650 driven by the refusal of voluntary migrants (or non-prisoners)
to work on sugar estates, and the apparent inability of the European capital-
ist to overcome this aversion either by force or inducement. This was despite
the relative expense - in terms of lives and shipping costs - of the African
alternative.
This last point suggests that seventeenth-century merchant capitalism
was subject to ethnocentric blinkers, and was not quite as unbridled as it is
often portrayed. The rather severe mercantilist strait-jacket which governed its
operation in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century is a further
demonstration of this latter point. The Dutch supplied services and capital to
other Europeans in the first half of the seventeenth century. Between 1651
and 1664, the French and the English put into place a set of barriers which
reserved their own trade and possessions for their own nationals. The English
Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660, and Colbert's 1664 chartering of the
monopoly Compagnie des Indes Occidentales - the latter not immediately
effective - began the exclusion of the Dutch. The latter were forced to
develop their own plantation colony of Suriname, although even here the
foundations were laid by the English.7 The English Acts were not as restrictive
as the French 'systeme exclusif - at least in the Americas - allowing a peace-
time trade between English and foreign colonies in many commodities. 8

108
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

But coupled with already existing Spanish controls the effect was to divide
the Caribbean into five economic zones bearing little resemblance to geo-
physical features - the English, French, Danish, Dutch and Spanish. Largely
abolished in the nineteenth century, they have left vestigial traces even in the
post-imperial present.
The aim of each zone was imperial self-sufficiency. Except for the
Spanish islands, treated to some extent as mere defensive outposts for the
mainland, each attempted in the course of the eighteenth century to produce
a wide range of plantation products. Processing was reserved for the metro-
politan centre. For sugar this meant that refinement of the coarse brown
muscovado, crushed and crystallized from the sugar-cane, was supposed to
happen in Europe. After the 1670s or so this is largely what happened.
However, some 'claying' of the raw product was carried out in every colony
resulting in varying grades of sugar exported and plaguing attempts to
compare measures of these exports over time and between regions. Although
every colony was required to trade exclusively with the mother-country,
there was always some trade across barriers, particularly between the
English North American mainland and the non-English Caribbean islands.
Nevertheless, the capacity of even the seventeenth-century state to shape the
volume and direction of trade, though less than total, should not be ques-
tioned. Historians usually exaggerate smuggling, and, to cite just one impact
of mercantilist regulations, can anyone really doubt that the Cuban sugar
revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have happened
earlier if the island had been under French or English control, or if the
Bourbon reforms had come in the 1680s, instead of the 1780s? Cubans who
lived through the English occupation of Havana in the early 1760s would
probably have thought SO.9
As noted above, despite the period of Dutch control of Brazil, and their
subsequent role in the nascent plantation colonies of the English and the
French, it was the English who presided over the emergence of the
eighteenth-century Caribbean slave economy. Given the head start of first the
Iberians and then the Dutch, and the small size of the English economy rela-
tive to others in Europe, the aforementioned structural changes in the domes-
tic English economy appear as the most likely explanation for the English
lead. From very few in 1650, more than 40000 African slaves laboured under
English masters in the Americas by 1665 and 150000 by 1700, most of them
in the Caribbean. Barbados was the first and remained the leading English
sugar producer until overtaken by Jamaica about 1720. Nevis also began
early and was an important sugar source until devastated by the French in
Queen Anne's War. But English sugar production was broadly based by the
1680s, by which time Antigua, St Kitts and Montserrat were all producing for
export. From similar beginnings in mid-century the French islands of St Kitts

109
 General History of the Caribbean

(shared with the English), Guadeloupe and Martinique held 10000 slaves in
1665 and if St Domingue is included, there were perhaps 25 000 French-
controlled slaves in 1700. Of the French islands, Martinique was easily the
most important from the 1670s to the early 1700s. English predominance
after a mere half century was such that there may have been more African
slaves under English control in 1700 than in the rest of the European
Americas combined. 10
The shift in the centre of gravity of plantation produce was just as
sharp. Contemporaries were aware of Barbados sugar undercutting its
Brazilian counterpart in the 1660s. The English Caribbean had overtaken
Brazil as the leading sugar producing region in the world well before the
end of the seventeenth century, and the French may well have taken over
second place. In 1700, it is likely that the English Caribbean produced
40000 metric tons of sugar, with Brazil and the French Caribbean produc-
ing between 10000 and 12000 metric tons each, and Suriname perhaps
5000. 11 As Cuba and the Danish island of St Thomas are unlikely to have
produced as much as Suriname, English leadership is obvious. Overall,
European consumption of sugar had probably increased four or fivefold
since 1650.
The next most important products were also sugar based - rum and
molasses. Some molasses were sent to Europe in 1700, but 90 per cent, and
not just that of the English islands, were sent to mainland North America.
Rum distilling became a thriving industry in all the sugar islands of the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Most of this rum went to main-
land North America which in 1700 had not yet gone down the road of
import-substitution, and was bringing in nearly a million gallons a year from
the English Caribbean alone. West Indian domestic consumption was,
however, Significant (about a third of output in Barbados).12 Other crops
were much less important. Barbados and some of the Leewards produced
ginger; Jamaica, and especially, St Domingue produced indigo. Indeed indigo
was more important than sugar in the St Domingue of 1700.13 Cotton and
tobacco exports, the leading Caribbean crops down to 1650, were now
insignificant. The tobacco that was still grown came mainly from Cuba and St
Domingue, regions where the sugar revolution had yet to occur. Sugar prob-
ably accounted for three-quarters of total Caribbean export revenues, with
this ratio rising to 95 per cent if we include the sugar by-products of rum and
molasses. Two-thirds of this revenue went to the English islands. In absolute
terms the total annual value in the Caribbean of sugar produced around 1700
averaged just under £1.3 million sterling, of sugar products, just over
£1.6 million. The total value of all export crops produced was perhaps
£1. 7 million. 14

110
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

Caribbean economic production - crop distribution

and economic power 1770-1850

The early seventeenth-century meaning of the term 'plantations' as places to

settle, should remind us that it is easy to exaggerate the importance of
exports as a share of the total product of any society. There have been very
few societies in history that have exported over half their output, and it is
unlikely that the Caribbean as a whole ever fell into this category. Apart from
the 15 per cent or more of sugar, rum and molasses consumed on the
islands, a large proportion of food and shelter needs were met without refer-
ence to the external sector. Richard Ligon noted extensive provision grounds
in early Barbados - and almost all the imported provisions he listed were
luxuries not likely to have been consumed by slaves. In the late seven-
teenth century both Jamaica and, more surprisingly given the high popula-
tion density, Barbados, were producing for themselves three-quarters of the
calorie requirements of their populations. Eliminating luxury or semi-luxury
foodstuffs from the import lists for these islands suggests that the black
population in both was almost entirely fed by domestically produced food.
The bulk of this was Guinea corn, plantains, and later yams, pigeon peas
and sweet potatoes. While there was variation between islands, such provi-
sions were grown on the plantation, if not at this time on slaves' own pro-
vision grounds. Imported foods, except for salted fish, were usually for
whites or for drought- and hurricane-induced emergencies. Jamaica and
Barbados were the leading exporters of the early Caribbean slave economy
(and thus most capable of importing). If neither of these islands relied on
food imports it is unlikely that any other part of the Caribbean did so. In
Puerto Rico, Cuba and Santo Domingo, where large non-plantation sectors
existed, food production was even less potentially antithetical to the export
sector. 15
There was also much more to a typical Caribbean economy than
growing export crops and provisions, even if many such activities would
have been severely curtailed or non-existent in the absence of the export
sector. Building and construction, various services, public administration and
manufacturing accounted for nearly a third of the economic activity in
Jamaica and British Guiana at the end of the slavery period. In the seven-
teenth century, the services implied by two-way trade between the Caribbean
and Africa and the Caribbean and mainland North America, the port towns
and wattle-and-daub shelters with thatched roofs and huts built by the slaves
themselves, and the distilling, should remind us that non-sugar growing
activity was not a recent development. 16

111
 General History of the Caribbean

The major trends over the two centuries dominated by the slave
economies in the Caribbean become apparent if we add two snapshots to
the foregoing picture of circa 1700 - one for 1770 and the other for 1850.
Table 3.1 provides data for 1770. It should be noted that these are estimated
production figures, not exports, and are thus higher than many previous
estimates, few of which distinguish between exports and production. 17 In
addition, the value estimates approximate fob values in the West Indies
(appropriate for this Caribbean focus), and are therefore often less than
values in Europe which dominate the literature. It should also be noted that
the prices used to compute the total values are those prevailing in the
leading region of export. Thus in 1700, it is British prices that are applied
across the board; in 1770, French prices; and in 1850, prices for Spanish
produce, though all are converted to pounds sterling in Tables 3.1 and 3.2
for comparative purposes. 18 All values are current rather than constant.
Adjusting for price fluctuations over time would change little in the three
benchmark years, except perhaps for a small upward adjustment (less than
10 per cent) to the 1700 figures relative to the other two sets. Compared to
the rough estimates for 1700 there are three features of note in Table 3.1.
The annual value of the major Caribbean products increased between
four and fivefold in the 1700-70 period (around fourfold in real terms). Sugar
production jumped from perhaps 60 000 metric tons in 1700 - or 1.2 million
cwt in muscovado eqUivalencies - to 7.3 million cwt by 1770, an annual
growth rate of 2.6 per cent. Within this trend there was a greater emphasis
on clayed sugars - particularly in the British colonies - as the century
progressed, which partly offset the shutdown of colonial sugar refineries in
the earlier period. But Table 3.1 suggests an even more rapid growth in the
Caribbean distilling industry. By 1770 there was far more rum produced in
the West Indies than on the mainland of North America. Indeed Caribbean
distillers supplied nearly half the mainland North America domestic market
and in addition were sending more rum to Europe than to the latter region
by 1770. Rum accounted for between 15 and 20 per cent of the value of all
plantation produce. Molasses exports - the basic raw material of the distilling
industry in the continental colonies - were less than a third those of the
finished product. 19 Although not shown in the table there seems little doubt
that raw muscovado sugar actually made up less than half the total value of
exports from the Caribbean in 1770.
This leads to the second feature of note: the enormous growth in the
production of items other than sugar. Concentration on sugar probably
reached a peak early in the eighteenth century and declined thereafter. Over
a fifth of Caribbean output by value in 1770 was in what are often termed
minor staples. Cotton, early on the scene, made a comeback, but it still
ranked well behind coffee, which had become the second most important
staple (or third after rum), and even indigo. The latter was cultivated only in
112
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

TABLE 3.1 Estimated plantation output of the Caribbean in 1770 (solids in thousands
of metric cwt, liqUids in thousands of gallons, values in thousands of pounds
sterling, fob Caribbean)

Sugar" Molasses"· Rum Coffee Indigo Cotton Cacao

French
St Domingue 2393 5655 2558 272 20 34 12
Guadeloupe 380 700 629 49 0 10 1
Martinique 467 974 814 103 0 8 14
St Lucia 155 354 232 0 0 0 0

Total 3395 7683 4233 424 20 52 27

Total value 1816 275 317 957 289 125 40

British
Jamaica 1363 119 3749 10 1 8 1
Virgin Is 47 0 187 0 0 0 0
Antigua 267 3 1591 0 0 0 0
St Kitts 292 13 1015 0 0 2 0
Nevis 78 3 328 0 0 0 0
Montserrat 75 0 333 0 0 1 0
Dominica 25 62 209 17 0 7 0
Barbados 410 0 2409 0 0 2 0
St Vincent 55 1 256 6 0 1 3
Grenada 283 8 888 17 0 11 7
Tobago 7 2 27 0 0 0 0

Totar" 2 902 211 10 992 50 1 32 11

Total value 1 553 8 899 109 10 76 14
Dutch
St Eustatius 8 31 44 0 0 0 0
Dutch Guiana 334 651 510 139 0 2 4

Total 342 682 554 139 0 2 4

Total value 183 24 42 312 0 6 6
Danish
St Croix 235 14 728 0 0 6 0
Other
.... 26 5 65 0 0 0 0

Total 261 19 793 0 0 6 0

Total value 140 1 59 0 0 15 0

Spanish
Cuba 313 0 350 0 0 0 0
Puerto Rico 50 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 363 0 350 0 0 0 0

Total value 194 0 26 0 0 0 0

113
 General History of the Caribbean

TABLE 3.1 Continued

Sugal" Molasse~· Rum Coffee Indigo Cotton Cacao

Caribbean
Total 7263 8623 16922 611 22 91 41
Total value 3886 307 1343 1344 299 222 60
• Sugar is computed here in muscovado equivalencies. In other words all the different grades
have been reduced to muscovado for comparative purposes. See McCusker, for details.
•• Molasses includes only the quantities exported and therefore not used to produce rum in the
Caribbean.
••• Excludes Bahamas, Bermuda and Florida .
•••• St Thomas and St John. Omits some minor products (ginger, pimento, tobacco). Where
data for 1769-71 were available, 1770 figure is mean of three years.

Sources:

1 Volumes.
Sugar, rum and molasses: McCusker, 1be Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments, pp. 104-5,
232-4, 356--8, 1132, 1139.
Non-sugar products: Selwyn H. H. Carrington, 1be British West Indies During the American
Revolution (Dordrecht, 1988), pp. 14-17,31,43; Jean Tarrade, Le Commerce Colonial de la
France ii la Fin de l'Ancien Regime (Paris, 1972), pp. 747-8; Lowell J. Ragatz, Statistics for the
Study of British Caribbean History, 176!!r1833 (London, 1925), pp. 14, 15, 17; Schnakenbourg,
'Statistiques pour l'histoire de I'economie de plantation en Guadeloupe et Martinique,
(1635-1835)', Bulletin de la Societe de la Guadeloupe, 31 (1977), pp. 116, 120; Waldemar
Westergaard, 1be Danish West Indies Under Company Rule (New York, 1917), p. 254; Johannes
Menne Postma, 1be Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 411;
Cuban Economic Research Project, A Study on Cuba (Coral Gables, 1965), pp. 71-9.

2 Values.
Production estimates multiplied by the price of the product in the West Indies, estimated from
French prices, yield values for 1770. For prices in Nantes see Tarrade, Le Commerce Colonial de
la France, p. 772. Tarrade's series is similar to an independent series in Henri Hauser,
Recherches et documents sur l'histoire des prix en France de 1500 ii 1800 (Paris, 1936),
pp. 495-7 - the difference being explicable by the small duty incorporated in the latter. To
obtain a West Indian price, wastage, freight rates, port charges, insurance and duty where
appropriate need to be deducted. For these see Robert Louis Stein, 1be French Sugar Business
in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge, 1988), pp. 69, 160-1. Casks containing muscovado
sugar leaked about 10 per cent of their contents during the transatlantic voyage (McCusker,
Rum Trade and Balance of Payments, p. 798). Thus the Caribbean fob price is estimated at 70
per cent of the Nantes price. These adjustments suggest a French Caribbean price of 10.7
shillings per cwt. For all other produce, prices are taken from Tarrade, Le Commerce Colonial
de la France, p. 772 and are multiplied by 0.75 to approximate the West Indian price.

St Domingue and to a much smaller extent in Jamaica. The British had the
most specialized of Caribbean colonial systems with 70 per cent of their total
plantation output comprising sugar and molasses (not counting molasses
used by distilleries). But British specialization becomes less salient if we take

114
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

into account the rest of the American slave regions. Tobacco, indigo and rice
from the mainland are not considered here, but if they were, there is little
doubt that it would be the British, not the French or the Dutch that would
emerge with the most diversified plantation production system.
The third striking feature of Table 3.1 is the relative decline in the
British position since 1700. In the seven decades after 1700, the Europeans
consolidated their imperial systems and the fissiparous economic structure
that these implied for the Caribbean. The Dutch, Danish and Spanish regions
- the last already the third largest sugar producer in the Caribbean by 1770 -
controlled significant portions of the Caribbean economy.20 However, the
major new force in 1770 was the French slave system. The fertile soils of the
north and west plains of St Domingue, and a determined effort by the largest
power in Europe to subsidize a supply of African slave labour - the acquits
de guinee - meant that despite the strong growth of the British islands, and
considerable British military and naval success, the French Caribbean was the
leading exporter of produce by volume in 1770. It was producing more
sugar, molasses, coffee, cotton, cacao and indigo than the British Caribbean.
Only in rum did the British maintain their old dominance. Although, as noted
above, French Caribbean prices have been used in the computation of 1770
total values for all regions, French sugar was in fact substantially cheaper to
produce than its English counterpart. The system of internal tariffs in France
ensured that the final price to consumers in Paris and London was probably
similar, but in markets outside France, British sugar could not compete with
its French counterpart, and, but for the duty preference of 13 shillings per
cwt, it could not have competed in the British market either. 21 This suggests
a substantial transfer from the consumer to the planter in the British system,
and from the consumer to the tax farmers and government in the French. 22
Despite the growth of exports, the Caribbean domestic economy was at
least as important in relative terms in 1770 as it had been in 1700. The shift
to slaves growing their own proviSions - albeit on plantation grounds - was
well underway in Jamaica and St Domingue by this time. This probably had
small impact on trends in imported foodstuffs, but the development of an
internal marketing system built largely on huckstering, probably meant an
enlarged sphere of domestic economic activities compared to a time when
the plantation attempted to meet all needs. Edward Long's comment about
the slaves holding one-fifth of the currency in circulation in Jamaica in the
1770s could not have been made about any Caribbean region in 1700.
After 1770, the above trends intensified, through the War of American
Independence and down to 1791. The French Caribbean continued its ascent
- at least in the non-sugar sphere. Gains in coffee production were much
greater than those in sugar, and cotton became a significant crop in the
British Caribbean for the first time since the mid-seventeenth century. When

115
 General History of the Caribbean

the slave uprising in St Domingue destroyed that colony's sugar economy,

and to a lesser extent coffee production too, then the British Caribbean, now
covering a wider geographic area as a result of the French wars, moved to
diversify plantation output as well as to greatly expand it. Abolition of first
the slave trade, and then slavery itself put a stop to both these trends in the
British system. After the ending of the slave trade to the British colonies,
resources that had moved into coffee and cotton production now shifted
back into sugar. At the same time, and partly as a result of these develop-
ments, a major reorientation of the total plantation sector in the Americas
occurred. The Cuban sugar industry expanded rapidly. The US south had
switched away from indigo, tobacco and rice and into cotton (in relative
terms), and south-central Brazil had begun to specialize in coffee. Of the
eight American plantation systems of 1770 - British, French, Portuguese,
Dutch, Spanish, Danish, Swedish and to anticipate the War of Independence,
the US - the largest had been the first three of these. By 1850 the top three
were Spanish, Brazilian and the US - none of which had been among the
leaders in 1770 and none of which were producing in 1770 very much of the
crop in which each was specializing in 1850.
Thus by 1850, the year of the third of the snapshots presented here, the
distribution of crops and economic power in the Caribbean was quite differ-
ent from that of 1770. A comparison of Table 3.2 with Table 3.1 shows a
return to the pattern prevailing in 1700 in that sugar and sugar products
dominated exports of the region far more in 1850 than in 1770. If the
mercantilist empires of the eighteenth century had encouraged some
diversification of primary products, the nineteenth century shift to freer trade
had reversed this pattern. Consistent with this, the Caribbean was producing
far more sugar in 1850 than in 1770. The growth rate between 1770 and 1850
was less than one per cent a year on average - only a quarter of that in the
preceding 70 years - but as noted above the dislocations of slave rebellions
and abolition after 1791 were substantial, not least the disappearance from
the lists of the major sugar exporter of the 1700s - St Domingue. Expansion
was triggered by the rising demand of the North Atlantic economies, and also
the high price elasticity of demand for sugar in Europe, especially Britain. On
the supply side, growth came from most regions listed in Table 3.1 before
1791, then for the next 30 years mainly from the Spanish and British
Caribbean, and finally from Cuba and Puerto Rico alone after 1820. 23 Within
the sugar sector, Table 3.2 also shows a major shift away from processing. In
1770, rum production was twice the level of molasses exports. In 1850,
molasses exports were four times greater than rum production. In a trend
bolstered by a discriminatory US tariff, the Spanish Caribbean had taken over
the role of the French in supplying molasses to the mainland North American
distilleri. Reversing the earlier situation, far more rum was now distilled on

116
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

TABLE 3.2 Estimated plantation output of the Caribbean in 1850 (solids in thousands
of metric cwt, liquids in thousands of gallons, values in thousands of pounds
sterling, estimated fob Caribbean)

Suga7" Molasse~' Rum Coffee Tobacco

Haiti 41 0 127 297 0

Total Value 36 0 50 525 0

French
Guadeloupe 411 86 333 7 0
Martinique 461 99 348 7 0
French Guiana 6 0 19 1 0

Total 878 185 700 15 0

Total value 756 9 278 27 0

British
Jamaica 785 0 1827 63 0
Antigua 201 890 55 2 0
St Kitts 113 263 88 1 0
Nevis 30 19 12 0 0
Montserrat 6 7 8 0 0
Dominica 66 99 35 1 0
Barbados 628 1303 102 6 0
St Vincent 180 321 125 2 0
Grenada 119 72 125 2 0
Tobago 59 37 148 0 0
St Lucia 82 72 22 1 0
British Guiana 778 1294 1852 7 0
Trinidad 482 1313 127 5 0
Other British""" 3 0 8 3 0

Total 3532 5690 4534 93 0

Total value 3042 287 1798 167 0
Dutch
Suriname 345 572 425 10 0
Other Dutch 1 0 4 1 0

Total 346 572 429 11 0

Total value 298 29 170 20 0
Danish
St Croix 169 282 206 1 0
Other*""" 1 0 2 1 0

Total 170 282 208 2 0

Total value 146 14 82 3 0

117
 General History of the Caribbean

TABLE 3.2 Continued

Suga'- Molasses"· Rum Coffee Tobacco

Spanish
Cuba 6262 25514 1863 219 590
Puerto Rico 1165 4102 531 129 95
Santo Domingo 8 0 25 8 0

Total 7435 29616 2419 356 685

Total value 6403 1495 959 630 933
Caribbean
Total 12404 36344 8417 775 685
Total value 10682 1835 3338 1372 933
• Sugar is computed here in muscovado equivalencies. In other words all the different grades
have been reduced to muscovado for comparative purposes. See McCusker, for details.
•• Molasses includes only the quantities exported and therefore not used to produce rum in the
Caribbean.
••• Bahamas, Bermuda .
•••• St Thomas and St John. Omits some minor products. Data are means of years 1849-51
where available. For Puerto Rico, mean is for 1848--52. For all coffee (other than Jamaica and
the Spanish Caribbean) means are for 1852-3.

Sources

1 Volumes

Sugar products: Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Ellngenio. Complejo econ6mico social cubano df!1
azucar, 3 vols. (Havana, 1978), 1, p. 255; 3, p. 45; Noel Deerr, The History of Sugar, 2 vols.
(London, 1949-50), 1, pp. 194-203, 212, 245; Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto
Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce (Madison, 1984), p. 8; Dale W. Tomich, Slavery in the
Circuit of Sugar: Martinique in the World Economy (Baltimore, 1990), p. 81; Christian
Schnakenbourg, Histoire de /'industrie sucriere en Guadeloupe (XIXe-XXe siecles), vol 1 (Paris,
1980), p. 143; Gt Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1863, LXVII, pp. 306--15.

Non-sugar products: Jacobo de la Pezuela y Lobo, Diccionario, geogrdfico, estadistico, hist6rico

de Ia isla de Cuba, 4 vols, (Madrid, 1863-66),4, p. 38; Luis Amaral, Historia Geral do
Agricultura Brasileira, 2 vols. (Sao Paulo, 1959), 2, pp. 302-3; Gisela Eisner, Jamaica,
1830-1930 (Manchester, 1961), p. 241; C. F. Van Delden Laerne, Brazil andJava: Report on
Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa (London, 1885), pp. 424-5, 455; Alan H. Adamson,
Sugar Without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 183&-1904 (New Haven, 1972);
Gt Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1863, LXVII, pp. 306--15; Donald Wood, Trinidad in
Transition: The Years after Slavery (Oxford, 1968).
Many of the above sources describe their data as being for total production, when in fact it is
often export data that are cited. Where I have detected this problem I have attempted to derive
estimated production consistent with Table 3.1. Thus sugar consumption in regions exporting
sugar is assumed to have been 25 Ib per head (UK figure for 1850), rum consumption is set at

118
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

TABLE 3.2 Continued

the Jamaican rate for 1850 of 0.77 gallons per head. Domestic coffee consumption is taken at
4.93 lb per head, again the figure for Jamaica in 1850 (both the rum and coffee figures are
calculated from Eisner, jamaica, pp. 49, 53, 238, 241). For non-sugar exporting regions per
capita domestic sugar and rum consumption has been taken at one-fifth the rate of the sugar
exporting regions. See n.36 for the sources of the population data used to convert these ratios
into total domestic consumption estimates. Most Caribbean sugar in the mid-nineteenth century
- an era which predated the vacuum pan and centrifugal - was muscovado. Data used here are
for muscovado or muscovado equivalencies.
The tobacco figure for Cuba is the 1861 figure froll). Pezuela, Diccionario, 4, p. 38, adjusted
downwards to an 1850 estimate by using the rate of change in exports from Cuba to the US (to
which most Cuban tobacco was shipped) over the same period. The tobacco estimate for
Puerto Rico has been set at 16 per cent of the Cuban figure (the ratio of Puerto Rican coffee to
Cuban coffee for 1850).
Molasses and rum exports from Martinique and Guadeloupe are based on the ratio of these
commodities exported relative to sugar in 1846-7 (Calculated from Tomich, Slavery in the
Circuito/Sugar, p. 81, and Schnakenbourg, Histoirede l'industriesucriere; p. 143). Molasses
and rum exports from Suriname and St Croix are estimated in a similar fashion, except the
ratios used are based on those for the British Caribbean in 1850.

2 Values
AB in Table 3.1 value estimates are the product of the above volume estimates and estimates of
prices in the Caribbean. The latter are derived from wholesale prices in New York for all the
products listed ('The Range of Prices of Staple Articles in the New York Markets at the
Beginning of Each Month in Each Year from 1825-1863', US Congress, House Executive
Document, 38th Congress, 1st session, vol. 6, no. 3, p. 334). These prices have been reduced by
a quarter to approximate fob values in the Caribbean.

the mainland than in the Caribbean, and even the British Caribbean colonies
were exporting more molasses than rum - mainly to Britain - for the first
time in British Caribbean history.
As noted, non-sugar products were much less important in 1850 than in
1770, with indigo, cotton and cocoa no longer qualifying as major crops. The
Caribbean did, however, produce more coffee and tobacco over this period.
Coffee expanded even more slowly than sugar, and in global terms lagged
behind Brazil and several other regions in the world, but it is noteworthy that
St Domingue coffee production (and exports) were greater in 1850 than in
1770 (though not 1790) and greater too than any other Caribbean region
in both of these years. 24 Commercial tobacco production was concentrated in
Cuba and Puerto Rico, and remained behind coffee as a regional export, but
tobacco nevertheless expanded faster than any other export from the
Caribbean over the 1770-1850 period.

119
 General History of the Caribbean

Changes in the plantation economies of the Caribbean

and the Americas

If total Caribbean production had expanded between 1770 and 1850, it had
done so more slowly than plantation output in the rest of the Americas - or
more precisely those areas of the Americas where slavery was still in full
force. Of the three Caribbean 'growth' crops of 1770-1850 - sugar, coffee
and tobacco, the first was able to expand in the mid-nineteenth century
largely because in Cuba slavery and the slave trade still continued. For the
other two crops, the advantage of using slaves was less pronounced than in
sugar cultivation. But those parts of the Americas that surged ahead of the
Caribbean in the production of coffee and cotton - south-central Brazil and
the US south respectively - still had full access to expanding supplies of
slave labour throughout the 1770-1850 period, the former from Africa, the
latter from natural increases in its slave population. As this implies, the
pattern and terms of abolition heavily influenced comparative production
trends both within the Caribbean and without. British abolition of the slave
trade and slavery was complete by 1838. In the French colonies the end of
slavery itself came suddenly in 1848, and in the Dutch fifteen years later,
though both areas had been cut off from Africa as a labour source for some
decades by then. Only in Cuba and Brazil did the African slave trade and
slavery continue to mid-century and beyond. Moreover, the first mani-
festations of slavery's end in Cuba and Brazil - free birth laws - had no
immediate impact on the labour force. Where planters found a substitute
supply of labour such as contract workers (from the planter's perspective,
always a second-best option) - in Suriname, Trinidad and British Guiana
after 1850 - a marked re-expansion of sugar production occurred. Trinidad
and British Guiana together were producing 40 per cent of the large Cuban
sugar output by the early 1880s using Asian contract labour.
The non-export economy was larger in 1850 than it had ever been, but
this pattern was not evenly distributed across the Caribbean. In those regions
where slavery had ended, exports formed a much smaller, and consumer and
government expenditure a much larger share of colonial output compared to
1770. The most extreme example was Haiti, formerly St Domingue, where,
though data are scarce, it seems probable that coffee - the only significant
export - comprised less than 5 per cent of national income. In other words,
production for domestic consumption had increased from an estimated
55 per cent of national output in 1770 to 95 per cent in 1850. Less dramatic
overall, but still striking, reallocations of resources away from the export
sector occurred in other land-abundant regions. In Jamaica and British
Guiana exports claimed about 41 to 43 per cent of national product in the

120
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

last year of slavery (and presumably a similar share in 1770), but only 23 per
cent in 1850. In this period a wide range of peasant-based goods and service
activities expanded, as well as a shift to government of functions previously
performed by plantation owners. In British Guiana, the former slave labour
force became a population of small-holders. Grenada, St Vincent, Montserrat,
Nevis, Trinidad and Guadeloupe were affected similarly. In Dominica,
Martinique, St Croix and St Kitts, the reallocation was less pronounced, and
in Barbados and Antigua less again. But only where slavery still continued in
the Caribbean of 1850 - in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Suriname - does it seem
likely that the 1770 ratio of exports to national product (above 40 per cent)
was approached in 1850. 25
There can be little doubt that the major immediate forces shaping this
structural transformation of the American plantation economies between 1770
and 1850 were the St Domingue revolution and the abolition of the slave
trade and slavery as summarized above. Yet despite these events, there was
no absolute decline in the Caribbean plantation economy during the period
of North Atlantic industrialization, and any relative decline was usually in
relation to other parts of the slaveholding Americas rather than to those parts
of the world that did not use slave labour. Areas such as the French and
British Caribbean that had been forced by the metropole to end slavery and
the slave trade fell behind the most. From an 1850 pan-American perspective,
of the three major plantation regions, Brazil, the southern states of the US
and the Caribbean, it was the latter that had grown the most slowly since
1770. It was also the Caribbean that had been the most affected by rebellion
and abolition.

Per capita income and demographic structure

A different, but still broad perspective of the Caribbean slave economy may
be derived from some comparisons with then contemporary non-slave
economies. A first step in this is the construction of some very crude per
capita income estimates. As noted above, independent assessments of
national income in two different Caribbean slave economies have indicated
that the export sectors accounted for 43 per cent of total product. The total
value figures presented in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 are for commodities produced,
not exported. But for most major plantation crops and major exporting
regions probably 90 per cent of what was produced left the region. Total
values in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 are not likely to have been more than 50 per
cent of total product. A doubling of total exports would therefore provide a
crude approximation of total product or income. In some Caribbean

121
 General History of the Caribbean

societies, such as the Spanish regions before the nineteenth century, Haiti,
and some of the smaller British, Dutch and Danish islands, the ratio of
exports to total product was certainly much smaller than 43 per cent. The
doubling process therefore cannot be applied to the Spanish territories in
Table 3.1, nor to the 'other' Danish category and St Eustatius, which in 1770
were non-plantation societies. In Table 3.2 the same stipulation means elim-
inating Haiti, French Guiana, Santo Domingo, and again 'other' British, Dutch
and Danish islands. 26
The above process suggests a total product for those regions in the
British, French, Dutch and Danish Caribbean producing major crops for
export of about £3.4 million sterling in 1700, and a per capita product of
£14.2. For 1770 the equivalent figures taken from Table 3.1 (excluding the
Spanish Caribbean and the non-plantation Dutch and Danish) are just under
£14.5 million and £14.0; and for 1850, this time including Puerto Rico and
Cuba with the non-marginal export areas in British, French, Danish and
Dutch Caribbean, but excluding Haiti, £35 million for total product and
£12.8 per capita. 27 As already noted above, conversion to real terms might
increase the 1700 figures relative to the two later estimates by less than
10 per cent. 28 The British Caribbean generated about 70 per cent of the
1700 figure, the British and French Caribbean together about three-quarters
of the 1770 estimate, and Cuba and Puerto Rico together about 60 per cent of
the 1850 product.
These figures indicate a great increase in total product, particularly
between 1700 and 1770, but little change over time in per capita output.
However, any assessment of the secular trend should take into account two
major adjustments. First, the transatlantic slave trade had ended for Haiti by
1793, for the British Caribbean by 1807, and for the French Caribbean by
1831. Only the Spanish Caribbean still drew on Africa in 1850 whereas Africa
was open to the whole Caribbean in 1700 and 1770. The slave trade to the
Caribbean was associated with skewed population pyramids - populations
that were heavily adult. A return to less skewed demographic structures after
the ending of the slave trade (a larger ratio of children) inevitably meant a
decline in the productive potential of 1850 compared to the eighteenth
century. Thus over three-quarters of the Cuban slave population in 1841 was
adult - at the end of the largest 10 year inflow of slaves from Africa in Cuban
history. In]amaica in 1844, in Barbados in 1817, and in England in 1841 - all
regions with more normal age structures - the adult ratios were 57, 56, and
55 per cent respectively.29 But it was not only the slave trade that had
become attenuated by 1850. Slavery itself now existed only in the Spanish
and Dutch regions - or just over one half of the population included in the
rough total product calculations performed above. As slavery ended, ex-
slaves tended to look for alternative opportunities, and even where these

122
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

were restricted, women and children still withdrew from the plantation
labour force, further depressing per capita output of plantation crops. Those
regions not subject to these strictures - Cuba (and the US south) - expanded
in the first half of the nineteenth century at rates comparable to the industri-
alizing countries of the north Atlantic, both in terms of gross output and
productivity.30
These rough figures also make possible some detailed comparisons
within the Caribbean. The British and French Caribbean had higher income
than the Spanish in 1700 and 1770, but by 1850 Cuba and Puerto Rico had
become regional leaders in terms of both total and per capita output.
Dividing the value of Cuban output from Table 3.2 by the Cuban population
in 1850 yields a per capita output of £16.4 in current prices. 31 Jamaica in that
year had a per capita Gross Domestic Product of just under £10,32 Jamaica,
and no doubt most of the rest of the Caribbean region, was much better off
than Haiti. There are no national income data for the latter in the nineteenth
century, but with per capita exports of no more than £0.7 sterling and a large
domestic subsistence sector, per capita product was likely to have been the
lowest in the Caribbean. 33
Broader comparisons are also of interest. The Cuban figure of £16.4, or
$78.7 in current US dollars, is slightly below estimates of southern per capita
US income in 1850. Juan Perez de la Riva has suggested that the western
region of Cuba, wherein was to be found most of the sugar complex, had a
per capita income of $350 in 1862, about the same as Sweden, France,
Switzerland and England in 1955. 34 This no doubt is an overstatement, but in
1850 the per capita output of Cuba must have ranked among the top half
dozen of the world's nations.
Indeed, the export economies of the Caribbean region probably had a
higher per capita income than Britain in both 1700 and 1770, and Britain
probably had the highest income of any of the eighteenth century Imperial
powers. 35 Most of the present income gap between Caribbean and the north
Atlantic countries has appeared in the late nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Eisner's estimates for Jamaica in 1850 and Moohr's for British
Guiana for 1852 are much closer to the mid-nineteenth century British figure
than is Eisner's 1930 estimate for Jamaica to the British figure for that year. It
is worth noting, however, that in the interim both the Jamaican and the
British trends were upwards. The British rate of increase was, however,
greater. 36
The extraordinarily high production of the Caribbean in this era points
to one central fact of slavery. As the above discussion points out, the
Caribbean plantation economies drew on markedly adult populations and
labour forces compared to other societies in Europe and North AmericaY
Even for those who were not in the prime working age range, work was a

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 General History of the Caribbean

requirement, and thus the effect of the age structure on productivity was
reinforced by a very high labour force participation rate. No doubt if employ-
ers in Europe had been able to extract the work input from their own work-
forces that slave owners did in the Caribbean from their slaves, per capita
product in Europe would not have lagged behind that of the Caribbean.
Slavery also made possible the gang labour in the fields that was anathema
to the unenslaved everywhere. Not until the factory system in Europe was it
possible to organize people into anything like the intensive work patterns of
a slave gang. And while the productivity of all plantation crops was
increased by such methods, the working conditions for sugar were more
severe - and therefore more detestable for workforces anywhere - than for
other crops. In other words, relative to free labour, slavery increased output
in the sugar sector by more than it increased output in, say, cotton cultiva-
tion. Because sugar featured so prominently in the Caribbean relative to
other plantation regions, slavery (and subsequently abolition) had a stronger
impact on the output of the Caribbean than that of the rest of the Americas.
Clearly if Caribbean plantations had to depend on free labour, they would
have produced both less and a different mix of cropS.38 Alternatively, with no
restriction on slavery, the Caribbean would not have lost ground to the rest
of the non-plantation Americas between 1770 and 1850. And if all the
Caribbean had populations as heavily adult as Cuba's and as high a labour
force participation rate, there would have been no fall in per capita output
over the same period.
The thrust of the above is that while slavery represented an abomina-
tion to which Europeans would not subject their fellOW-Europeans, the
institution for them at least did not seem to be economically irrational in
either its inception or its evolution. The plantation economy proved itself
well able to respond to opportunities as they presented themselves, as
shown by the explosive growth and diversification of output in St Domingue,
and in the British Caribbean. In the case of the latter the independence of
the US exerted enormous strains made worse by hurricanes in the aftermath
of the American Revolutionary Wars.39 But Barbados, the first major island
producer, maintained production through the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies. It did so, moreover, in the face of newer competitive regions opening
up. One method was to increase the proportion of sugar exports that were
clayed from 33 per cent in 1670 to 75 per cent in 1no, and converting the
extra molasses that resulted to rum. The 'decline' in Barbados sugar exports
by weight after 1720 was real enough, but was offset by the higher values. 40
Soil exhaustion was an issue only where land abundance made it cheaper to
move on than to fertilize. Barbados planters chose the second option and
maintained output beyond the ending of slavery. All the islands supported a
refining industry as long as they were allowed by the imperial government,

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 Slave economies of the Caribbean

and entered into joint ventures in the trade to mainland North America and
Africa.

The suppression of slavery and planter adaptability

The Caribbean system's responses to suppression of the slave trade and

slavery imposed by imperial governments, whether British, French, Danish,
Dutch or Spanish, provide further evidence of the flexibility of the planter
class. Between the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the ending of
slavery in 1834, British Caribbean planters switched resources back into the
more profitable sugar sector, utilized more women in the fields and, for
almost as long as slavery lasted, continued to produce more sugar than Cuba.
After emancipation, planters searched for methods to ensure a labour supply
and in some regions found one between the 'twin jaws of immigration and
land control'.41 As noted above, Cuban planters delayed the abolition of
slavery via the free-birth Moret Law of 1870. 42 Aided by technological change
in the form of centrales (large centralized mills), and the absence of competi-
tors using slave labour, Cuba became the one major sugar producing region
in the world where production was maintained in the aftermath of emancipa-
tion. After the upheavals of the French Wars 0791-1815) that included the
abolition and reinstitution of slavery - the remaining French Caribbean
expanded sugar output in the 1820s and 1830s with the aid of slaves drawn
from other crops as well as from Africa. The limits to French planter adapt-
ability were set by the ending of their own access to Africa in 1831, and
having to compete with Cuba's abundance of fertile land, open slave trade
and heavy capitalization. 43 Slave prices went up in the nineteenth century
partly because of restrictions on the supply of slaves, and partly because
technological change both on and off the plantation made slaves more
productive. These rising values triggered the reallocation of slaves. 44
Finally in this section we should note that the benefits of this slave
system in the form of profits accumulated to plantation owners, many of
whom, especially the English, lived in Europe. Servicing of the large capital
inflows made further claims on the income generated by the system. Yet it
seems clear that there were some nutritional gains for Caribbean slaves,
despite the well documented cases of periodic hunger, which often co-
incided with wars and hurricanes. The basis for this assessment comes from
several independent studies of the stature of slaves drawing on data from
many parts of the Caribbean and Africa. 45 These show that for the early nine-
teenth century at least, and after controlling for region of origin in Africa,
Creoles were 3 or 4 cm taller than their counterparts born in Africa - both
those living in the Caribbean as a result of the slave trade, and those

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 General History of the Caribbean

remaining on the African continent. It is possible that the increased role for
slave-controlled provision grounds and the internal marketing that character-
ized the late slavery period might have contributed to this phenomenon. It is
more likely, however, that intensive plantation labour at any stage in the
slave era was impossible without a commensurate calorie intake, and that
this resulted in net nutritional gains relative to Africa. These gains were,
however, below those experienced by slaves in the US south. 46

The Caribbean trading network

As possibly the most productive region in the world for over a century, the
Caribbean became the centre of a large trading network. Bridgetown,
Barbados was probably the busiest port in the Americas in the early
eighteenth century, Havana may have been the largest on the two continents
in 1778, and St Domingue and Jamaica also had major ports by the standards
of the time. Indeed, most of the major ports anywhere in the Americas
before 1800 were major because of their links with slave economies. 47 The
Navigation Acts steered ships from the British Caribbean to British ports, but
French ships could get licences to go to centres outside France, where in fact
most French sugar was sold. In the mid-eighteenth century, Hamburg had
more sugar refineries than any other European city, despite having no politi-
cal ties to a plantation area. Trade with mainland North America, however,
had never lagged far behind that of Europe, and had probably overtaken the
latter by the mid-nineteenth century. The English-speaking mainland was the
major source of timber and imported provisions for the Caribbean from the
late seventeenth century, and became an important supplier of shipping
services. As each national plantation system emerged, its trade with English
North America grew in step with exports of sugar to Europe. The mainland
took in return rum in the seventeenth century, molasses in the eighteenth
and sugar in the nineteenth, though molasses remained important well after
1850. By this time the US had replaced Europe as the Caribbean's major
customer not only for sugar, but for all plantation products grown in the
Americas, with the single exception of cotton. This change in direction of
trade was a function in part of geography, the dismantling of important
Imperial trading barriers - particularly those of Britain - and the emergence
of a protected beet sugar industry in Europe.
As we might expect for a traffic which focused exclusively on supply-
ing labour to a highly intensive system of production, trading links with
Africa never matched in value those with Europe and the rest of the
Americas. In 1770, for example, the value of African slaves brought to the
Caribbean was probably below £1.3 million sterling at a time when exports

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 Slave economies of the Caribbean

to Europe and mainland North America were five times this figure. Given the
failure of most Caribbean slave populations to reproduce themselves,
however, it is clear that the expansion of output described above could only
be sustained by the African link - at least before the nineteenth century.
Between 1640 and 1867 about 4.5 million Africans were carried into the
Caribbean, 40 per cent into the British Caribbean, 28 per cent into the
French, just over 20 per cent into the Spanish, and 10 per cent into Dutch
territory - although British ships were probably responsible for half of all
slaves carried. 48 The growth of the slave trade matched the growth of exports
of produce until about 1800, after which the slave trade to the Caribbean as a
whole declined, while output continued to expand.
Not all of this trade was in the hands of carriers based outside the
Caribbean. Merchants in all the British and French islands initiated trade with
both mainland North America and Africa throughout this period. Barbados
and Jamaican merchants ordered goods from England and organized slaving
voyages to Africa in the seventeenth century despite the Royal African
Company monopoly. In 1681 a merchant from Barbados found rum in
demand in West Africa and by the first decade of the eighteenth century the
English sugar islands were sending a dozen ships a year to Africa for slaves.
After 1810 most of the slave trade was in the hands of merchants based in
Cuba, many of Spanish origin. Only the occasional US-based ship and,
before 1825, slave traders from Nantes and other French cities, challenged
this domination. 49

Trading and North Atlantic economic development

The contentious question of the significance of the above patterns for the
economic development of the North Atlantic remains. The basic question
implicit in the above issue is how to explain the relative prosperity of the
developed world. In more specific (and over-simple) terms the issue might
be phrased around the relative contribution of domestic and external factors
in the industrialization process. It is striking how the divisions on the ques-
tion lie not between Marxist and non-Marxist historians, but rather within
each of these groups. For Maurice Dobb and Robert Brenner, for example,
class relations - in particular the separation of domestic workers from the
land - rather than external trade, is the key to European development. Most
neo-classically trained economic historians would agree with the emphasis
this approach puts on domestic factors in the growth process. 50 Those
stressil"!g the role of external trade may also be found on both sides of the
ideological divide. Non-Marxists such as the authors of the standard refer-
ence work on British economic growth have pointed to the correlation

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 General History of the Caribbean

between export and industrial growth in late eighteenth-century England. 51 In

broad support of this emphasis on external trade are historians influenced by
dependency theorists, although the first of these, Eric Williams, predated the
formal founding of dependency theory. For such scholars, the transfer of
surplus from an overseas periphery to a European core, and the reorganiza-
tion of the global labour force along geographically specialized lines were
the facilitating factors in the industrialization process. 52
There are several connections between the slave systems of the
Caribbean and European industrialization to explore. One argument is that
profits generated by the slave system augmented and cheapened the pool of
savings available in England for industrial investment so much that industrial-
ization would not have occurred in the absence of overseas slavery. A
second is that the slave system increased the demand for British goods and
services - particularly manufactured goods - at a critical time in the evolution
of the putting-out and factory methods of production. Indeed, the additional
demand, it is argued, triggered this evolution. This argument is often used in
association with the mUltiplier, or spread, effect of a given amount of spend-
ing. A third argument attempts to straddle the division between external and
internal factors alluded to above. This stresses the impact that newly avail-
able, cheaper tropical produce might have had on the ability or desire of the
English worker to work. Sometimes this is expressed in terms of calories and
energy levels, sugar (and for some potatoes) being a cheap substitute for
more traditional foods consumed by workers in Europe. A variant of this is
that sugar and other tropical products were sufficiently attractive products
that to acquire them European workers were prepared to work longer hours.
Whether through increasing energy levels or the changing leisure versus
goods preference, tropical products, it is argued, increased the supply of
labour in England at the outset of the industrialization process. The data
collected and discussed in this chapter point to the highly productive nature
of the Caribbean slave system, but this in itself does not indicate the origin or
consequences of that productivity for the evolution of the broader Atlantic
economy. In the absence of evidence of micro connections between specific
Caribbean planters or merchants on the one hand and industrial enterprises
on the other, arguments on such links can be evaluated only according to
the relative importance in macro (or at least sectorial) terms of the Caribbean
and European economies. The central empirical question is not the direction
of the effects raised in the literature and touched on above, but rather their
size. 53
The Caribbean may have been a world leader in per capita output, but
this did not mean that its total output was significant when compared to
Europe, where sugar was a relatively minor consumption item. Sugar refining
was an important industry in and around London, the Atlantic ports of

128
 Slave economies o/the Caribbean

France, Amsterdam and Hamburg. But as an input for European industry it

by no means approached the importance of such (slave produced) staples as
cotton, much less metallic ores, or fossil fuels produced by slave labour. Per
capita income and profits may well have been above what could have been
earned in Europe, but relative to all the other industries that went to feed,
clothe and shelter Europeans (say as a percentage of total consumer spend-
ing in Europe or England) it was minor. If we estimate the total output of the
Caribbean export economies at £3.5 million in 1700 and £14.5 million in
1770, neither could have been as much as one per cent of the size of the
European economy in either year. If we confine the comparison to the
British economy and the British Caribbean, then the proportions were larger
but still less than 6 per cent. The sugar component of this was, of course,
smaller again - less than 3 per cent of British consumption. It is also hard to
understand how items that formed such a small part of the consumer budget
could have had a large impact on patterns and levels of work.
If such proportions as 1 or 6 per cent seem significant then it should be
remembered that the same ptocedures used here to calculate the value of
sugar production would, if applied to other industries, yield much higher
percentages of English total income. Many industries, both within and
without the agricultural sector, had higher outputs and, prima facie, more
plaUSible strategic connections to the process of industrialization. Wheat pro-
duction and flour milling, breWing, construction, merchant shipping, woollen
textiles, coal mining, and a dozen other industries must have had much
larger total products than sugar. Even if growing sugar were five times as
profitable as growing wheat or mining coal, it would be hard to see it as a
vital contributor to the pool of savings that funded the industrial revolution,
or to the total demand for goods and services in the British economy. The
slave trade and the West Indian trade made up a small fraction of the total
British shipping, and a smaller fraction again of the transportation sector. The
export of manufactured goods to the Caribbean comprised a tiny fraction of
the total manufacturing output of Britain - a proportion which does not
become significant if we include Africa and the southern US. Why would
tropical products be more significant as a trigger for expanded output (or
expanded work effort) throughout the economy than the goods absorbed by
any other single industry (or even group of industries) - also likely to impart
mUltiplier effects - either at home or overseas? On the profit issue, there can
be no question that sugar growing in the Caribbean and indeed any activity
that forces people under tightly controlled conditions to work intensively,
was profitable. If rates of return on capital had not been higher in the
Caribbean sugar complex than in a myriad of European-based economic
activities, then capital would not have left Europe and the history of the
Caribbean would have been quite different. But in the absence of barriers to

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 General History of the Caribbean

capital flows, a profit that did more than compensate for the higher risks of
transoceanic enterprise is unlikely. If this was not the case it is hard to see
why capitalists in Britain would not have taken advantage of higher returns
in the West Indies and in the process eliminated the differential. The present
data provi4e;s much support for a minor, as a major role for the Caribbean.
An alternative to arguments discussed above on the nature of the
Caribbean-British economic links - not much discussed in the literature - is
that the impulse for capital intensive development and increased trans-
oceanic trade in the Caribbean came from technological improvements
within the domestic English economy. The most important of such improve-
ments were not innovations associated with the factory system, but rather
changes in social values, vital rates and market-oriented behaviour, that had
already raised European living standards beyond those of the rest of the
world by 1600. 54 One of the narrower consequences of these changes, all of
which preceded the sugar revolution, was reduced production costs. Thus
Europeans exported their economic system through cheaper goods and capital
outflows. The establishment of overseas colonies that these made possible
often meant slavery for non-Europeans. Rather than slavery in the Americas
causing growth in Europe, perhaps both long-run economic growth in Europe
and slavery in the Americas had the same roots in underlying economic and
social trends already well established in north-western Europe by 1700.
We might conclude with one implication of this 'small-ratios' argument.
Abolition meant reduced output of sugar and the apparent marginalization of
the Caribbean from a European-centred perspective. But abolition becomes
less remarkable if we keep in mind the relative importance of the Caribbean.
The term 'econocide' has been coined to describe the impact of abolition.
But if sugar growing was not a massive or vital activity in the overall
European scheme of things, or more accurately if there were other alternative
sources of sugar or sweeteners available, then the European shutting down
of the slave systems between 1792 (Danish abolition of the slave trade) and
1886 (Cuban abolition of slavery) appears less paradoxicaI.55

NOTES

The research for this chapter was funded by the Canadian Social Science and
Humanities Research Council and the Queen's University Advisory Research
Committee. I would like to thank Stanley Engennan for comments on an earlier draft.

1 By the late nineteenth century, the surviving Caribs were limited to Dominica
and St Vincent.
2 The relationship of European economic development to that of the Caribbean
and indeed the rest of the non-European world, remains a contentious con-

130
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

temporary issue. However all participants in the debate appear to recognize a

European lead of some proportions prior to the establishment of worldwide
European empires. Indeed, this lead helps explain European expansion. See, for
example, Eric Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and
Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1981) and Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, 3 vols. (New
York: Academic Press, 1974-87).
3 Calculated from John J. McCusker, The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments
of the Thirteen Continental Colonies, 1650-1775 (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1991), pp. 584,692-708; Christian Schnakenbourg, 'Statistique pour
l'histoire de l'economie de la plantation en Guadeloupe et Martinique
(1635-1835)', Bulletin de la Societe de la Guadeloupe, 31 (1977), pp. 41, 44.
4 'A discription of ye Careeby Islands', n.d. but c. mid-1660s, British Public Record
Office (henceforth PRO), CO 324/1. p. 184.
5 Stuart Schwartz, 'Free Labor in a Slave Economy: The Lavradores de cana of
Colonial Brazil', in Dauril Alden (ed.), The Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 147-97; Stuart Schwartz,
Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), pp. 295-337; Stuart Schwartz, 'Colonial Brazil,
c.1580-<:.1750: Plantations and Peripheries', Cambridge History of Latin America.
6 Hilary McD. Beckles, White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados,
1627-1715 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), pp. 27-35, 115-25.
7 The English did not transfer Suriname to the Dutch until 1668. Slaves were
already arriving in the colony directly from Africa in English ships before this
point.
8 The standard works on the origins and early implementation of these regu-
lations and policies remain Stewart L. Mims, Colbert's West India Policy (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1912); Lawrence A. Harper, The English
Navigation Laws: A Seventeenth Century Experiment in Social Engineering
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), and Andres V. Castillo, Spanish
Mercantilism: Geronimo de Uztariz (New York: Columbia University, 1930). See
more recently, Geoffrey J. Walker, Spanish Politics and Imperial Trade,
1700-1789 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980).
9 See the discussion of smuggling in seventeenth and eighteenth-century America
in McCusker, The Rum Trade, especially, pp. 301-10. This work may be read as
correcting the wide misconceptions on the extent of trading in a commodity
long regarded, after tea perhaps, as the quintessential smuggled good.
10 Calculated from McCusker, The Rum Trade, pp. 584, 692-708; Schnakenbourg,
'Statistique pour l'histoire', pp. 41, 44. Cf. David Watts, The West Indies: Patterns
of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), 'pp. 311-20, although Watts does not appear
to have incorporated either the Schnakenbourg or McCusker archival data in his
estimates. Population data for seventeenth century Brazil are limited. Roberto
C. Simonsen, Historia Economica do Brasil (1500/1820), 6th edition (Sao Paulo:
Editora Nacional, 1969), p. 271 suggests 110 000 slaves in Brazil in 1660. This
seems very high in view of the first reliable census data 64 years later. For this
calculation I have taken Schwartz'S data from his source (for the captaincy of
Bahia in 1724 - Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian SOciety, p. 88)
and adjusted them downward in proportion to changes in sugar exports from

131
 General History of the Caribbean

Bahia between 1698--1702 and 1721-25 (Schwartz, Sugar Plantations,

pp. 502-3). I have further assumed that the slave population of Brazil was
double that of the captaincy of Bahia in 1700. This suggests a slave population
of about 55 000 in that year. The great unknown is Spanish America. The low
level of specie exports from and slave imports into this region at the end of the
seventeenth century would ·suggest a small slave population.
11 The figures cited most commonly in the literature are exports to the mother
country not distinguished by grade of sugar, whereas these estimates are for
total production of muscovado equivalence and thus are rather higher. By far
the most careful estimates of sugar and rum production are in McCusker, The
Rum Trade, pp. 152, 171, 180, 187, 193, 215 (available in thesis format in 1970,
though published only in 1991), and I have followed his adjustments to musco-
vado equivalences and allowance for domestic consumption and rum pro-
duction. It is surprising how much Caribbean economic history has been written
since 1970 without reference to McCusker's data. English Caribbean output here
is simply the sum of his estimates for the different islands converted to metric
tons. Schwartz'S data on Bahian sugar exports suggest that McCusker's sources
for Brazilian output exaggerated production in Brazil. An average of Bahian
exports, 1697-1702 (Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society,
p. 502), adjusted to muscovado equivalency, and allowing exports at 85 per cent
of production, and Bahian production at 40 per cent of Brazilian output (and it
was probably higher than this), yields Brazilian sugar production of 10700
metric tons. For French data there are scattered export and production data in
Schnakenbourg, 'Statistiques pour l'histoire', pp. 97, 115, 12, a figure of
1000 metric tons is guessed for St Domingue. For Dutch data see Johannes
Menne Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 171, 411. For comments of one well
known contemporary on Barbados see Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade
(London, 1669), p. 220.
12 Molasses imports to Great Britain averaged 29 000 gallons a year, 1698--1702;
imports to British North America were probably ten times as much (McCusker,
The Rum Trade, pp. 218, 421, 930). Rum exports from Barbados alone,
1698--1700 averaged 467 000 gallons (calculated from Richard Pares, Yankees
and Creoles: The Trade Between North America and the West Indies before the
American Revolution (London: Longman's, 1956), p. 98. Antigua and Jamaica
were already major producers and it seems reasonable to double the Barbados
total to arrive at the English Caribbean total. Richard Sheridan, however, puts
English Caribbean rum exports to British North America at only 325 000 gallons
in 'the years prior to 1712' (Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the
British West Indies, 162,3-1775 (Eagle Hall, Barbados: University of the West
Indies, 1974), p. 341.
13 Clarence J. Munford, The Black Ordeal of Slavery and Slave Trading in the
French West Indies, 162~1715, 3 vols. (Lewiston: E. Mellon, 1991), 2, pp. 519,
521.
14 Total Caribbean sugar production is taken to be 57 000 metric tons in 1700
(British, 40 000; French, 11 000; Dutch, 5000; Danish, 1000; - Cuba excluded).
The product of this and the London mean sugar price for 1698--1702
(37.9 shillings per cwt of 112 Ib reduced by one-third to approximate a
Caribbean fob price) is £1.286 million. These assessments are rough because of

132
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

the paucity of data on prices and quantities for minor plantation products in the
early eighteenth century. For London sugar price series as well as prices of
molasses and rum, see McCusker, The Rum Trade, pp. 1104, 1130, 1136, 1143.
Cf. a careful contemporary estimate of the total value of English plantation
production for 1666 of £800 000 valued in London. This is equivalent to about
£500 000 valued in the Caribbean. (Anon, The State of the Case of the Sugar
Plantations in the Americas n.d. but c.1670, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson mss A
478, p. 63).
15 Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados ... (London:
Parker & Guy, 1673), pp. 22-39, especially p. 37; Richard N. Bean, 'Food
Imports into the British West Indies: 1680-1845', in Vera Rubin and Arthur
Tuden (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation
Societies (New York: Academy of Sciences, 1977), pp. 581-90; Francisco
A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 18~ 1850 (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 4-6.
16 The earliest systematic data on the composition of the total product of a slave
economy is from Jamaica at the end of the slave period. See Gisela Eisner,
Jamaica, 1830-1930: A Study in Economic Growth (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1961), pp. 2H2; and B. W. Higman, Slave Population and
Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1976), pp. 36--42. For an earlier period an idea of the non-export goods and
services produced and consumed may be drawn from Jerome 5. Handler and
Frederick W. Lange, Plantation Slavery in Barbados: An Archeological and
Historical Investigation (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1978), pp. 86-102.
17 Where only export data were available I extended McCusker's rule of thumb in
dividing these by 0.85 to reach a production figure whenever the product was
likely to be consumed locally. For products where such local consumption was
likely to be minimal, the divisor was taken as 0.95 - baSically to allow for
wastage.
18 Ideally all values should be based on prices prevailing in the region of pro-
duction, but this one-price method is in fact widely used - including in UN
agencies - to effect quick international comparisons.
19 McCusker, The Rum Trade, pp. 201-10, 447-8, 879-997.
20 John Robert McNeill, Atlantic Empires of France and Spain: Louisbourg and
Havana, 17~1763 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985),
pp. 191-3 has argued that the sugar revolution was well under way in Cuba
before the English occupation of Havana in 1762. This was undoubtedly the
case, but Table 3.1 still shows Cuba lagging well behind the British and French
in 1770. Indeed, Cuban sugar output did not overtake that of the French until
after the 5t Domingue slave revolt, and remained behind British output until the
abolition of British slavery in 1833.
21 Robert Louis Stein, The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), pp. 160-1; Noel Deerr, The
History of Sugar (London: Chapman & Hall, 1950), pp. 429-30; Seymour
Drescher, Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), pp. 51-2. A comparison of sugar prices in
the French and British Caribbean is possible. London sugar prices are in
McCusker, The Rum Trade, p. 1143, and their Nantes counterparts in Tarrade, Le

133
 General History of the Caribbean

commerce colonial de France, p. 772. Allowance for wastage, freight rates, port
charges, insurance and duty where appropriate (see Ralph Davis, The Rise of the
English Shipping Industry in the 17th and 18th Centuries (London: 1962),
pp. 283-5, and in the French case, Stein, The French Sugar Business in the
Eighteenth Century, pp. 69, 160-1 for details), suggests a Caribbean fob price
65 per cent of the London price, and 70 per cent of the Nantes price. This yields
a British Caribbean price of 21 shillings, and a French counterpart of
10.7 shillings per cwt.
22 For a debate relevant to this issue in the British case see Richard B. Sheridan,
'The Wealth of Jamaica in the Eighteenth Century', Economic History Review, 18
(1965), pp. 292-311; and 'The Wealth of Jamaica in the Eighteenth Century: A
Rejoinder', Economic History Review, 21 (1968), pp. 46-61; Robert Paul Thomas,
'The Sugar Colonies of the Old Empire: Profit or Loss for Great Britain?'
Economic History Review, 21 (1968), pp. 30-45.
23 Data for years between 1770 and 1850 are spotty, at least before 1800. It would
seem, however, that the trend to slower growth in sugar (as opposed to non-
sugar) output was established before the 1791 outbreak of the revolution in
St Domingue. British imports of sugar (all from British sources) increased only
4 per cent between 1772-74 and 1788-90 after declining temporarily during and
after the American Revolution (calculated from Carrington, The British West
Indies, p. 174). Exports of sugar from the French Caribbean also changed little
in those years - though non-sugar produce expanded rapidly down to 1791
(Drescher, Econocide, pp. 196-7). After 1791 the collapse of sugar production in
St Domingue was accompanied by rapid expansion elsewhere in the Caribbean,
particularly the British areas, at least until 1807. What all this suggests for the
overall trend is that most of the one per cent average annual growth in
aggregate output between 1770 and 1850 was concentrated in this period.
24 It should nevertheless be noted that within this period both Jamaica, in the early
years of the century, and Cuba, in the 1820s and 1830s, had produced sub-
stantially more coffee than had Haiti.
25 Douglas Hall, FreeJamaica, 1838-65: An Economic History (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1959), pp. 12, 39; Eisner, Jamaica, pp. 25, 43; Michael Moohr,
'The Economic Impact of Slave Emancipation in British Guiana', Economic
History Review, 25 (1972), pp. 5~07; Herbert S. Klein and Stanley
L. Engerman, 'The Transition from Slave to Free Labor: An Economic Model', in
Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Frank Moya Pons and Stanley L. Engerman (eds),
Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the
Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985),
pp. 25~9.
26 The ratio of exports to total income may have changed between 1700 and 1850
in the major slave economies. No allowance is made for this here. To the extent
that exports formed a larger proportion of total economic activity in the earlier
period than in the late slave era, then the estimates of total product for 1700 and
1770 derived from the procedure described here would have to be reduced.
27 The population estimates used for the 1770 per capita figure are from McCusker,
The Rum Trade, and for 1850, estimates have been interpolated from Chapter 2
of this volume: Stanley L. Engerman and B. W. Higman, 'The Demographic
Structure of the Caribbean Slave Societies in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries' .

134
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

28 It is worth noting that the years chosen, particularly 1770 and 1850, straddle eras
characterized by inflation and deflation, but little net change.
29 Ratios calculated from US War Department, Report on the Census of Cuba, 1899
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900), p. 710; B. W. Higman (ed.),
The jamaican Censuses of 1844 and 1866 (Mona, Jamaica: Caldwell Press,
1980), p. 7; B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean,
1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 462;
E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England (London:
Edward Arnold, 1981), p. 529. Some adjustment was made for slightly different
age categories in these sources. For similar discrepancies between the US and
Cuba in 1861 see Jack Eblen, 'On the Natural Increase of Slave Populations: The
Example of the Cuban Black Population, 1775-1900', in Stanley 1. Engerman
and Eugene D. Genovese (eds), Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere:
Quantitative Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 231. For
age and sex in the slave trade see David Eltis and Stanley 1. Engerrnan, 'Was the
Slave Trade Really Dominated by Men', journal of Interdisciplinary History, 23
(992), pp. 237-57. For the early Caribbean see Hilary McD. Beckles, Natural
Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1989), pp. 7-23. See Higman, Slave PopulatiOns in the
British Caribbean, especially pp. 135-47, for the full exposition of the demo-
graphic impact of the ending of the slave trade.
30 Robert W. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American
Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 84-102; David Eltis,
Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 185-204. Comparisons over time
naturally depend on which valuation procedure is used. As noted above, the
1700 valuation here is made with estimates of prices in the British Caribbean,
the 1770 valuation with prices in the French Caribbean, and for 1850 prices
for Spanish produce are used. Because of the marked price differential
between French and British sugar in the Caribbean in 1770, different long-term
trends would be apparent if the British instead of French prices were used
for that year (see n. 21 on this). A calculation for the Caribbean in 1770 using
the British price of sugar yielded a gross income of £21.5 million and a per
capita income of £20.8. The British price, it should be noted, was a highly
protected one, and it seems inappropriate to apply this to the Caribbean as a
whole.
31 Output values by crop are given for the Spanish Caribbean rather than Cuba
per se in Table 3.2, but a figure for Cuba is readily extracted on the basis of the
output data supplied in the table.
32 Calculated from Eisner, jamaica, p. 46, using a Jamaican population figure of
398 700 (calculated from W. A. Green, British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar
Colonies and the Great Experiment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976),
p.316)).
33 An upper-bound per capita Haitian export figure is estimated by dividing the
value of coffee output in Row 1 of Table 3.2 by an estimated population of
~29000.
34 Juan Perez de la Riva, 'Aspectos demograficos y su importancia en el proceso
revolucionario del siglo XIX', in Uni6n de Periodistas de Cuba (Havana: Ciencias
Sociales, 1968), pp. 30-49 cited in Francisco L6pez Segrera, 'Cuba: Dependence,

135
 General History of the Caribbean

Plantation Economy and Social Classes, 1762-1902', in Moreno Fraginals, Moya

Pons and Engerman (eds), Between Slavery and Free Labor, pp. 85-6.
35 Modifications of 'social tables' for England and Wales for 1688 and 1759 can be
found in Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, 'Revising England's Social
Tables, 1688-1913', Explorations in Economic History, 19 (1982). Dividing the
national income for 1688 and 1759 by population estimates in Wrigley and
Schofield, The Population History of England, Table A 3.3 yields a per capita
figure of about £11 sterling (current prices) compared to £14 or £14.5 in the
Caribbean for 1700 and 1770 respectively. These are all in current prices, but
adjusting for inflation would not change much. For a similar exercise using real
values and focusing on the British Americas that comes to conclusions broadly
consistent with his discussion, see Stanley 1. Engerman, 'Notes on the Pattern of
Economic Growth in the British North American Colonies in the Seventeenth,
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', in Paul Bairoch and Maurice Levy-
Leboyer (eds), Disparities in Economic Development since the Industrial
Revolution (New York: 1981), pp. 46-57.
36 Eisner, Jamaica, p. 289; Moohr, 'Economic Impact of Slave Emancipation',
B. R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), pp. 845-46. The sub-title of Eisner's book should be noted in this
context: that is, 'A Study of Economic Growth'.
37 Engerman and Higman, 'The Demographic Structure', Chapter 2.
38 See the exchange in the American Historical Review between 1977 and 1980
on the issue, triggered by the publication of Robert W. Fogel and Stanley
Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery
(Boston: Little Brown, 1974).
39 See Selwyn H. H. Carrington, The British West Indies During the American
Revolution (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1988).
40 McCusker, The Rum Trade, pp. 201-10.
41 Sidney W. Mintz, 'Slavery and the Rise of Peasantries', Historical Reflections, 6
(1979), pp. 213-42. For a detailed study of the reallocation of slave labour forces
between 1807 and 1834 in the British Caribbean see Higman, Slave Populations
in the British Caribbean, pp. 72-121, 158-204.
42 Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor,
1860-1899 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 63-110,201-54.
43 The tribulations of the sugar industry in Martinique and Guadeloupe are
detailed in Dale Tomich, Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar. Martinique and the
World Economy, 1830-1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990),
and Christian Schnakenbourg, Histoire de l'industrie sucriere en Guadeloupe aux
XIX' et XX' siecles. Tome 1· La crise du systeme esclavagiste (1835-1847), Paris:
L'Harmattan, 1980). In both works there is a strong sense of the inevitability of
the decline in the slave system because of innate weaknesses. However,
pressure on the French Caribbean planters came from without rather than within
the system. France suppressed the slave trade with Mrica by 1831, and Cuba -
the government of which actively encouraged slavery and the slave trade - was
able to produce sugar at lower cost. The Cuban planter was apparently unaware
of any inherent weaknesses of slavery.
44 For a fuller exposition of this argument see Eltis, Economic Growth, Chapter 11.
45 B. W. Higman, 'Growth in Mro-Caribbean Slave Populations', AmericanJoumal
of Physical Anthropology, 50 (1979), pp. 373-85; Gerald C. Friedman in 'The

136
 Slave economies of the Caribbean

Heights of Slaves in Trinidad', Social Science History, 6 (982), pp. 482-515;

David Eltis, 'Nutritional Trends in Africa and the Americas: Heights of Africans,
1819-1839', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 12(982), pp. 453-75; Manuel
Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba: A Quantitative Analysis of the African
Population in the Island of Cuba', in Rubin and Tuden (eds), Comparative
Perspectives on Slavery, pp. 179-99.
46 Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, pp. 138-47.
47 See tables of ship clearances in Appendices 2, 3 and 4 in Ian K. Steele, The
English Atlantic: An Exploration of Communication and Community (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986). For Havana, St Domingue and Jamaica,
see Allan J. Kuethe, 'Havana in the Eighteenth Century', David Geggus, 'The
Major Port Towns of Saint-Domingue in the Later Eighteenth Century',
B. W. Higman, 'Jamaican Port Towns in the Early Nineteenth Century', and
Jacob M. Price, 'Summation: The American Panorama of Atlantic Port Cities', all
in Franklin W. Knight and Peggy K. Liss (eds) , Atlantic Port Cities: Economy,
Culture and Society in the Atlantic World, 165~1850 (Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1991).
48 For 1770-1867 see Table 2.2 of Engerman and Higman in Chapter 2 of this
volume. For pre-1700, see David Eltis, 'The Transatlantic Slave Trade to the
British Americas Before 1714: Annual Estimates of Volume, Direction and
African Origins'. Paper given to the Conference on Lesser Antilles, Hamilton
College, Clinton, New York, 9-11 October, 1992.
49 For the beginning of the direct trade to Africa from the Caribbean based on rum
see E. Stede and S. Gascoigne, 26 March, 1683, PRO Series T 70/16 Folio 49. For
the French nineteenth century slave trade see Serge Daget, Repertoire des
expeditions negrieresfran~aises ala traite iltegale (1814-1850) (Paris: Societe
d'histoire d'Outre-mer, 1988).
50 Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (New York:
International Publishers, 1963); Robert Brenner, 'The Origins of Capitalist
Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism', New Left Review, 104
(1977), pp. 25-92.
51 PhylliS Deane and Wiliam Cole, British Economic Growth, 1688-1959, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 309-12. On the slave
system's role see, for example, David Richardson, 'The Slave Trade, Sugar and
British Economic Growth, 1748-1776', in Barbara L. Solow and Stanley
Engerman (eds) , British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 103-33.
52 It might be noted that among the latter.group there is no agreement on which
branch of external trade was critical. For some it is the trade with the slave
complex of the Caribbean or more generally the Americas. For others the slave
trade itself at once aided British industrialization and prevented an African
counterpart. For others again, the drain from India to Britain is the key.
53 One of the most comprehensive surveys of these mechanisms is a chapter in a
forthcoming volume by Robin Blackburn.
54 Jones, The European Miracle.
55 Drescher, Econocide; Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, pp. 215-16.

137
 4

THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE

SLAVE SOCIETIES IN THE CARIBBEAN l

Gad Heuman

T HE social structure of the slave societies in the Caribbean can best be

understood by examining the complex interplay of race, colour,
gender, occupation, caste and class. This is in part because these soci-
eties evolved in a similar pattern. Europeans largely destroyed the native
Amerindian population, imported Africans as slave labourers, and developed
the plantation system. Although slaves formed the backbone of these
societies, the other social groups were also significant. Whites not only con-
trolled the economies of the Caribbean colonies but also dominated their
politics and society. Coloureds, who were originally the offspring of unions
between whites and blacks, complicated the social structure. Some were
freed and formed an important element in the social structure of these
societies.
The relative position of the three major elements in Caribbean slave
society - slaves, freedmen 2 and whites - can generally be represented by
using the model of a triangle. It is possible to divide the triangle into three
uneven sections by means of lines paralleling the base. A small section is
thus created at the top, and there is a slightly larger one in the middle. The
largest sector is at the bottom.
In the case of the Caribbean slave societies, the three sections of the
triangle were based on distinctions of colour, custom and legal status. Slaves,
who formed the overwhelming majority of most Caribbean slave societies,
were at the bottom. They were distinguished from other groups in the triangle
by their colour and by their condition as slaves. Although there was generally
a small percentage of slaves of mixed race, most of the slaves were black.
The second and smaller tier in the triangle was usually made of freed-
men. In most of the societies of the Caribbean, this group was dominated
numerically by free coloureds, that is people of mixed race. The members of
this tier, which often included significant numbers of free blacks, were
subject to a variety of legal disabilities. Freedmen were differentiated from
whites, who occupied the top of the triangle, by colour and also by the legal

138
 Social structure of the slave societies

restrictions imposed on the free coloureds and free blacks. With few excep-
tions, whites enjoyed full freedom; they also exercised the political and
economic power within these societies. The triangle therefore reflects more
than simply a social system, it also mirrors power relationships among the
various groups.
Movement between the various sectors of the triangle was possible.
Manumitted slaves became freedmen, and freedmen could be pushed down
into slavery. A very few free people of colour entered the white section,
either by 'passing' as whites or on the basis of wealth. However, whites
usually did not fall below their sector at the top of the triangle. Movement
was easiest and most fluid between the top of the slave portion of the
triangle and the bottom of the freedmen category.
The term 'caste' has been used in the Caribbean context to describe
these elements of the social structure during slavery. Caste used in this
context does not denote the permanent social, religiOUS and economic
hierarchies associated with such groupings in India. Rather, the term in the
Caribbean suggests highly differentiated segments which none the less allow
some movement between them. There was also an internal stratification
within each caste based largely on social and economic divisions. The social
and economic indices of both the white and freedmen groups were wealth
and occupation, although the freedmen divided additionally on the basis of
colour and on the nature of their freedom. The divisions among the slaves
included origin, colour and occupation.

The slave caste

It is arguable that there were more divisions within the slave caste than
among the whites or freedmen. For example, the origin of slaves was a
crucial distinction among them. In the early period of settlement, the ethnic
or regional origins of the African-born slaves proved to be of great import-
ance. Africans spoke different languages and could not always easily commu-
nicate with each other. Even for the eighteenth century, for example, Gabriel
Debien lists 26 different ethnic groups in St Domingue. Some Africans in
Jamaica, such as the Akan-speaking slaves originating from the Gold Coast,
apparently did not mix with the other slaves and were disliked by them.
Slaves from this area were also heavily involved in most of the rebellions of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to Orlando Patterson,
this may have reflected the group's social isolation from the rest of the
African slaves. 3 Ethnic rivalry among Africans was thus of considerable
importance in preventing even more slave rebellions.

139
 General History of the Caribbean

It was not only Africans' mistrust of other Africans which divided early
slave society. Creole, or Caribbean-born slaves, usually regarded themselves
as superior to those directly from Africa. In St Domingue, these slaves
mocked newly-arrived bossales and sometimes exploited them.4 Elsewhere,
Creole slaves often derogatively labelled slaves from Africa as 'salt-water
Negroes' or 'Guineabirds'.5 The specific African origin of slaves and then the
question of African or Caribbean birth were therefore significant barriers to
early slave unity.
With the development of Caribbean slave society in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, occupational differentiation - often linked to differ-
ences of colour and to gender - served to divide slaves further. The three
major groups were domestic, skilled and field slave, although there were
often important subdivisions within each of these categories. There was a
hierarchy among the slaves; those who were in charge of specific areas, were
skilled, or worked as head domestics were the elite slaves, at least from the
point of view of the slave masters. It was the slave owners who determined
the rankings among slaves and who had the power to promote or demote
slaves from one group to another. Moreover, status was often related to
colour. Slaves of mixed race did not generally work in the lowest status jobs
in the field.
A significant proportion of domestic slaves in the Caribbean were
coloured women, although there were relatively few coloured domestics in
the French colonies. For slave women, work in and around the great house -
as washerwomen, cooks and nursemaids - was one of the few areas of
advancement out of the fields. Domestic slaves had far less personal freedom
than field slaves and may have been isolated from the slave community and
from kin; moreover, they had to respond to the demands of their masters at
almost any time. Yet they ate and dressed better than field slaves and had a
greater chance of being manumitted. As Gabriel Debien has shown for the
French Caribbean, domestic slaves could be fiercely loyal to their master,
even at times when the slave owners were under attack by other slaves. 6
House slaves were not a significant part of some early slave societies. A
mid-seventeenth century resident of Barbados, when slavery was just devel-
oping in the colony, reported that very few domestics were allowed inside
their master's house. By the end of the century, however, this was no longer
the case as house slaves had become a far more common feature of slave
society; indeed, by that time, many domestics were dressed in liveryJ
Like domestics, many skilled slaves were coloured, but unlike house
slaves, nearly all artisans were male. They performed a wide and often very
important range of tasks on the plantations and in the wider community.
Edward Brathwaite has found that carpenters, millwrights and coppersmiths
were among the most highly-valued skilled slaves, followed by coopers,

140
 Social structure of the slave societies

sawyers, distillers and midwives. 8 The boilerman, who was in charge of

making the sugar, was one of the most important slaves on any plantation.
On a large estate, there could be several artisans in many of these categories,
with a head slave, such as a head boilerman or head cooper, in charge of
each.
Skilled slaves enjoyed a degree of mobility denied to most slaves. Some
of them would have been 'hired-out' to other owners, either on plantations
or in towns. Though financial arrangements differed in various colonies,
many slaves in this group would have earned money, out of which they paid
their owners an agreed sum and provided for their own upkeep. Any
remaining earnings could be saved toward the purchase of their freedom.
The lifestyle of these slaves, and especially those living in towns, was
very different from that of most slaves rooted on plantations. Commenting on
the situation in Tortola, one of the Virgin Islands, Elsa Goveia found that
owners were very concerned about slaves who were allowed to live in towns
as housekeepers or artisans. Since these slaves were living apart from their
masters, the legislature of the Virgin Islands passed a law compelling slaves
to live on the same premises as their owners. As this example suggests,
skilled slaves were sometimes affected more by the demands of their work
than by their legal condition as slaves. 9
In Cuba, urban slaves worked in a variety of different jobs from
the early sixteenth century onwards. For example, female slaves operated the
taverns, the eating houses and lodges of Havana. In addition, they were the
laundresses, the domestic labourers, and the prostitutes of the town. Urban
male slaves were involved in the building trades, in ship construction, and in
many other skilled tasks. As elsewhere in the Caribbean, these skilled slaves
had a significant degree of mobility. Herbert Klein has concluded that the
hiring-out of these slaves 'usually meant complete freedom for the slave to
live where he chose and to set up his business the way he wished - renting
space, making contracts, and so forth - in short to be a free artisan in all but
name.,jQ
These patterns continued in nineteenth-century Cuba. As Franklin
Knight has pointed out, it was easier for slaves in the towns to establish
more personal relationships with their owners than on large plantations in
the countryside. This meant that urban slaves were far more likely to gain
their freedom than their counterparts on the estates. Moreover, urban slaves
enjoyed a less regimented existence: they could join Afro-Cuban cabildos
(lodges) and drink in taverns with their carabelas (shipmates from Africa).l1
However, the mass of slaves, known as field slaves, did not have these
possibilities. On the contrary, they not only did the manual work on the
plantations, but they were also the most poorly dressed among all the slaves
and their homes were the least well furnished. 12 The field slaves were

141
 General History of the Caribbean

predominantly black, they had a significant proportion of African-born slaves

among them, and they consisted of men and women. On many estates, this
group of slaves was divided into three work gangs, although there were
sometimes four gangs on larger plantations. The first gang was the strongest;
it consisted of men and women who did the most laborious tasks on the
estate. On sugar plantations, this gang was responsible for such jobs as
cutting the cane and preparing the ground for planting. The second gang
included weaker and pregnant slaves who performed more minor tasks
while the third gang, made up mostly of children, also did less demanding
work such as weeding. Each gang had a slave driver, and there was also a
head driver responsible for all the gangs. 13
The organization of slave labour followed this pattern throughout the
sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean. However, not all slaves went to
plantation colonies. Belize was a case in point. There, the export crop was
not sugar but rather timber. The extraction of mahogany and logwood
require a very different form of labour organization than the cultivation of
sugar. In Belize, slaves worked in groups of ten or twelve in extracting
timber rather than in gangs of a hundred or more. Again, in contrast to the
large sugar plantations with 300 or 400 slaves, small groups of slaves in
Belize worked with their owners in cutting the wood. Although the work
was often difficult and dangerous, Nigel Bolland has concluded that 'life for
the timber-cutting slave was less regimented, better provided for, and subject
to less arbitrary and cruel punishment than was life for a slave on a sugar
plantation.'14
There were other Caribbean societies which did not produce sugar.
Slaves in Barbuda grew provisions for the plantations in Antigua. Many in the
Bahamas made their living from salvaging shipping wrecks, those in Bonaire
mined salt, and slaves in Spanish Santo Domingo were involved in ranching
as well as growing coffee and tobacco. Even on sugar plantation colonies,
such as Cuba, slaves grew coffee and other commodities, which involved a
different structure and generally meant less onerous conditions for the slaves.
Whatever the commodity, however, there was still considerable differentia-
tion among the slaves.
The drivers and the skilled slaves were thus treated very differently
from the rest of the slaves. Slave owners gave them more provisions,
provided them with better housing, and ensured that they were better
clothed. On the Codrington estates of Barbados, skilled slaves were espe-
cially well treated. For example, a mid-eighteenth century account book
included a pair of shoes for the slave blacksmith, Sandy. Sandy also received
4s to replace goods stolen by other slaves, indicating special concern for this
artisan slave as well as the degree of his own personal wealth. Towards the
end of the century, two first gang drivers received cash rewards of 6s. 3d.

142
 Social structure of the slave societies

each, and their successors in the nineteenth century received annual awards
of 20s and two pairs of shoes. IS Moreover, it was common practice for
visiting absentee owners to give each headman a special gift. In Cuba, such
slaves were known as contramayorales or assistants to the whites; these
posts carried with them considerable prestige and authority.16
The authority of the head slaves was reflected in their relationships
with less elite slaves. Head slaves in St Vincent and Trinidad, for example,
maintained their social distance from the rest of the slave community. A
nineteenth-century observer of these societies, Mrs Carmichael, reported 'an
abundance of nominal ladies and gentlemen among slaves.'

Drivers (that is, black overseers), head boilermen, head coopers,

carpenters or masons, head servants, these are all Mr so and so: a field
Negro, if asked to go and tell a boilerman to come to his master,
returns and says - Massa, Mr .... will be here directly. They say,
'Ma'am', to a domestic servant; or if a servant be sent on a message
from another family tells you, 'there is a good lady wishes to speak wid
you.' Second boilermen, etc. etc. are not quite gentlemen, but stand in
a middle rank, between the first, or gentlemen, and the third, or
common field Negro and under domestics.

According to Mrs Carmichael, a driver was frequently allowed a slave of his

own. At the weekend, head slaves hired other slaves to work their provision
grounds for them. 17
Slaves thus helped to reinforce the categories established by their
masters, although slaves undoubtedly had their own hierarchies as well.
Differences of occupation, origin and colour were all significant within the
slave communities; moreover, it was far more likely that members of the elite
group would either be manumitted or be able to purchase their own
freedom. While the overwhelming majority of slaves never enjoyed these
possibilities, it was the coloured, the skilled and the favoured who made
their way into the freedmen caste.

The freedmen caste

The freedmen caste consisted initially of manumitted slaves. Privileged slaves
were the most likely to be freed or to have the ability to purchase their
freedom. There was another possibility: the state manumitted some slaves
who revealed potential rebellions or discovered foreign conspiracies.
However, the number of freedmen in early Caribbean slave society was very
small. DebienJound that there were only 505 freedmen in Martinique in 1696

143
 General History of the Caribbean

compared to over 13000 slaves. As in Guadeloupe, where there were 275

freedmen and nearly 5000 slaves, the figure for freedmen included Caribs as
well. In French Guiana at about the same time, there were only four
freedmen in the entire colony.18
Freedmen were an unintended by-product of slave society. As Arnold
Sio has put it, they were 'a third party in a system built for two' .19 Many
freedmen were the offspring of liaisons between white males and black
(and subsequently brown) females, and whites sometimes freed their
brown children as well as the slave women who produced them. These
sexual relationships reflected the curiously skewed demography of most
slave societies in which a minority of whites controlled a large majority of
black slaves. Since the white population was often predominantly male,
relationships between white and black, free and slave quickly developed.
The resulting freedman population was therefore heavily coloured and
female.
The proportions of free coloureds and free blacks within the wider
slave society varied considerably from colony to colony (see Table 4.1). At
the end of the eighteenth century in Martinique and in the Danish West
Indies, freedmen constituted about one-third of the free population; in St
Domingue just before the outbreak of the Revolution, they formed nearly
40 per cent of this group. Yet in these societies, they were massively out-
numbered by the slave: freedmen were only 5 per cent of the total popula-
tion in the French islands and less than 4 per cent in the Danish colonies. In
two of the most Significant colonies of the British Caribbean in the last
quarter of the eighteenth century, free coloureds and free blacks made up
even less of the total population. In Jamaica, freedmen were just over 2 per
cent of this group, while in Barbados, they formed about 1 per cent of the
total population. 20
The Hispanic Caribbean provided a significant contrast to the British
and French colonies in the region. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, a long history of
white settlement predated the development of the plantation society at the

TABLE 4.1 Freedmen, whites and slaves at the end of the eighteenth century
Year Society Freedmen Whites Slaves Total Pop.

1789 Martinique 5235 10636 83414 96158

1789 St Domingue 24848 30831 434424 490108
1775 Jamaica 4500 18700 192800 216000
1786 Barbados 838 16167 62115 79120
1774 Cuba 36301 96 440 38879 171 620
1775 Puerto Rico 34510 29263 7487 71 260
Source: Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor Free, Appendix: Population Tables, pp. 335-9.

144
 Social stmcture of the slave societies

end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. There was a
more mixed society racially and a less important slave sector during the pre-
plantation periods. For example, Puerto Rican freedmen made up almost half
of the total population in 1775 and more than 80 per cent of the non-white
population. The figures for Cuba were less one-sided but still revealing:
freedmen in Cuba were 20 per cent of the total population and 41 per cent
of non-whites. Both Cuba and Puerto Rico were yet to feel the full impact of
sugar and slavery which would alter these ratios as well as the position of
the freedmen in sOciety.21
As with slaves, the freedmen caste was internally highly differentiated.
It included recently manumitted blacks as well as light-coloured planters who
mixed in white society. The gradation of colour among the freedmen was
often varied and potentially of considerable importance. It is unlikely that too
much attention was paid to the 25 different categories of coloureds in the
Spanish Caribbean, especially in the pre-plantation period, but the dis-
tinctions in parts of the British Caribbean were significant. There, the demar-
cations were: 'mulatto', the result of a union between black and white;
'sambo', between black and mulatto; 'quadroon', between mulatto and white;
'mustee', between quadroon and white; 'musteefino', between mustee and
white. In Jamaica, the union of a musteefino and a white produced a
'quinteron' who was legally white and enjoyed all the rights of whites. 22
However, this process of 'whitening' did not always produce legal equality,
even within the British Caribbean. Barbadian freedmen, for example, could
never become the legal equals of the whites.
Colour was only one of the differentiating elements among the freed-
men; another important category was the nature of that freedom. Free-born
and manumitted free coloureds and blacks were often treated very differently
in law as well as in custom. Those born free in Jamaica were subject to trial
by jury, whereas manumitted free coloureds and free blacks were subject to
slave courts. Manumitted freedmen were also unable to give evidence in
court against free-born members of this group.
There were freedmen in Jamaica who appealed against their legal
disabilities and were granted privileges that were denied to other freedmen.
In some cases, as with a legislative enactment of 1733, this meant that the
free coloured in question and his family were granted all the rights of whites.
The acts which followed this one were more demanding: they stipulated that
the privileged freedmen marry a white if their children were to inherit these
privileges. 23
Jamaica was not alone in creating privileged coloureds: Cura~ao also
had a similar category known as mesties. These freedmen were usually light
in colour and had a fair amount of wealth and education. They were still
considered freedmen, but enjoyed certain privileges over the other members

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of this group. Although officially classified as 'burghers', they did not enjoy
all the rights of whites. 24
The soi-disant libres of the French Antilles were also a distinct category
of freedmen, but not so fortunate as either the mesties or the specially-
privileged coloureds of Jamaica. The soi-disant libres were nominally free,
having obtained their deeds of manumission abroad because of the difficulty
of manumission in the French Antilles. But this was a highly precarious cat-
egory of freedom below the status of ordinary freedmen. Although soi-disant
libres could become legally free, it was also possible for them to revert to
slavery. For example, a woman named Marie-Ann from Martinique had been
a soi-disant libre for 36 years. Despite her long period as a nominally free
person, however, she was sold as a slave along with some of her children.
Discussing her case, Leo Elisabeth concluded that

the fact that she has also been listed in the census as 'free' and has paid
the poll tax required of all 'free' people, that her children had been
inscribed as 'free' in the records of the civil authorities, and her sons
had served as freedmen in the militia, clearly shows how precarious
this nominal freedom was and how weak a deed of liberty granted
abroad was as a guarantee of free status. 25

Marie-Ann's situation dramatized the plight of particular groups of freedmen;

yet it was also true that free blacks and free coloureds generally suffered a
wide range of legal disabilities. Although free, they usually could not vote,
hold public office, give evidence in court against whites, or serve on juries.
There was a whole series of economic restrictions as well. In many colonies,
freedmen were unable to serve in any of the supervisory posts on plantations
and were barred from a large number of specific jobs. In the Danish West
Indies, freedmen could not plant cotton unless they owned land. From the
early eighteenth century, the restrictions became even more severe in
Martinique: freedmen were not allowed to practise medicine or pharmacy or
work in the office of clerks of court or notaries. 26
The limitations on the freedmen were particularly difficult to accept in
the French Antilles. There the seventeenth-century legal code regulating
slavery, the Code Noir, had enacted full citizenship rights to all manumitted
slaves, although the legislation did not always reflect colonial realities. In any
case, the increasing restrictions on the civil rights of the freedmen in the
course of the eighteenth century contradicted this earlier decree. In
St Domingue, the eighteenth-century legislation against the freedmen
included outlawing white and freedmen marriages; it also meant that many
free coloureds and free black landowners were deprived of their land.
Resentment at these and other restrictions was widespread and helped to

146
 Social structure of the slave societies

create a revolutionary situation. As Gwendolyn Midlo Hall has suggested, 'the

Haitian Revolution was precipitated by the response of the free coloured
population to attempts by whites to strip them of legal protection, degrade
them socially, and destroy their network of influence .... >27
While the results were less dramatic in other parts of the Caribbean, the
legislation against the freedmen could be severe. Some laws went to extreme
lengths to identify free blacks and coloureds. In the Danish West Indies, a
law passed in 1768 made it obligatory for freedmen to wear a cockade or
badge at all times. There was also a long list of items freedmen could not
wear: this included silk stockings, clothing made of silk, chintz and gold or
silver brocade. The position of the freedmen in the British Virgin Islands was
even more limiting; after 1783, each freedman was required to have a white
patron responsible 'for the Tenor of his, her or their Conduct and Lives, and
direct the Conversations and Employments of said Free Person or Persons
according to the Laws of these Islands.' This patron relationship had to be
formally acknowledged in court, with stiff penalties if the obligation was
ignored. Moreover, freedmen in the Virgin Islands were not allowed to own
more than 8 acres of land and were effectively limited to having no more
than fifteen slaves. The economic possibilities for Jamaican freedmen were
also sharply curtailed by legislation. In 1761, the Jamaican Assembly passed a
measure making it illegal for whites to leave real or personal property worth
more than £1200 (sterling) to any coloured or blatk. 28
These laws suggest that freedmen were making considerable economic
progress in Caribbean slave society. The gens du couleur in St Domingue, for
example, claimed to own one-quarter of all the slaves in the colony and
between a quarter and a half of its productive land in 1790. 29 In Jamaica, the
Assembly was responding to a report that property in the hands of the freed-
men already amounted to between £200 000 and £300 000. Much of this
property had been left to freedmen by their white fathers. However, by
restricting bequests, the Assemblymen in Jamaica were declaring that it was
more important to keep the land in European hands than to follow their
parental instincts. Elsewhere, unpropertied whites had become concerned
about the economic competition of free coloureds and free blacks. Laws
against freedmen working in shipping and navigating were designed to
safeguard the jobs of whites in these areas.
Not all Caribbean colonies adopted the same measures against the
freedmen; indeed, some acts were notably less restrictive. For example,
Antiguan free coloureds and free blacks, who had the necessary property
qualification, could vote. Freedmen in Barbados were allowed to hold super-
"visory positions on the estates, and there was no limit on the amount of land
or slaves they could own. In St Kitts and Grenada, freedmen could appear in
court and give evidence against whites. However, none of these enactments

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 General History of the Caribbean

affected the position of the freedmen as a whole. Very few Antiguan freed-
men would have qualified for the vote, and customary practice would have
excluded free coloureds and free blacks from positions on Barbadian sugar
plantations. Similarly, very little weight would have been given to the
testimony of freedmen in St Kitts and Grenada. 30 While there were thus a few
exceptional statutes affecting the freedmen, most were designed to limit their
civil rights, restrict their economic possibilities, and curtail their social
interaction with the whites.
In light of the restrictions against the freedmen, it was not surprising
that they generally shunned the plantations and favoured living in more
urban settlements. Apart from the problem of usually being denied posts on
the estates, free coloureds and free blacks sought to distance themselves
from the most visible symbol of slavery, the sugar plantation. Those freed-
men who made their living from the land usually avoided growing sugar.
Many freedmen in Cuba therefore worked the land in the eastern part of the
island, away from the main sugar-producing areas. This was also the case in
Trinidad, where large numbers of freedmen grew cocoa, coffee and pro-
visions, generally on small plots of land with a few slaves. Some freedmen in
Grenada did own large estates. For instance, the leader of the 1795 rebellion
in the island, Julien Fedon, had a 360-acre estate while his brother owned
one that was 141 acres. Yet even in the case of Grenada, most freedmen
probably had little or no land. Like free coloureds and free blacks in other
parts of the Caribbean, they lived predominantly in towns. 31
Once there, many freedmen occupied a niche between the upper ranks
of urban slaves and the lower echelons of whites. Male freedmen worked
primarily as artisans, and especially as carpenters, masons, tailors and shoe-
makers. In Havana, freedmen included cigar-makers, cooks, musicians,
stonecutters, harness-makers, small truck farmers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths,
butchers and barbers. Freedwomen in Havana had a smaller range of
possibilities: they worked as seamstresses, washerwomen, house servants,
dressmakers and midwives. In St Kitts, freedwomen were frequently huck-
sters or shopkeepers. Elsewhere, they gained considerable notoriety as
tavern-keepers. One of them, Rachel Pringle-Polgreen, was a well-known
figure in Bridgetown, Barbados. Her Royal Naval Hotel was frequently visited
by Prince William Henry (later King William IV). An astute businesswoman,
Pringle-Polgreen died a wealthy woman: she owned at least ten properties in
Bridgetown as well as 19 slaves, six of whom she manumitted in her wilp2
Rachel Pringle-Polgreen was exceptional, but some Caribbean societies
offered more economic scope for the freedmen than others. Edward Cox has
argued that there were greater opportunities for freedmen in Grenada than in
St Kitts. There was more land available in Grenada and also less competition
from landless whites than in St Kitts. Grenada relied on the free coloureds

148
 Social strncture of tbe slave societies

and free blacks for supplying goods and services which were often provided
by whites in St Kitts. Similarly, the demography of Suriname, with an over-
whelming slave population and a tiny white elite, ensured that freedmen had
an important place in that society. Cura~ao, on the other hand, had more
freedmen than slaves and a larger proportion of whites. Consequently free
coloureds and free blacks had a more difficult time economically in Cura~ao
than in Suriname. 33
By virtue of their occupations and the restrictions imposed on them,
freedmen tended to occupy a very different world from the whites. This was
especially true in the period leading up to the Haitian Revolution, when
freedmen often made up a very small fraction of the total population.
Moreover, they were unable to socialize with whites on an equal basis. Many
public institutions were segregated: for instance, whites and freedmen had
their own special pews in church. Theatres sometimes held separate
performances for whites and freedmen. When they attended the same
performance, free coloureds and free blacks entered by a different door from
whites and sat apart from them. Each group often had its own burial ground.
Yet there was one area where these rules could not be enforced.
Sexual relations between white men and black and brown women fell
outside the usual conventions that affected this group as a whole. While
some of these relationships were casual and informal, others were longer-
term liaisons. One of the most prominent of these involved the Governor-
General of the Danish West Indies, von Scholten, and the freedwoman Anna
Heegard. Heegard lived with von Scholten for 20 years. Moreover, she
preSided over gala evenings and other social occasions at Government
House. 34
These more permanent relationships were often formally recognized by
contracts or rituals. Such relationships in Suriname were known as
'Surinamese marriages'. The marriage was accompanied by a ceremony in
which the mother of the 'bride', accompanied by a female neighbour,
brought her daughter into the bedroom of the 'groom'. After the 'husband'
and 'wife' had left the next morning, the mother and neighbour again visited
the room and then were able to announce that the 'marriage' had taken
place. Such relationships often provided a measure of economic security for
the 'wife' and any resulting children, even when the European 'husband'
departed for home. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, such customary relationships
could involve the payment of large sums of money to the brown or black
mistress, if the white married or left the colony.35
The advantages for the freedwoman were quite apparent. She was able
to improve her economic situation, far more so than in almost any legal
marriage with a freedman. Moreover, her children might be lighter in colour,
which was an important consideration in Caribbean slave society.

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 General History of the Caribbean

Although it was unusual, there were marriages between whites and

browns. These could be between white men and brown women or brown
men and white women. While such unions were illegal in the French Antilles
and in British Guiana, they occurred in Jamaica, Grenada, Cuba, and prob-
ably elsewhere as well. In some cases, lower-class whites may have married
wealthy brown women for their fortunes. But the examples unearthed in
Grenada suggest that it was more complicated. There, well-placed local
whites, such as the government secretary and the provost marshal, were mar-
rying free coloured women. 36
Apart from these marriages, some of which were kept secret, the
informal relationships between white males and freedwomen did not
improve the standing of the free coloureds and free blacks generally. The
freedwomen were not legally recognized and were never accepted in white
society. They may have prospered personally, but their relationships
stemmed from the social inferiority of the freedmen and highlighted the
general exclusion of free coloureds and free blacks from white society.
Despite this exclusion, the wealthy and acculturated freedmen often
sought to emphasize their affinity with the whites and to distance themselves
from the blacks. They adopted the Euro-Creole culture of the whites, attend-
ing church, seeking to marry, and abusing their slaves. Yet as Arnold Sio has
argued, this group formed a small segment of the freedmen caste as a whole.
Most freedmen were unable to acquire the wealth or education to maintain a
lifestyle compatible with the whites.
Freedmen were therefore more likely to interact with the world of the
slaves than with that of the whites. This was certainly the case in the towns
where freedmen and urban slaves mixed freely. They not only lived in close
proximity to each other but also worked together as artisans, shopkeepers or
hucksters. Free coloureds and free blacks frequently participated in the slave
social networks, attending slave funerals and religious activities as well as
weekend dances. Both groups often had kin in common; many freedmen
owned slaves who were their kin and who they were seeking to manumit.
The line between freedman and slave was considerably easier to cross
than that between freedman and white. Moreover, in making the transition
from slave to freedman, the manumitted slave reinforced the links between
the two sectors of the non-white population. As Sio has noted, 'the change in
status from slave to freedman was a shift from one subordinate group to
another, both based on racial ancestry'. The freed slave could therefore
expect to find significant continuities in the culture of the freedman. 37
In the period up to the end of the eighteenth century, the freedmen
had· become an established segment in Caribbean slave society. Although
their proportions in the population varied from colony to colony, freedmen
shared a series of legal restrictions which limited their economic and social

150
 Social strncture of the slave societies

progress. In the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, they would be far less
ready to accept their status in these societies and would begin to seek
equality with the whites.

The structure of white society

White society in the early period of European settlement in the Caribbean

was far less stratified than it subsequently became. This stemmed from the
nature of these early settlements: they were pre-plantation colonies. The first
European settlers in the region, the Spanish, initiated these developments. In
Cuba, for example, after the end of gold mining and the destruction of the
Amerindian population, whites devoted themselves to growing subsistence
crops as well as to raising cattle and tobacco. But even the tobacco farms
were not generally large-scale operations; whites grew the crop on small
farms. Relations between whites and blacks were consequently easygoing;
white farmers sometimes even worked alongside their slaves in the tobacco
fields. 38 As in Puerto Rico, whites comprised the majority of the population in
Cuba. Santo Domingo would ultimately conform to this pattern as well, but
in the sixteenth century it was an exception in the Hispanic Caribbean. Early
in the century Santo Domingo developed a sugar industry and imported
African slaves to work on the plantations. As a result, by 1546, there were
twice as many blacks as whites in the colony. However, a severe epidemic
among the slaves follOWing Drake's invasion of Santo Domingo in 1586 and
a transfer to the production of ginger led to the decline of the sugar industry
in the last quarter of the century.39
Although established more than a century later than the Spanish, the
British and French colonies in the Caribbean did not at first differ substan-
tially from the patterns established by the Spanish. The lifestyle of the early
European colonists in islands such as Barbados and Martinique was also
simple. Tobacco, together with cotton, were their major export crops, and
these were supplemented by subsistence crops. The Significant difference
with their Hispanic counterparts was the use of white indentured labour.
While indentured labour was not generally used in the Spanish colonies, it
was a major source of labour in the British and French colonies and
markedly affected the structure of these early seventeenth-century white
societies.
White society, then, in the pre-plantation era of the British and French
colonies in the region was divided between masters and their indentured
labourers or engages, as they were known in the French Antilles. The inden-
tured servants consisted of the offspring of the middle classes as well as of
the labouring poor who bound themselves to work for a master from three

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to seven years. In return, the servants' passage to the British and French
islands was paid, and they were to receive 10 acres of land when they had
served out their indentures. The servants were young and overwhelmingly
male. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, fewer servants came
out voluntarily; some were kidnapped, others were convicts, and many
were Scottish and especially Irish soldiers captured in Oliver Cromwell's
campaigns. In Barbados, many of the servants were therefore Irish Catholic;
relations with their English masters were accordingly often very difficult.
Indentured servants came to the Caribbean to improve their economic
lot, but the promise of land at the end of their period of servitude often
proved illusory. Land in the British and French islands was soon occupied,
and servants who survived were forced to migrate to other colonies, to join
the buccaneers, or continue to work as wage labourers for their masters.
Some contemporary accounts suggest that the indentured servants were
badly treated. Richard Ligon, who lived in Barbados in the mid-seventeenth
century, claimed that their condition was worse than that of the slaves:

The Island is divided into three sorts of men, viz. Masters, Servants, and
slaves. The slaves and their posterity, being subject to their Masters for
ever, are kept and preserv'd with greater care than the servants, who
are theirs but for five years, according to the law of the Island. 40

While this is doubtful, it was certainly true that planters sought to extract the
maximum amount of labour from their short-term servants.
Female indentured servants had an easier time than the men. Not all of
them worked in the fields; some were domestics. When they had finished
their servitude, they could look forward to marriage and possibly upward
social mobility in a heavily male-dominated society. Another contemporary
observer of Barbadian society, Henry Whistler, made scathing remarks about
these women: his view was that 'rogues and whores and such like people
are generally brought here .... A bawd brought over puts on a demure
comportment, a whore if handsome makes a wife for some rich planter. ,41
Yet however crude the lifestyle of the indentured servants their masters
were not that much better off. The wide disparities of wealth between lower-
class whites and wealthy planters which characterized plantation society did
not apply to these early settlements. In colonies such as Nevis, Barbados
and Guadeloupe, masters lived simply. The surviving inventories of two
Barbadian masters in the seventeenth century are indicative of just how little
they possessed:

A Captain Ketteridge had five white servants, a Negro slave, and six
hundred acres, yet his total household furnishings consisted of an old

152
 Social structure of the slave societies

chest, six hammocks (the Negro slept on the ground), some empty
barrels, a broken kettle, an old sieve, some battered pewter dishes,
three napkins, and three books. Matthew Gibson, with four servants,
possessed even less; a chest, a cracked kettle, two pots, several barrels,
a sieve, a glass bottle, and a pamphlet without covers.42

With the rise of sugar, white society changed dramatically. Most smaller
planters could not afford the large capital requirements which sugar required.
Instead, a different class of planter emerged in the British and French
Caribbean, prepared to invest heavily in slaves, land and equipment. By the
end of the seventeenth century, as a result of the sugar revolution, a far more
elaborate white social structure had replaced the simple division between
masters and their indentured servants. The model for white society had
become established which was to characterize the Caribbean for the next 200
years.
White plantation society was typified by a narrow concentration of
wealth and slaveholding in relatively few hands. A small number of planters
dominated landholding as well as the most important social and political
offices in the colonies. These were the grands blancs, the resident whites
who were at the top of white society. In this group, especially in the French
and Spanish colonies, there would have been some noble families. Cuba, for
example, had 29 titled families in 1810, many of whose ancestors had settled
in the island in the seventeenth century.43
Many of the wealthier planters returned to Europe to live off the pro-
ceeds of their estates, leaving their plantations in the hands of planting
attorneys. Often owners of estates themselves, attorneys could represent
upwards of 40 estates and were among the richest residents in the Caribbean
colonies. In the same class, and enjoying even higher social status, were the
imperial administrators: the royal governors, the intendants, the admirals and
the generals.
The rich planters lived lavishly. They dined sumptuously, drank
copiously and entertained magnificently. Samuel Long was one of them. A
wealthy planter, he owned two mansions in Jamaica, one in the capital and
the other on his rural estate. According to Richard Dunn, Long's

house in Spanish Town [the capitan, more expensively fitted than his
plantation house, had a hall - the principal room - large enough to
hold sixty chairs and seven tables. In his dining room Long had a
dozen table cloths, twelve dozen napkins, and £76 worth of silver to
dress his table. In the bed chambers he had four costly looking
glasses and a best bed with hangings (valued at £100), which he
bought on a trip to England. In his plantation house Long had another

153
 General History of the Caribbean

fifty-eight chairs, seven tables, and three looking glasses. All of the big
planters kept dozens of chairs in their houses, suitable for large-scale
entertainments. 44

Such trappings of wealth were far beyond the next class of white
society, the merchants and the professionals such as lawyers and doctors.
This group would have also included estate owners with middle-sized
holdings. Many of these middle-ranking planters in eighteenth-century St
Domingue produced coffee and resented the privileges of the wealthier and
often absentee planters. This class tension among the whites was particularly
marked in St Domingue. 45 In tum, these middle-level whites were dis-
tinguished from the bottom rung of white society, the petits blanes.
The petits blanes consisted of the poorer whites in the society. Often
economically insecure, the petits blanes were 'the most racist element in
colonial society'. 46 In this group were the lower-echelon employees on the
estates: the overseers, bookkeepers and artisans. In addition, schoolteachers
and small shopkeepers would have numbered among the petits blanes class.
Many Barbadian petits blanes migrated to South Carolina when they were
squeezed off their small farms by wealthy planters or found they were
unable to compete for slave labour. Yet the 1680 Barbadian census revealed
'thousands of them still hanging on, with a few acres and a few slaves
a piece, repressed and voiceless like the submerged labouring class in
England. ,47
The petits blancs who worked on the estates - especially as overseers
and bookkeepers - often did not remain on any single estate very long. For
example, Michael Craton and James Walvin found that 85 white men worked
on Worthy Park Estate in Jamaica between 1783 and 1796. Since there were
usually less than ten whites (and often as few as five) on the estate at any
one time, the figure of 85 whites over a 13-year period suggests a very rapid
turnover. Most of the whites, therefore, remained on the plantation for a few
months at most. Moreover, Jamaica was not unique; Debien describes a
similar succession of bookkeepers on plantations in the French Caribbean. 48
This movement of whites contrasts with the relative stability of the slave
population.
Yet it was also possible for poorer whites to improve their lot substan-
tially on the plantations. Some were able to do so by acquiring slaves and
hiring them out. Others moved up in the plantation hierarchy, starting out as
bookkeepers, rising to become overseers, and ultimately purchasing their
own properties. The effect of this process was to narrow the distance
between the lower-class and more elite whites. Bryan Edwards described this
situation and blamed the institution of slavery for a more egalitarian white
society:

154
 Social structure of the slave societies

The poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level

with the richest, and, emboldened by this idea, approaches his
employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in the countries
of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower orders of life
towards their superiors. It is not difficult to trace the origin of this
principle. It arises without doubt, from the pre-eminence and distinc-
tion which are necessarily attached even to the complexion of a white
man, in a country where the complexion, generally speaking, distin-
guished freedom from slavery. 49

By the end of the eighteenth century it was clear that white society in many
plantation colonies had become closer and more homogeneous in composi-
tion. As Elsa Goveia concluded for the British Leewards, 'the absenteeism of
the richer whites and the improved position of the poorer whites combined
to reduce the extremes of wealth and poverty which had once been evident
among the white population. '50
Divisions within the white caste none the less continued and could
become serious. In St Domingue, the Haitian Revolution at the end of the
eighteenth century was partly the result of splits between the grands blancs
and the petits blanes. This revolution destroyed Haitian plantation society
and led to the abolition of slavery in that colony. Yet it had other effects as
well: elsewhere in the Caribbean, it served to unite the white population.
Faced with the danger of revolution from below, the wealthier whites
began to accommodate lower-class whites. In some of the Caribbean
colonies, the nineteenth century witnessed a merging of the white popu-
lation which would have been unimaginable in the course of the eighteenth
century. These changes and the developments of the early nineteenth
century would be significant for all groups in the society: slaves, free
coloureds and whites.

The effects of the abolition of the British slave trade

One of the most important events for the colonies of the Caribbean was the
abolition of the British slave trade in 1808. Since Africans were no longer
imported into the British colonies after this date, the demography of the
slave populations changed considerably. The proportion of Africans
inevitably declined, and Creole slaves soon formed the majority of the popu-
lation in many colonies. The number of coloured slaves increased as well. In
some islands, this creolizing process had already taken place before the
abolition of the slave trade. Barbados, for example, was one of the few
Caribbean societies which did not rely on consistently heavy imports of

155
 General History of the Caribbean

Africans to maintain its slave population. By 1800, Barbados' slave popu-

lation was already overwhelmingly Creole.
However, there were some societies in which Africans formed the
majority of the slave population for many years after the abolition of the
slave trade. In Trinidad and in the colonies which would form British Guiana
(Demerara-Essequibo and Berbice), Africans still made up more than 50 per
cent of the slave population in 1817. Higman refers to these colonies as
'third-phase sugar colonies', that is societies which witnessed a late develop-
ment of sugar cultivation. As late as 1832, Africans still constituted nearly
35 per cent of the slave population of Demerara-Essequibo compared to a
figure of under 3 per cent in Barbados.
The end of the slave trade also led to a more balanced sex ratio in the
colonies. Since the Africans who were brought to the Caribbean were
predominantly male, the sex ratio in these societies was skewed in favour of
males. With the abolition of the trade, it was possible for a more balanced
sex ratio to develop.51
The abolition of the slave trade had some unexpected consequences, at
least in Jamaica. The increasing proportion of Creole as well as coloured
slaves in the population reduced the possibilities of mobility for some of
those slaves. Creoles and coloured slaves had been used to occupying most
of the skilled and elite positions on the plantations. Although the number of
such possibilities was reduced after 1808, largely because of the reduction in
the slave labour force, the number of slaves who thought themselves
qualified for such roles grew. For Higman, the resulting stress for those
slaves set the background for the massive slave rebellion of 1831,52
There was a very different pattern of development for the slave popu-
lation of the Hispanic Caribbean, and especially Cuba and Puerto Rico. In
those colonies the slave trade continued to flourish, despite the efforts of the
British to curb it. The result for Cuba and Puerto Rico was to increase the
proportion of slaves in the population dramatically. For a brief period in its
history, between the 1820s and 1850s, Cuban non-whites formed the majority
of the population. In 1841, for example, there were about 600 000 slaves and
freedmen in Cuba compared to a figure of nearly 420 000 whites. As
expected, the number of Africans in both these islands was high. In Ponce,
the sugar-growing area of Puerto Rico, more than half of the slave popu-
lation in 1838 had been born in Africa. 53
A unique feature of slavery in nineteenth-century Cuba was the intro-
duction of contract labour from Asia before abolition. Mostly from China,
these labourers were classified as 'white' but were treated more like slaves.
They were subject to many of the same regulations as slaves and were virtu-
ally bought and sold by planters. Indeed, Knight has concluded that the
system of slavery and indentured Asian labour were virtually 'synonymous'. 54

156
 Social structure of the slave societies

In general, however, the nineteenth-century sugar revolution in both

Cuba and Puerto Rico shared many of the same characteristics that other
Caribbean colonies had experienced in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. For example, Africans in Puerto Rico dominated field labour and
also were in the majority on the larger plantations or haciendas. As in St
Domingue a century earlier, Africans had little chance of becoming part of
the slave elite. In Cuba, more than 80 per cent of the slave population
worked on plantations, while a significant proportion of the remaining slaves
were involved in sugar-related activities. 55 Scarano's conclusion about Puerto
Rico in the nineteenth century could apply equally to Cuba as well as to
most of the other plantation colonies a century or two earlier: 'the sugar rev-
olution of the nineteenth century led slave owners to exercise stricter con-
trols over their chattels, to limit opportunities for manumission, and to import
such massive numbers of Africans to completely upset the cultural configura-
tion of the subject class.'56

The sugar revolution in the Hispanic Caribbean

The sugar revolution in the Hispanic Caribbean, and particularly in Cuba,

affected the freedmen as well as the slaves. On the one hand, it provided
increased economic opportunities for free coloureds and free blacks. This
was perhaps inevitable in light of the prosperity Cuba experienced in the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet at the same time, the sugar revolu-
tion brought in its wake further restrictions and limitations for this group.
One problem was the increased difficulty of manumission. Once sugar
took hold in Cuba, slave labour was far more valuable than it had been
during the pre-plantation period. Planters were therefore far more reluctant
to free their slaves voluntarily. The whites were also more sensitive to the
growing group of free persons of colour. Another recognized avenue of
mobility in Cuba, coartacion, which allowed slaves to buy their freedom
gradually, was reduced in scope. 57
It was not only the possibilities of manumission that affected the freed-
men. As elsewhere in the Caribbean, various occupations were closed to
them. They could not aspire to positions in the law, in medicine or in the
church. Freedmen were barred from becoming businessmen or members of
the royal bureaucracy. During the course of the nineteenth century, it
became increasingly difficult for them to acquire land, and they were pre-
vented from holding jobs which would compete with lower-class whites. In
the 1840s, when whites became frightened about the predominance of non-
whites in Cuba, legal restrictions against the freedmen multiplied. Moreover,
freedmen were blamed for the La Escalera affair of 1844, a purported island-

157
 General History of the Caribbean

wide slave conspiracy. Many freedmen were executed or exiled during the
course of the repression which followed the discovery of the alleged conspir-
acy.58 The advent of sugar in Cuba thus brought with it severe restrictions for
the freedmen as a whole.
In spite of these restrictions, however, the freedmen population
of Cuba grew substantially in the course of the nineteenth century (see
Table 4.2). Numbering almost 55000 in 1792, freedmen by 1841 totalled well
over 150 000, a threefold rise. Freedmen continued to increase at this rate
over the next four decades. 59 This pattern of 'growth for freedmen was not
usual in the rest of the Caribbean. The early nineteenth century witnessed
comparable proportional increases in Martinique, Jamaica, Grenada and
Barbados, although the actual number of freedmen in these societies was
much smaller. Part of this growth was due to manumissions, but much of it
reflected the ability of the freedmen to increase their own populations natur-
ally, a phenomenon which whites and blacks in much of the Caribbean were
unable to replicate.
An important difference between Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean
was the proportion of freedmen to whites. In Cuba, the number of free non-

TABLE 4.2 Growth of the freedmen population in the nineteenth century

Year Freedmen
Cuba 1792 54154
1841 154546
1887 528798
Martinique 1802 6578
1835 29955
1848 36420
jamaica 1789 10000
1825 38800
1834 43000

Grenada 1812 1688

1820 2742
1830 4033

Barbados 1801 2209

1825 4524
1833 6584
Source: Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor Free, pp. 337-9; Heuman, Between Black and
White, p. 7; Cox, Free Coloureds, pp, 30--1.

158
 Social structure of the slave societies

whites amounted to only about a third of the white population, while else-
where freedmen were already outnumbering whites early in the nineteenth
century. By 1835 in Martinique, there were three times as many freedmen as
whites, while the comparable ratio in Grenada at about the same time was
five freedmen for every one white. 6o The numerical importance of the free
coloureds and free blacks in these non-Hispanic colonies was crucial in the
struggle to improve their rights.

Rights campaigns by freedmen

In Martinique and in many of the British colonies, free coloureds thus began
to protest against the restrictions imposed on them. The free people of
colour in Martinique started early: their first-known petition against a poll
tax was submitted in 1727. Later in the century, free coloureds in
St Domingue were seeking to organize their community in the colony and
to generate support in France. Their efforts were overtaken by the Haitian
Revolution, and their activities foundered, partly because they were un-
willing to ally with the slaves. In Martinique, free coloured petitions in 1820
met with considerable hostility by the local whites. A few years later, one
of their leaders in Paris, Bissette, published a pamphlet arguing for an
improvement in the rights of the people of colour. However, the local
whites interpreted his appeal as the basis of a plot and used it to attack the
freedmen. 61
Free coloureds in the British Caribbean were ultimately more successful
in their campaigns to improve their rights than their counterparts in
Martinique. However, their early attempts in this direction also met with con-
siderable resistance. In Jamaica, a group of coloureds circulated a petition to
the local legislature in 1792. In it, the people of colour complained about the
laws directed against them. More specifically, they appealed against their
inability to give evidence in court, against the different punishments handed
out to whites and browns, and to the limitations on the amount they could
inherit. The Jamaican assemblymen were in no mood to grant any of these
requests in 1792. Worried about the slave rebellion in neighbouring
St Domingue they turned down the free coloured petition which they
believed was 'expressed in the language of fanaticism'. The assemblymen
were concerned about the dangers posed by the free coloureds:

From what has happened at Hispaniola [St Domingue], we have every

reason to believe that these free people of colour have it in their power
to lead our Slaves into rebellion by false representations. Their object
would not be to make them free but to distress us and thereby oblige

159
 General History of the Caribbean

us to comply with their demand to be put upon an equal footing with

the White Inhabitants.

For the whites, it was clearly too early to consider granting concessions to
the free coloureds. 62
The next major free coloured petition was signed by more than 2400
freedmen and submitted to the Jamaican Assembly in 1813. It made many of
the same requests as the earlier petition, but this time the assemblymen were
prepared to make concessions to the coloureds. Yet, the legislators would
not consider granting the coloureds any political rights: they resolved that
'the free people of colour in this Island have no right or claim whatever to
political power, or to interfere in the administration of the government .... ,63
The Jamaican free coloureds were not alone in their petitions. In the
Danish West Indies, freedmen first submitted a petition in 1810; six years
later, in another petition, they sought full legal equality with the whites. In
1813, 60 free coloureds in Montserrat petitioned the legislature against their
inability to vote at a recent election. At about the same time, the people of
colour in the Virgin Islands sought the repeal of earlier legislation which pro-
hibited them from owning more than 8 acres of land or more than 15 slaves.
Barbadian free coloureds were also making similar requests; in 1811, they
sought the right of testifying in court. Thus free coloureds in different parts
of the Caribbean were seeking to improve their rights in the early years of
the nineteenth century.64
This process continued in the 1820s. During that decade, free coloureds
in most of the British Caribbean colonies organized new campaigns for their
rights. In Jamaica, a committee of coloureds was established to hold meet-
ings around the island and prepare a draft petition to the legislature. The
committee forged links with abolitionists in England and sought to influence
officials in the Colonial Office as well. Yet the reaction of many whites was,
if anything, more virulent than it had been earlier. The Rev. George Bridges,
an Anglican minister and strong ally of the plantocracy, claimed that the
coloureds could not have such rights 'while the blood of pagan Africa still
flowed thick and darkly in their veins.' Even their major supporter in the
Assembly, Richard Barrett, agreed that the free coloureds were not yet ready
for full equality.65
By 1833, just one year before the abolition of slavery, freedmen in all
the British colonies in the Caribbean had attained their full rights. This was
largely due to pressure from Britain, although many whites in the Caribbean
realized that it was in their interest to unite with the freedmen against the
slaves. Yet, ironically, freedmen did not generally side politically with the
whites after 1833. They adopted a humanitarian and often abolitionist stance
which differentiated them from the local plantocracy. Moreover, they were

160
 Subversive rebel message from Barbados, 1683

2 Toussaint Louverture, architect of the free state of Haiti (probably 1802)

.3 Private in the Fifth West India Regiment. 1814
 4 Leonard Parkinson, last Jamaican Maroon rebel, 1796

5 The French trying to exterminate the Black Army, post-ISOO

6 General Henri Christophe at a Court Martial

7 Training bloodhounds in French St Domingue in the late eighteenth century

8 The Black Army taking revenge on the French in St Domingue
9 Maroon ambush, Dromilly Estate, Jamaica, 1795
10 A slave being hung alive 11 A rebel slave armed and on guard
12 Eastern Maroons negotiating their treaty in St Vincent

13 El Cimarron
 Social structure of the slave societies

unable to gain acceptanc,e in white society, even after they had attained their
rights. In general, freedmen found that caste lines proved difficult to cross,
despite their being the legal equals of the whites.
White attitudes toward the freedmen were expressed in a variety of
ways. For example, whites tended to forego the polite forms of social inter-
course when dealing with free coloureds and free blacks. They did not use
the usual titles of Mr, Mrs or Miss when addressing freedmen and adopted
first names instead. The titles were thus reserved for whites and were a
further mark of distinction between whites and freedmen. Furthermore,
whites generally sought to avoid any contact with freedmen which could
imply social equality. As two visitors to the Caribbean reported in the 1830s,
'to visit the houses [of high-ranking freedmen] ... and especially to sit down
at their tables, would have been a loss of caste. >66
Coloureds themselves were guilty of some of the same behaviour
toward slaves and toward free blacks. During slavery, coloureds sought to
avoid being identified with slaves and refused to do manual labour on the
estates. When petitioning for their rights, the free coloureds sought to dis-
tance themselves from the free blacks. In Belize, the free coloureds did not
complain when they, and not the free blacks, were accorded full civil rights.
As Nigel Bolland has suggested, 'the racist ideology of the whites had so
permeated the free coloured sense of identity that the free coloureds were
glad to have finally achieved social differentiation from the blacks.'67
As in the case of white racial attitudes after emancipation, the views of
the coloureds did not alter substantially. Browns continued to look down on
the blacks and refused to work with them in the fields. But Anthony Trollope
was aware that coloureds as well as blacks had negative stereotypes of each
other. For Trollope, coloureds were 'imperious to the black men, and deter-
mined on that side to exhibit and use their superiority.' Yet blacks viewed
coloureds as 'sly and cunning; that they cannot be trusted as masters; that
they tyrannize, bully, and deceive ... .'68
Such racial views had extensive ramifications for Caribbean society.
Excluded from white society, the coloureds often staged their own entertain-
ments. For example, they organized balls and dinners, some of which were
for browns only.69 However, white men were frequently invited, since brown
women sought to form relationships with them. Racial and colour stereotypes
thus broke down over sexual relations. Just as white-brown relations were
common, brown men mating with black women was also a familiar feature
of Caribbean slave society. Yet such relationships did not overturn the
prevailing racial and colour stereotypes of the society as a whole.
The free coloureds in the nineteenth century had thus advanced con-
siderably. With some exceptions, such as Cuba, free coloureds had become
the legal equals of the whites and were able to vie for high political office.

161
 General History of the Caribbean

But considerations of colour did not disappear with legal equality. Coloureds
remained the object of social discrimination and, in turn, sometimes abused
other groups lower down on the social hierarchy. Much of the complex
structure of plantation slave society continued, even though slavery ended.

The planter class after the abolition of slavery

The whites in the Caribbean faced serious problems in the aftermath of the
Haitian Revolution. A strong abolitionist movement gained momentum in
Britain which succeeded first in abolishing the slave trade in ·1808 and
ultimately slavery itself in 1834. Whites in the British colonies were thus
on the defensive during the course of the early nineteenth century.
Elsewhere in the region, the experience of the Haitian Revolution as well as
the attacks of the abolitionists had serious implications. St Domingue itself
emerged as independent Haiti; in the process, most whites either fled or
were killed. The abolition of slavery in the other French colonies as well as
in the Danish West Indies occurred in 1848, with the Dutch following in
1863. But Cuba and Puerto Rico enjoyed booming sugar economies in the
nineteenth century and did not abolish slavery until 1873 (Puerto Rico) and
1886 (Cuba).
The result in much of the Caribbean was a declining planter class. For
the whites, the effect of this decline was to continue the process of racial
consolidation which had been taking place since the end of the eighteenth
century. Lower-class whites found there were more possibilities of social
mobility for them. For example, in Suriname, many white planters left the
colony as a result of its declining economy. This made room not only for
immigrant whites but also for locally-born Jews, some of whom became
members of the planter class. 70
But the decline of the planter class was not a universal phenomenon in
the Caribbean. In the late-developing sugar colonies of Cuba and Puerto
Rico, the planter class flourished. This was partly because of the transfer of
technology and, to some degree, planters themselves from the decaying
areas of the region to the more flourishing ones. Some of the refugees from
the Haitian Revolution, for example, settled in Cuba and Puerto Rico along
with their slaves. Other immigrants came to Puerto Rico as a result of the
encouragement given to immigration and trade by the Cedula de Gracias of
1815. Many of these planters came from the eastern Caribbean colonies of
Britain, France, Denmark and Holland. Moreover, new infusions of capital
helped the old planter class in Cuba as well as in Puerto Rico.
The planters in Ponce were thus a cosmopolitan group. As Francisco
Scarano has discovered, only 55 per cent of all the planters in Ponce were

162
 Social structure of the slave societies

of Spanish origin (meaning either Creole, peninsuiar Spaniards or South

Americans). The most numerous of the immigrant hacendados were French,
but British, Dutch, Germans and Americans were also well represented. In
fact, it was the immigrant planters who fared best in Puerto Rico. Because of
better access to finance and technology, they were able to profit most from
the sugar revolution in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico. Creole planters did
not have these advantages; as a result, their estates were the lowest in value
of all the hacendados. It was also possible for artisans and others skilled in
sugar technology to profit from the sugar revolution. In an expanding
market, they came to Puerto Rico and found that they could prosper and
acquire haciendas of their own. 71
Cuba presents a comparable, although somewhat different picture. From
the 1840s onwards it enjoyed a significant increase in the white population,
from more than 400 000 whites to well over 1000000 in 1887. This meant that
whites in Cuba once again became the overwhelming majority; by 1887, they
made up 67.5 per cent of the total population. A large percentage of this
increase came from immigration, especially from Spain and the Canary Islands
but also from Latin America, other parts of the Caribbean and the United States.
The whites were divided by origin. Criollos, or locally born whites, and
peninsulares, who came from Spain, often were at loggerheads. Some
peninsulares dominated the colonial bureaucracy as well as the commercial
sector of the Cuban economy. This group tended to be ultra-Spanish in its
outlook and sought to retain the connection with Spain, since it proved
economically advantageous to them. On the other hand, criollos were the
principal landowners and planters in the colony. They resented Spanish
control and the loss of free trade which was associated with that connection.
They were also unhappy about their social and economic subordination to
the peninsulares. 72
In the face of a booming sugar economy and the threat of abolition of
slavery, these two groups came together. As Franklin Knight has suggested,
'sugar and slavery linked the rival elements'. 73 Planters needed credit from
the merchants, and the merchants were dependent on the planters for sugar.
Moreover, both groups were strongly opposed to the ending of slavery.
Ultimately, however, Creole resentment against the domination of Spain
overrode their desire to retain slavery.
As elsewhere in the Caribbean, whites in Cuba also had to abandon the
use of slavery. Whether it was as a result of abolitionist movements, internal
pressure from slaves, external demands from other powers, or contradictions
in the system itself, slavery throughout the region ended by the late
nineteenth century. But the plantation system, and much of its social struc-
ture and prevailing attitudes, continued to dominate most of the region well
into the twentieth century.

163
 General History of the Caribbean

Conclusion

The social structure of Caribbean slave societies underwent significant changes

over the 200 year period from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of
the nineteenth centuries. It is clear that the structure of the societies became
more complicated. At the outset, slave society was far more rudimentary than it
later became. Categories applicable to a 'frontier' society were therefore not
appropriate for highly-developed sugar colonies.
Thus the groups within the slave caste, for example, multiplied as the
societies became more complex and wealthier, although the differentiation
among the slaves often took place gradually. Whites were responsible for
creating the slave hierarchies. For whites, therefore, Creole slaves were
superior to Africans, elite slaves more valuable than field slaves, and
coloured slaves in a more elevated position than blacks. While slaves out-
wardly adopted these distinctions, they also developed their own rankings
based on very different criteria, some of which reflected African origins.
Veneration for the aged or for healers, especially those exercising traditional
forms of African medicine, was important within the slave community, but
largely ignored by the whites.
The Haitian Revolution and the abolition of the British slave trade in
the early nineteenth century did not fundamentally alter these categories,
although these events had an effect on the social structure. Many Caribbean
colonies declined economically in the course of the nineteenth century. For
slaves, this meant increased competition from the elite positions in the slave
hierarchies. The stresses within the slave population may have helped spark
rebellions, which in turn speeded up the process of abolition. But there were
colonies such as Cuba and Puerto Rico which experienced a booming sugar
economy in the nineteenth century. On these islands, the structure of slave
society replicated many of the features which had characterized the other
prosperous Caribbean sugar colonies of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
Freedmen were a by-product of the development of Caribbean slave
society. Initially, they were an unexpected aspect of these societies. In all the
Caribbean societies, free coloureds and free blacks suffered under consider-
able legal, social and economic limitations; none the less, they grew in
number and in importance. Freedmen became props of the slave system,
although whites often regarded them as potentially dangerous as well. As a
group, they were highly stratified internally; for example, free browns gener-
ally did not mix with free blacks. There were also important legal distinctions
between freedmen who had been born free and those who had been
manumitted. Many elite freedmen sought to identify with the whites, and this

164
 Social structure of the slave societies

limited the development of a group consciousness among the freedmen. Yet

relations between the mass of freedmen and slaves were often very close,
and movement between the two groups was far more fluid than some earlier
studies have suggested.
Whites resented the free coloureds and free blacks, but also needed
them to support the system. When freedmen protested against their condi-
tion, whites gradually and reluctantly granted them full civil rights in many of
the colonies. But full legal equality did not mean social equality for the
freedmen; attitudes developed over a 200-year period did not disappear with
the abolition of slavery.
White society also became more complex in the course of the two
centuries under review. Pre-plantation society in the Caribbean, whether in
Barbados in the seventeenth century or Cuba in the early eighteenth, was
marked by fewer class divisions than were to develop later. The advent of
sugar, however, brought with it great wealth and served to create a more
hierarchical society among the whites. The wealthy planters and administra-
tors at the top of the white class structure not only controlled those societies
but also lived in great splendour and style. The social and economic gap
between them and the petits blancs, for example, was very wide.
The Haitian Revolution marked an important turning point for whites
as well as for slaves and freedmen. In the face of a successful slave rebellion
and attacks by the abolitionists, white society became less rigidly divided
along class lines. There was a levelling of the white population and, as Elsa
Goveia has suggested for the Leeward Islands, the solidarity of whites
became more important than the divisions among them?4
Taken as a whole, the social structure of slave societies in the
Caribbean shared many characteristics. For Franklin Knight, plantation
society, whether in Barbados in the seventeenth century or Jamaica and St
Domingue in the eighteenth or Cuba and Puerto Rico in the nineteenth,
produced similar kinds of effects with equivalent structures?5 Clearly, there
were important differences in the proportions of the population and in the
national background and culture of individual colonies. But the similarities in
social structure outweighed the differences and serve as a common historical
backdrop for the region as a whole.

NOTES

1 I am grateful to Bridget Brereton, B. W. Higman, David Lowenthal and Arnold

A. Sio for their helpful comments on this essay.
2 The termfreedmenjs used here to denote men and women who were coloured
or black and born free or manumitted. The termS free coloured and free black
are used to differentiate members of this group when appropriate.

165
 General History of the Caribbean

3 Gabriel Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises (Basse-Terre: Societe

d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1974), p. 67; Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of
Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development and Structure of Negro Slave
Society in jamaica (Rutherford, N. J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1969), p. 153.
4 David Patrick Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of
St Domingue, 1793--1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 28.
5 Edward Long, The History of jamaica, 3 vols. (London: T. Lowndes, 1774),
vol. 2, bk. 3, p. 410.
6 Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises, pp. 86-7, 93-4.
7 Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West
Indies, 1624-1713 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972),
p.249.
8 Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in jamaica, 1770-1820
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 155.
9 Elsa V. Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 230.
10 Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of Virginia and
Cuba (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), p. 146.
11 Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 61.
12 M. G. Smith, 'Some Aspects of Social Structure in the British Caribbean about
1820', Social and Economic Studies, 1 (August 1953), p. 66.
13 Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises, pp. 135-6.
14 O. Nigel Bolland, The Formation of a Colonial Society: Belize, from Conquest to
Crown Colony (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), p. 56.
15 J. Harry Bennett, Jr., Bondsmen and Bishops: Slavery and Apprenticeship on the
Codrington Plantations of Barbados, 1710-1838 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1958), p. 18.
16 Patterson, Sociology of Slavery, p. 63; Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, p. 71. Skilled
slaves also received preferential treatment in the French Caribbean: see Debien,
Les Esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises, p. 103.
17 Mrs IA. C.l Carmichael, Domestic Manners and Social West Indies, 2 vols.
(London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1833), vol. 1, pp. 282-3.
18 Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises, p. 370.
19 Arnold A. Sio, 'Marginality and Free Coloured Identity in Caribbean Slave
Society', Slavery and Abolition: A journal of Comparative Studies, 8 (September,
1987), p. 166.
20 David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene (eds), Neither Slave nor Free: The
Freedman ofAfrican Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), pp. 335-9; N. A.T. Hall, 'The 1816 freed-
man petition in the Danish West Indies: its background and consequences',
Boletin de estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 29 (1980), pp. 55-73.
21 Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor Free, pp. 4, 14.
22 Long, History, vol. 2, bk 2, p. 321.
23 Gad J. Heuman, Between Black and White: Race, Politics, and the Free Coloureds
in jamaica, 1792-1865(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 6.
24 H. Hoetink, 'Surinam and Cura~ao', in Cohen and Green, Neither Slave nor Free,
p.70.

166
 Social structure of the slave societies

25 Leo Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', in Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor
Free, p. 145.
26 Hall, 'The 1816 freedman petition', p. 59; Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', p. 162.
27 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, 'Saint Domingue', in Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave
nor Free, p. 189.
28 Hall, 'The 1816 freedman petition', p. 59; Goveia, Slave Society, pp. 181-2;
Heuman, Between Black and White, p. 6.
29 Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution, p. 19.
30 Goveia, Slave Society, p. 219; Jerome S. Handler and Arnold A. Sio, 'Barbados',
in Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor Free, p. 231; Edward L. Cox, Free
Coloureds in the Slave Societies of St Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833 (Knoxville:
The University of Tennessee Press, 1984), pp. 93.
31 Bridget Brereton, A History of Modern Trinidad, 1783-1962 (Kingston:
Heine'mann Educational Books, 1981), p. 64; Cox, Free Coloureds,
pp.61-2.
32 Klein, Slavery in the Americas, p. 203; Jerome S. Handler, The Unappropriated
People: Freedmen in the Slave Society of Barbados (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1974), pp. 134-5; Jerome S. Handler, Joseph Rachell and
Rachel Pringle-Polgreen, 'Petty Entrepreneurs', in David G. Sweet and Gary
B. Nash (eds), Struggle and Suroival in Colonial America (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1981), pp. 3821-91.
33 Cox, Free Coloureds, p. 75; Hoetink, 'Surinam and Cura~ao', p. 80.
34 Hall, 'The 1816 freedman petition', pp. 70-1, 73; N. A.T. Hall, 'Anna Heegard -
Enigma', Caribbean Quarterly, 22 (June-September, 1976), p. 69.
35 R. A. J. Van Lier, Frontier Society: A Social Analysis of the History of Surinam
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), p. 78.
36 Cox, Free Coloureds, p. 154; Brathwaite, Creole Society, p. 188.
37 Sio, 'Marginality and Free Coloured Identity', p. 169.
38 Klein, Slavery in the Americas, p. 148.
39 Frank Moya Pons, Historia Colonial de Santo Domingo (Santiago, Dominican
Republic: Universidad Cat6lica Madre y Maestra, 1977), pp. 79-80; 88-9.
40 Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados ... (London:
Peter Parker and Thomas Guy, 1657), p. 43.
41 Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, p. 77.
42 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, p. 54.
43 Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 147.
44 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, pp. 268-9.
45 Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution, p. 9.
46 Ibid., p. 10.
47 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, p. 113.
48 Michael Craton and James Walvin, A Jamaican Plantation: The History of Worthy
Park, 1670-1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), p. 145; Debien,
Les Esclaves aux Antilles Franf,:aises, p. 113.
49 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the
West Indies, 2 vols. (Dublin: Luke White, 1793), bk. 4, Chap. 1, p. 7.
50 Goveia, Slave SOCiety, p. 207.
51 B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 121-3, 118.

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 General History of the Caribbean

52 B. W. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in jamaica, 1807-1834

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 232.
53 Franklin W. Knight, 'The Social Structure of Cuban Slave Society in the
Nineteenth Century', in Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden (eds) , Comparative
Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies (New York: Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 292, 1977), p. 261; Franklin W. Knight,
'Cuba', in Cohen and Greene, Neither Slave nor Free, p. 339; Francisco A.
Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce,
1800-1850 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), p. 138.
54 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, pp. 118-19.
55 Ibid., pp. 59-60, 67.
56 Scarano, Puerto Rico, p. 164.
57 Knight, 'Cuba', p. 285.
58 Knight, 'Cuba', pp. 290, 302-3.
59 .Knight, 'Cuba,' p. 284.
60 Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', p. 151; Cox, Free Coloureds, p. 30.
61 Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles', pp. 167-8; 170.
62 Heuman, Between Black and White, pp. 23-4.
63 Ibid., p. 28.
64 Hall, 'The 1816 Freedman Petition', pp. 65-7; Cox, Free Coloureds, p. 100.
65 Reverend George W. Bridges, The Annals of jamaica, 2 vols. (London: John
Murray, 1828), vol. 2, p. 371; Thejamaicajournal, 22 November, 1823.
66 Handler and Sio, 'Barbados', p. 250; James A. Thome and Horace J. Kimball,
Emancipation in the West Indies (New York: The American Anti-Slavery Society,
1838), p. 79.
67 Bolland, Formation of a Colonial Society, p. 94.
68 Anthony Trollope, The West Indies and the Spanish Main, 2nd. ed. (London:
Chapman & Hall, 1860), pp. 81-2.
69 M. G. Lewis (ed.), journal of a West India Proprietor, 1815-17, with an intro-
duction by Mona Wilson (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1929), p. 143.
70 H. Hoetink, 'Surinam and Cura~ao', p. 60.
71 Scarano, Puerto Rico, Chap. 4.
72 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, pp. 86-90.
73 Ibid., p. 90.
74 Goveia, Slave Society, p. 212.
75 Knight, Slave Society in Cuba, pp. 83-4.

168
 5

MAROON COMMUNITIES
IN THE CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN

Silvia W. de Groot, Catherine A. Christen

and Franklin W. Knight

M A ROO N societies consisted of runaway slaves and their offspring who

sequestered themselves in the circum-Caribbean wilderness. 1 The
existence of Maroons manifested the opposition of some Mrican
slaves to their enslavement and a persistent desire to create a free society of
their own. In the Western hemisphere, Maroon societies.emerged virtually
whenever and wherever a slave population existed. None the less, at any
given time, Maroons comprised no more than a tiny fraction of the local Mro-
Caribbean community. The survival of Maroon societies depended on a combi-
nation of circumstances, not only the local geography, but also the local social,
political and military resources of the Maroons and neighbouring slaveholders.
As early as 1520 the economy of the more settled Caribbean colonies -
Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba - was gradually shifting from
mining to market gardening, ranching and tobacco cultivation. Imported
Mrican slaves increasingly replaced local Amerindians as the predOminant
form of coerced labour for the Spanish colonizers, although the Caribbean
islands qUickly became only marginal components of the vast Spanish
American empire. Nevertheless, by the mid-seventeenth century several other
nations had developed their central colonial holdings in the Caribbean archi-
pelago and the adjacent Guianas, where they concentrated on plantation and
trading economies, especially based on sugar, cotton and coffee production.
An expanding population of Mrican slaves provided the labour. This con-
stant supply of imported slaves resulted in increasing marronage and a pro-
liferation of Maroon societies.
Marronage represented part of a spectrum of forms of resistance to
slavery. Slave resistance was a feature of every slave society, its mani-
festations usually found in 'day-to-day resistance' including 'a vague but
threatening insolence ... malingering, various forms of negligence or outright
destruction of plantation property ... and more serious actions such as
murder, especially by poison.'2 Resistance was also expressed in more

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 General History of the Caribbean

permanent responses such as suicide and self-mutilation and in large-scale

group actions such as conspiracy and rebellion. Marronage could be
expressed in the action of an individual or group running away, either
temporarily or permanently. When the desertion was prolonged or perma-
nent, and led to sequestered groups, it may be said that the marronage
resulted in the formation of a Maroon society.
Of paramount importance in the establishment of any Maroon commun-
ity was the opportunity to escape to a sufficiently remote and defensible des-
tination, yet not so remote that the group could not maintain social and
economic viability. The larger and less settled the territory, the steeper and
more impenetrable its mountains and the denser its natural vegetation, the
greater chance a Maroon band had of successful, continuous long-term
survival. In this respect, potential Maroons from colonies located at the edge
of a continental wilderness, such as in Suriname or the Guianas, had a clear
advantage over islanders. Nevertheless, some of the most successful Maroon
settlements were on the ruggedly mountainous island of Jamaica.
Maroons had to be able to produce what they needed or acquire by
trade what they could not produce. Availability of hunting and planting
grounds, and avenues of trade and/or raiding were therefore essential for
procreation. Maroon bands needed a sexually mixed population within the
fertile age range of 15 to 45 years, always one of the most difficult require-
ments to fulfil, given the harsh and often embattled conditions of Maroon
life. For protection in what was often a perpetual state of siege, Maroons
needed weapons and skill in guerrilla warfare, as well as a style of liVing, at
least in the initial phases, that tolerated frequent, impromptu relocation to
new areas of settlement. Another factor affecting the survival of any given
Maroon band was the degree to which it inconvenienced or threatened the
slaveholding class, and how much of their economic, military and human
resources the slaveholders were prepared to devote to eradicating or
'neutraliZing' the Maroons. Sometimes, when the Maroons were suffiCiently
tenacious, the slaveholders tired of trying to rout them and a political solu-
tion was arranged, as in Jamaica or Suriname, where treaties were signed and
the existence of that particular group of Maroons was legally recognized.
Sometimes this legal settlement proVided advantages for both Maroons and
the local slaveholding class.

Maroon settlements: location and timing

An account of the location and timing of Maroon settlements in the

Caribbean during the era of slavery requires a distinction between
the possibilities of marronage as a term generally indicating escape and the

170
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

actual existence of continuous social structures that may be called 'Maroon

settlements'. The expression 'marronage' may describe the action of slaves
who escaped to town and assumed the guise of free blacks, slaves who
absconded from the plantation for a few days or weeks, returning on their
own initiative, or individual slaves who escaped to the wilderness. Only a
community of escaped slaves assembled through particular acts of marronage
on a relatively long-term and autonomous basis should be described as a
Maroon settlement or society.
The history of the Maroon societies bears a strong correlation with that
of the settled, organized and symbiotic colonial states. In many instances
individual settlements lasted only briefly, as in Puerto Rico, Cuba and
St Domingue, while in neighbouring Jamaica they have exhibited historical
continuity up to the present. A survey of the location and chronological
instance of these settlements underlines the relationship between particular
forms of slave society and local geographical factors and the potential for
Maroon settlements.
Belize is a case in point. In this mainland colony, slaves had a better
chance of complete escape than on the islands of the Caribbean. In the
Spanish Mexican empire, the Yucatan peninsula was peripheral, both in
terms of geography and in terms of Spanish settlement and economic policy.
In the 1620s British subjects began to establish timber export operations in
the Bay of Honduras, or Belize. In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Spain con-
ceded to Britain the right to continue such harvests, but did not overtly cede
administrative authority over the territory. The Spanish attempted to reassert
control over the settlement in 1779 but again ceded effective control to the
British in 1783. Nevertheless they saw the usefulness of harassing the British
by offering succour to a slave population which far outnumbered their
owners. When labour-intensive mahogany extraction began in earnest in
1783, a few thousand slaves working for a handful of owners were scattered
in small and largely unsupervised groups throughout the forests of the
sparsely populated territory. Escape was relatively easy for these slaves. The
settlers had few resources to devote to recapture and more than one Maroon
settlement was established in the mountains. Maroon communities within
Belize were well situated to coordinate attacks upon the slave owners, but
the slaves' apparent ability to find ready refuge in neighbouring Spanish terri-
tory militated against major uprisings. Slaves escaping north into the Yucatan
were offered freedom and protection by the Spanish Commandant just across
the Rio Hondo. When the newly-independent Spanish states abolished
slavery in 1821, many Belizean slaves escaped to these republics, with the
Peten area in Guatemala a favoured destination. 3
Cuba, north-east of Belize, and the largest of the Greater Antilles,
represented another set of circumstances. From the 1530s onwards, Cuba

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 General History of the Caribbean

contained Maroon settlements called palenques, first established by Indians

escaping from forced labour. One recent study by Gabino De la Rosa Corzo
identifies 62 completely separate palenques located in three areas of the
island: the low mountains west of Havana; further east in the highlands near
the highlands of Matanzas; and in the foothills of the lofty Sierra Maestra
mountains. These 62 palenques constitute only those identified in the records
of the colonial authorities.
These settlements were invariably well hidden and well fortified -
palenque means 'palisade' - and it is certain that many more remained un-
discovered. 4 Though a given location might remain the site of a palenque for
decades, the population on that site, almost exclusively male, displayed little
inter-generational coherence. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
ex-slaves sometimes shared these palenques with pirates and other outlaws.
The authorities spent enormous amounts of money and military effort to
eradicate these Maroon settlements, but many of the palenques survived
through Cuba's sugar boom and the years of slavery, ultimately marking the
location of small rural towns. 5
Jamaica, although a relatively small island compared with neighbouring
Cuba and Hispaniola, nevertheless contained extremely rugged regions. The
Spaniards had occupied Jamaica since 1509, but at the time of the British
invasion of 1655 only about 1500 blacks and the same number of white
Spanish subjects tried to defend the island. The Spaniards freed their slaves
and both black and white took to the hills. By 1660 the Spaniards had sur-
rendered, but the remaining ex-slaves formed the embryos of Maroon bands
which would menace the British settlers. EVidently the remnants of these
Spanish Maroons ultimately settled in the mountains in the interior of the
island. 6
As the British came to establish a sugar plantation economy the
number of Mrican slaves in Jamaica increased, with more slaves deserting to
the eastern mountains or to the equally rugged limestone mountains of the
centre and west, known as the Cockpit country. By the early eighteenth
century, Maroons in the west consolidated themselves into a tightly-knit
band, and those of the east developed a federation of individual 'towns'. In
1739, after years of plantation raids and guerrilla warfare between Maroons
and British subjects, both Maroon groups, about 1000 people in all, signed
treaties with the colonial government. By means of these treaties the
Maroons were granted their freedom and in tum agreed to hunt down and
tum back any newly-escaped slaves, which they did. Mter a second major
war with the British in 1795, the Maroons signed a second peace treaty
reaffirming the earlier conditions. Some of the descendants of these 'treaty
Maroons' still live in their own towns in Jamaica?

172
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

Conditions on Hispaniola, characterized by rugged mountains and a

small, scattered population of colonists, were also conducive to Maroon
settlements. Populous Maroon enclaves existed throughout the slave era. By
1546 it was estimated that over 7000 Maroons were hiding in the forests and
mountains all over the island, drawn from a slave population of about
30000. 8 After the division of the island between the French and Spanish in
1697 the greater proportion of Maroon settlements were to be found on the
French side, because of a higher slave to white ratio due to the much more
established plantation economy. Most Maroon settlements in St Domingue
were located between the cultivated plains and the mountainous regions,
around Le"Cap (northern), CuI de Sac (east-central) and Les Cayes (south-
ern). The most infamous area of Maroon settlement in French St Domingue
was Le Maniel, located in the central mountains, just over the border from
Spanish Santo Domingo. Persistent efforts to eradicate Le Maniel and other
Maroon holdouts met with minimal success. 9
Puerto Rico, the easternmost of the Greater Antilles, was a relative
backwater in the Spanish empire, with very little plantation activity until the
early nineteenth century. With only a small population, slave or white, the
island became a favoured destination for slaves escaping by water from other
islands, particularly islands of the Lesser Antilles. Blanketed with a large
proportion of original forest until the early nineteenth century, the mountains
of Puerto Rico proVided a refuge for escaped slaves. Benjamin Nistal Moret,
after studying the phenomenon of marronage in Puerto Rico between the
years 1770-1870, reports (on the fragmentary evidence available) the
existence of several Maroon bands prior to 1850, especially in the 1820s,
comprised of a peculiar combination of slave fugitives who came to Puerto
Rico by sea, as well as of Maroons from the island itself.lO
Danish St Thomas was first developed as a plantation colony after
1688, and by the 1730s this development had resulted in the removal of the
island's natural forest cover. The intervening decades saw island slaves taking
full advantage of the limited possibilities for Maroon settlements, living in sea
cliffs and caves. Neville Hall relates that 'they chose well, with a keen
strategic eye, for the cliffs could not be scaled from the seaward side and the
landward approaches were difficult because of the vegetation.'ll
By the 1720s hunts were being organized to dislodge the Maroons.
This, combined with the elimination of vegetative cover, drove prospective
Maroons to flee to nearby Puerto Rico, the less populous Leeward Islands
and beyond. Ironically, the development of sugar plantations brought the
opportunity for occasional small-scale Maroon settlements in the form of huts
erected among the tall canes, thus relatively undetectable during the six
months before the summer harvest.

173
 General History of the Caribbean

St John (acquired by the Danish in 1717) and St Croix (acquired in

1733) went through cycles of deforestation similar to that in St Thomas. By
the 1760s Maronbjerg, or 'Maroon Mountain' in the north-western corner of
St Croix was no longer considered a safe retreat, so potential Maroons from
that island also tried to ship out to more sparsely settled islands such as
Puerto Rico. 12
St Kitts, first claimed as a British West Indian colony in 1623, became a
permanent British possession in 1783. The situation for Maroons on St Kitts is
indicative of that on many of the small islands of the Lesser Antilles. Richard
Frucht describes why successful Maroon settlements were unlikely:

The island is relatively small, some 68 square miles, and the only refuge
areas are found in the dense woodlands and rain forests of the upper
levels of the mountains that form the spine of St Kitts. Runaways would
hide in thatched huts during the day and raid provision grounds at
night. Almost all runaways were caught and returned to their master(s)
for punishment .... 13

Population figures for Antigua reflect a socio-economic change after

1670 with the arrival of sugar and an increase in marronage. In 1672 the 570
slaves were owned by a few of the 600-800 white British settlers. By 1708,
2892 whites lived among 13 000 slaves. Slaves deserted into the Shekerly
mountains in the south-west portion of the island. In 1687 the legislature
claimed that the slaves were plotting to revolt and that many had already fled
to the Shekerly Maroons. The whites attacked a fortified Maroon camp of 20
houses (about 40 to 50 individuals) in these mountains, and routed the
Maroons. After that time, as in the Danish Leeward Islands, potential
Maroons apparently concentrated on waterborne avenues of escape: David
Barry Gaspar notes that some reportedly fled to Dominica, St Lucia and
St Vincent during the first half of the eighteenth century, when both of those
islands were still controlled by the Caribs. 14
Carib islanders prevented the Spaniards from settling Guadeloupe and
Martinique in 1493. French colonists developed important centres for sugar
production on both islands after 1635. For about 100 years there was erratic
Maroon activity on the two islands, but as Gabriel Debien indicates, only
those well-established bands causing serious trouble - usually crop damage -
were recorded in official correspondence. On Martinique several hundred
Maroons were reported to exist in 1665. In Guadeloupe a group of 30
Maroons were seen in the vicinity of Grande-Terre in 1668. In 1726,
200 Maroons were said to be on Guadeloupe, apparently divided into four
groups.15 'Petit marronage', running away for a few days and returning, was a
commonplace on these islands and Debien notes that among the managers,

174
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

as among the planters, there seems to have been a genuine casualness about
it. 16
In 1763 the French ceded Dominica to the British. In the next ten years
the nature of the island economy changed from dependence upon coffee
and spice production to sugar plantation, and the number of slaves roughly
trebled, from 5872 to 15 753. The number of whites also doubled, from 1718
French to 3850 British subjects. Bernard Marshall, after examining the corre-
spondence of the Dominican government, rel.ates that 'throughout the
eighteenth century the Dominica Maroons were rated second in organization,
discipline, strength and unity of purpose to their counterparts in Jamaica.'
One contemporary description of the Maroons of Dominica held that they
were originally slaves of Jesuit missionaries, who fled to the interior rather
than acknowledge British owners at the change of government in 1763.
There they were joined by other runaway slaves. Whatever its history, in
1785 the estimated population of the Maroon settlement was 300. It was
hidden in the mountains of the island's interior, which 'abounded in fast-
nesses, places of concealment and roads that were almost impassable.'17
About this time the Maroons apparently began open raiding on planta-
tions. The British government tried to stop the rebels, first through nego-
tiation, then by a military offensive, that finally forced_559 Maroons to
surrender in 1814, after several decades of fighting. The British were greatly
aided in their pursuit of the Maroons by the assistance of captured rebels
who revealed the location of Maroon hideouts and planting grounds in
exchange for their personal freedom.
South of Martinique the chain of the Lesser Antilles Windward Islands,
including St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago with their fierce Carib
populations, remained free of European plantation settlement longer than the
other islands of the chain. Depending on the prevailing Carib policy towards
runaways, slaves from nearby plantation colonies such as Barbados some-
times found it advantageous to flee to these islands.
When runaways fled to St Vincent, the longest-standing Carib territory,
Caribs initially returned them to enslavement. In the second half of the
seventeenth century, when the St Vincent Caribs realized that the colonial
powers had serious designs on their island, they adopted a policy of
welcoming these Maroons, according to Hilary Beckles. So many Maroons
arrived that they quickly outnumbered the Caribs, and the Caribs then invited
the British and French troops to invade the island -and rid them of the
Maroons. In 1719 the French invaded, but the Maroons fended them off, and
managed to hold on to St Vincent during the first half of the eighteenth
century. 18
Barbados, the easternmost of the Caribbean islands, was claimed by the
English government in 1627. Beckles reports significant evidence of slave

175
 General History of the Caribbean

and servant marronage within the island before 1670; both groups fled to a
few caves and gullies, as well as the remaining but rapidly diminishing
wooded zones. Sugar cultivation was introduced during the early 1640s, and
by the mid-1650s the 'sugar revolution' had occurred. By the 1670s, 70 per
cent of the island was under sugar cultivation, and the militia was able to
patrol the rest when necessary; slaves began to seek other options for
escape, such as making their way to neighbouring islands like St Vincent. 19
The Guianas in the north-east comer of the South American continent
represented a geographically and topographically ideal situation for marron-
age. The coastal colonial settlements and plantation economies of these
colonies were very much part of the Caribbean area but their continental
geography presented great advantages for potential Maroon settlements. As
in Belize, when Maroons escaped their path took them not to some nearby
restricted 'mountain interior, as on most of the islands, but further away from
colonial settlement, in this case towards the south, along the many rivers that
run through the seemingly limitless interior of the Guianas.
In 1814 the Dutch formally ceded Guiana to the British who had in fact
already assumed effective control by the 1780s. Both powers concentrated on
coastal sugar plantations and by 1770 the colony had more than 15000
slaves. Escaped slaves established Maroon colonies in the wilderness of the
interior, with a particular influx of Maroons during the period of colonial
reorganization after the Dutch West Indian Company's colonial charter
expired in 1792. The planters brought down the numbers of the Maroons
of British Guiana by the end of the eighteenth century by giving the
Amerindians incentives to hunt them down; they paid the Amerindian a
bounty of 300 guilders for every right hand of a dead Maroon. About the
same time a similar tactic helped rid the planters of French Guiana of the
Maroons of Lead Mountain, to the west of the principal settlement, Cayenne. 20
Suriname, or Dutch Guiana, located between the French and British
colonies, had a very different outcome to its Maroon history. When the
Dutch took over Suriname in 1667, the British had already begun to develop
plantations and already a few hundred Maroons lived in the interior. By
1738, with 57 000 slaves in Suriname, the number of Maroons was estimated
at 6000. Despite frequent armed patrols from the plantations, these Maroons
were able to develop their societies in relative freedom, dividing themselves
into clans and sharing the riverside territories between these clans. In the
1760s, several Maroon clans made peace treaties with the white settlers, but
despite agreements on the return of newly-escaped slaves, new Maroon
groups continued to form, spreading into the hinterland of French Guiana.
Several of these groups have maintained a high degree of autonomy into the
present era. 21

176
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

Maroon settlements: social and political structure

A correlation can therefore be found between the longevity of Maroon

settlements in particular areas and the type of political and economic rela-
tions the Maroons developed with the settled colonial society. Besides
serving the interests of their own band, Maroon societies were often useful
both to the colonial authorities and to the slave societies. Maroons provided
an important trade link for slaves and colonists alike, purchasing from as
well as selling to the plantations. To slaves, the Maroons represented what
was at least the theoretical possibility of attaining liberty. To the authorities,
those Maroon societies with whom they had established treaties represented
some form of control over future runaway slaves.
The examples of Maroon societies in Cuba, St Domingue, Jamaica and
Suriname, and their social and political conditions provide evidence that
those Maroon societies which were able to negotiate useful treaties with the
incumbent colonial powers had much better prospects of survival over a
period of generations. Their communities, freed from the need for unceasing
military activity, were able to concentrate on developing and perpetuating
their culture and society. Though the physical locations of Maroon
settlements might remain the same for years, even without the protection of
treaties, these settlements were much less likely than those of the treaty
Maroons to have a stable membership with multi-generational ties.
Cuba's Maroon settlements, or palenques, offer an example of this
transience. Hundreds of these fortified settlements existed in Cuba through-
out the period of slavery, despite sustained efforts to eradicate them on the
part of the slave owners. Ever vigilant and ready to flee at a moment's notice,
the apalencados, who lived in the settlements, built their huts of flimsy
materials such as twigs and mud, and surrounded them with piles of stones
to hurl at rancbeadores (Maroon hunters). Keeping constant guard, scouts
patrolled the area and communicated with neighbouring palenques. The
apaJencadoS skill at evasive tactics and guerrilla warfare is reflected in De la
Rosa's statement that 'In the official reports of attacks on palenques only very
rarely is there mention of the capture of more than three apalencados at one
time.'22 But it might also indicate the relatively small number in these
palenques.
Indeed, these communities rarely had more than 50 inhabitants: the
average palenque contained between 10 and 30 huts, each hut normally
accommodating no more than two Maroons. Jose L. Franco cites an 1830
description of the cabins of the pa/enque Bumba, near Santiago de Cuba,
recounted by Commander Antonio de Leon, leader of a military operation

177
 General History of the Caribbean

against the palenque, 'the huts are so spread out that it is only possible to
surprise 2 or 3 at one time. They are so low that they cannot be seen over
the bushes and cannot be detected except at a very close distance. Each hut
has 2 doors with a small clearing on each side.' Commander de Leon
described some of the other protective devices the palenques incorporated:
'A few steps forward and I found myself in a ditch full of pointed sticks ....
The Second obstacle seemed insuperable: ... a steep, rugged hill, covered
with tibisi (undergrowth), which had two very narrow, winding paths that
we followed endlessly.'23
The apalencados travelled in small groups and followed river beds
rather than paths, leaving no trails and going Circuitously to foil the
rancheadores and their dogs. They travelled at night when the rancheadores
were nearby. With a serious shortage of firearms, most apalencados carried
chuzos, long, hard, wooden sticks sharpened and scorched at the tip.24
The apalencados' organization reflected their constant warfare. They
had an elected chief, or captain, whose power of command was absolute.
Normally the captain selected a site for settlement, and then planned its
defence. To eliminate the chance of betrayal, Maroons who did not defend
themselves from pursuers were killed, and generally no escaped slave was
allowed to leave the vicinity of the palenque for a long period - as much as
two years after he had joined it. 25
Apalencados cultivated many of their own crops in planting grounds
near their huts. Their staples included plantain, beans, sugar-cane, manioc
and maianga (a type of tuber). In the more isolated eastern palenques they
also grew tobacco, coffee, cotton and fruits, and sometimes even constructed
small simple sugar mills.26 They trapped animals and fished in nearby
streams. Surplus crops were sometimes sold at market, but the most trade-
able items were wild honey and beeswax, exchanged for clothing, gun-
powder, weapons and tools. Apalencados traded with pirates, white farmers
or merchants, or through black intermediaries on nearby plantations. Their
trade was sometimes carried out in regular networks stretching to markets on
other islands. Bumba, the palenque near Santiago de Cuba, traded with
Hispaniola and Jamaica via several small boat operators.
Raids on estates and plantations were carried out when trading oppor-
tunities were either not available or not sufficient. During these night-time
raids apalencados took a quantity of tradeable items, such as food (especially
meat), clothing and firearms, as well as new recruits, whether voluntary or
forced. Women particularly were sought to bring back to the palenques, due
to an understandable shortage of females in these camps.
Many of the characteristics of Maroon organization in Cuba also
obtained in St Domingue. As one historian summarizes, 'Escaped slaves set
up communities, elected their leaders, cultivated the soil, built houses, and

178
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

constructed barricades against invaders. Operating from these bases, fugitives

... robbed passers-by on the highways at night, and went from plantation to
plantation seizing cattle. ,27 One late eighteenth century account, related by
M. 1. E. Moreau de Saint-Mery shows how many of the same techniques of
construction were employed by the Maroons of St Domingue:
secured behind an earthen parapet the Negroes defied their adversaries
by dancing. These latter, infuriated, rushed right into ditches, the
bottom of which had been filled with pointed stakes of pine and
covered over with lianas and creeping plants ... half of the attackers
were maimed. 28
One distinctive characteristic of the Maroon situation in St Domingue
was the presence of a frontier linking two European colonies: French and
Spanish. Relations between these two colonial powers were often strained,
and the Maroons of St Domingue were able to exploit the political antipathy
of the neighbouring powers to their own advantage. The Maroons of Le
Maniel provide a case in point. Because the Spanish in more sparsely settled
Santo Domingo had far less of a problem with slave desertion than did the
French of neighbouring St Domingue, individual Spanish settlers and the
Spanish colonial government acted with impunity in offering the escaped
slaves refuge and assistance.
Established in the vicinity of the Bahoruco mountains by the southern
French border, the Maroons of Le Maniel brought their merchandise to
nearby Spanish frontier towns, where Spanish merchants received the goods
and factored for the Maroons. To protect their economic interest in the settle-
ment, these merchants would warn the Maroons when French reprisals were
imminent. When the settlement of Le Maniel was attacked, members of the
band slipped across the border to Santo Domingo, where they bided their
time unmolested until they could return to rebuild their huts and gardens,
destroyed by the frustrated French. 29
In 1872, after decades of pursuing the Maroons of Le Maniel, the
French increased their efforts to resolve the problem because of colonists'
interest in developing plantations in the area, where a boundary agreement
had recently been signed by the French and Spanish authorities. M. de Saint-
Larry, a former militia lieutenant and local settler, made contact with Spanish
merchants associated with the Maroons.30 Negotiations were begun for a
Maroon surrender and a halt to plantation raids in return for outright
freedom and land. A tentative agreement was reached, whereby the 125
French Maroons and their Spanish Maroon leader, Santiago, were to settle in
a specific location in French territory, and hunt down future runaways.
In February 1786, the Maroons announced that they would not settle in
the area described in the agreement. As Moreau de Saint-Mery relates, the

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French suspected that the sudden refusal devolved from the negative advice
'of several Spaniards who got [of the Maroons] their sustenance for practically
nothing.'31 Moreau de Saint-Mery adds that from that time the Maroons of I.e
Maniel desisted from further raids on the white settlements, but new settlers
still kept away for fear of the Maroons. Spanish settlers had effectively
precluded French economic expansion through their influence with the
Maroons.
Jamaica's Maroon population and their history have been the subject of
considerable study, particularly focusing on the 'Maroon war' of 1739, and
eighteenth century Maroons in Jamaica had isolated settlements in the
western and eastern mountains, close to the colonists on the coastal plains.
1.3efore the treaties Maroons preying on neighbouring plantations sometimes
served to discourage agricultural expansion. With the highest absentee
proprietor rate in the Caribbean, the Jamaican planters were ill-prepared to
ward off the Maroons. During this era the colonial government petitioned
with frequency for the home government to send military assistance against
the Maroons:

We are not in a condition to defend ourselves, the terror of them

spreads itself everywhere and the ravages and barbarities they
commit, have determined several planters to abandon their settle-
ments, the evil is daily increasing and their success has had such
influence on our slaves that they are continually deserting to them in
great numbers and the insolent behaviour of others gives but too
much cause to fear a general defection, which without your Majestie's
gracious aid and assistance must render us a prey to them ... [Address
of Governor, Council and Assembly of Jamaica to the King,
21 February, 1734].32

The Maroon bands themselves appear to have been somewhat

discomfited by their great success in attracting recruits. Once settled in the
mountains, Maroon groups often did not particularly welcome new members,
who represented additional mouths to be fed and a greater possibility of
attention and suppression by white colonists. The Spanish Creole Maroons
who remained in the hills after the British takeover in 1655 were the first
grudging hosts. Mavis Campbell reports that:

From about the decade following the 1660s the fate of the bozales
[newly-arrived Africans] who took flight to the hills ... was considered
intolerable in view of the bad treatment meted out to them by the
Spanish Creole, and they actually returned to their former plantations
... as a result of the Spanish Creoles brutality to them. 33

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 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

Those who stayed in the hills often joined up with others of their own ethnic
background, and as more slaves from Mrica continued to be imported, they
gradually became the majority in the Maroon enclaves.
Jamaica had a particularly high rate of slave rebellions, and many of
the Maroons in Jamaica fled as a group, often retaining the ethnic preponder-
ance characteristic of the particular plantation which they had left. The
original leeward Maroons appear to have been Akan-speaking Coromantees
(from the Gold Coast), who rebelled in 1673 and took to the hills. According
to Barbara Kopytoff, in 1690 this group was augmented by another 200
Coromantees who escaped after an uprising at Sutton's plantation. Their
common ethnic heritage may have facilitated this merging. The leader of the
Sutton's uprising became head of the leeward Maroon groups, and his son,
Cudjoe, succeeded him. Cudjoe ruled his group with absolute authority.
When other bands of Maroons came from the east to settle in the territory of
the leeward Maroons, Cudjoe invariably learned of their presence, hunted
them down, and incorporated them or sent them back if they appeared to be
too numerous or not amenable to his absolute rule. 34 Both Cudjoe and his
father were successively headman for life of the leeward Maroons.
By contrast, the windward Maroons had a succession of headmen, who
were easily replaced on the grounds of having lost a battle or committed
some other tactical error. As mentioned in the previous section, the Maroon
bands of the east were not so much united as 'federated', agreeing to defend
each other in battle and accept each other's refugees.
Kopytoff provides a useful summary of major characteristics of the pre-
treaty Maroon societies in Jamaica:

. .. by the early eighteenth century, a number of ethnically diverse

groups of Maroons had drawn together into two polities in the eastern
and western interior of the island. The fact that their societies were at
war with colonial Jamaica led both groups of Maroons to impose a
harsh discipline, in which the headmen applied the death penalty freely
when they were disobeyed. Both maintained an impressive and well
coordinated military organization which engaged in raiding as well as
defence. Among both sets of Maroons the headmen, who were political
and military leaders, were complemented by obeah men and women.
In the east, where Cudjoe concentrated power firmly in his own hands,
the one obeah man we find mentioned does not rival him in import-
ance. In the east, however, the obeah woman, Nanny, is the single
outstanding figure, overshadowing the headmen. 35

Among the pre-treaty windward Maroons of Jamaica, the headman was

often not long in office, but 'Nanny', an obeah woman, invested the

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 General History of the Caribbean

windward groups with a measure of religious and political stability. Though

she did not carry a political title comparable to 'headman', Nanny is credited
with coordinating windward Maroon alliance and resistance to the British.
Her name is not recorded on the windward treaty, but the official land grant
for the windward Maroons records the establishment of 'New Nanny Town',
replacing the former Nanny Town destroyed by the British during the war. In
all likelihood Nanny was the administrator of this town. 36
A rise in the number of slaves escaping to the Maroons and consequeI)t
increase in plantation raiding during the first decades of the eighteenth
century led to redoubled efforts by the British to suppress the Maroons. In
1730, two regiments of regular troops were brought in to fight them, along
with 'other hired parties and the whole body of militia.'37 By 1739, all the
principals, including the white settlers, British soldiers and leeward and
windward Maroons were nearly prostrated by the constant engagements, and
were prepared to treat for peace.
The British approached Cudjoe's band before any other band. On
1 March, 1739 Cudjoe signed a treaty which recognized the freedom of the
Maroons, and granted them specified parcels of land. Their responsibilities,
according to the treaty, were to assist in the island's defence against foreign
invaders, and to hunt down and return future Maroons and runaways. Their
headmen were recognized as holding office for life, and as having the right
to impose any punishment other than the death penalty for crimes com-
mitted in the community. A white 'superintendent' lived ip. the community in
order to facilitate relations with the colonial government. Maroons were
given the right to sell their produce at open markets. 9uao, or Quaco, then
the current headman representing the windward Maroons, signed a similar
treaty a few months later.
Once they had determined that they did not have sufficient resources
to eradicate the Maroons, the colonial British authJities negotiated treaties
so that the taxing warfare with the Maroons coulq be halted, incentive for
slaves to run away and 'join the Maroons' would be I
removed, and colonists
would be able to settle and establish plantations in territory formerly ren-
dered virtually uninhabitable by the continuous Maroon threat. As Kopytoff
notes, the content of the treaties shows that the authorities clearly intended
to have the· Maroons handle their own internal affairs. In order for the
Maroons to perform the promised tasks of hunting down and returning
runaway slaves, they would have to be able to maintain some semblance of
their prior military order. But factionalism, which would have spelled rapid
destruction for the Maroons as an outlaw band, began to run rampant in the
several Maroon towns acknowledged by the treaties.
Two forces contributing to the potential for factionalism were encour-
aged by the treaties themselves. First, the Maroon captain was denied the

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 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

ultimate punishment of the death penalty for crimes committed by members

of his band. Precisely because the death penalty had been imposed by the
headman prior to the treaty, this denial seriously undermined the headman's
absolute authority within his band. Previously, the headman had used the
death penalty or the threat of it in cases of challenges to his political author-
ity. For example, in the pre-treaty years Cudjoe punished by death any
member of his band who harmed a white without provocation during a plan-
tation raid, in violation of his strict orders. The death penalty was also a
deterrent to opponents of Cudjoe's absolute authority. As Kopytoff points
out, 'the British were hardly likely to sentence a Maroon to death for
challenging the authority of his chief, that is for political crimes within the
settlement, unless his actions were punishable by death under British law.'38
The second problematic characteristic of the treaties to the Maroons
was the clause reserving to the British the right of appointing headmen for
the Maroon towns, and the determination that the headman so chosen would
govern for life. These clauses were to take away sufficient autonomy from
the Maroons for their established political structure to be undermined and no
longer functional. The British quickly recognized the internal dissension that
characterized the post-treaty Maroon towns. They soon began to pass
supplementary laws relating to the Maroons. These laws gradually extended
the power of the white superintendents living in the Maroon towns. The laws
also organized Maroon slave hunters under white leaders, rather than leaving
them under Maroon leadership as originally agreed. In 1744 the British
formed the Maroons into military companies, thus making the Maroons
subject to Jamaican military regulations.
Another unhappy result of the signing of the treaties, at least from the
Maroons' point of view, was the strict limits the treaties placed on where the
Maroons were entitled to hunt, fish and cultivate land. Very shortly after
the treaties were signed, more white settlers began to arrive. The Maroons
quickly realized the restricting nature of the treaties, especially how little land
the treaties actually set aside for them. At the time of signing it had appeared
to be a good deal of land, since with few other settlers the Maroons were
able to continue their practice of hunting in a wide area, and of planting
where they chose within a relatively large wilderness. Within the very year of
signing the treaties the Maroons found themselves enmeshed in border dis-
putes with neighbours claiming land where the Maroons had previously
hunted or cultivated.
The 'second Maroon war' of 1795 was sparked by a relatively minor
incident, but underlying this was discontent about conditions of Maroon life
directly traceable to the provisions of the 1739 treaties. Limited to the
Maroons of Trelawny Town - one of the two towns of Cudjoe's heritage - on
the northern part of the island, the war was sparked by an incident in which

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two Maroons accused of stealing swine were sentenced by the Montego Bay
authorities to be publicly whipped by a recaptured runaway slave. The
Trelawny Maroons were already agitated because a white superintendent
whom they disliked had been appointed to replace another, particularly well-
liked superintendent, who had reSigned. Underlying these complaints was
the Trelawny Maroons' growing unease about land: in the face of a growing
population (due to natural increase) their land was insufficient and already
overworked.39
These local grievances were aggravated by the French Revolution in
St Domingue, where the slaves had risen en masse demanding liberty from
their owners. Admittedly afraid due to the wider context of revolution, and
warned by various sources that French agents were about Trelawny Town
and the other Maroon towns inciting revolution, the British responded with a
heavy hand against the Trelawny Maroons. The new governor of Jamaica, the
Earl of Balcarres, ordered an infantry regiment of 1000 men and several
smaller military units to Montego Bay. He intercepted a convoy carrying
troops to St Domingue, and diverted them to Montego Bay. To these British
troops he added white militia units, black troops and baggage slaves. This
massive force faced an estimated 660 Maroons of all ages at Trelawny Town. 40
During the five-month siege that followed, the Trelawny Maroons
proved that they had not forgotten how to use the difficult terrain of the
Cockpit country to their advantage. The British suffered heavy casualties in
repeated ambushes and surprise attacks. What finally caused the Trelawny
Maroons to surrender was the threat of attack by over a hundred Cuban dogs
specially trained for Maroon hunting. The British had promised not to deport
the Maroons if they surrendered. Immediately upon surrender, however, the
British reneged on their promise. The Trelawny Maroons were expelled, first
to Nova Scotia, where they spent several long, cold winters, and then the
survivors were initially sent on to Sierra Leone.
Formal treaties, concluded after a prolonged period of warfare,
provided a similar dividing mark in the history of the Maroons of Suriname.
During the pre-treaty period, the Maroon societies of Suriname, like those of
Jamaica, were occupied in developing their internal structural coherence and
replicability, which incorporated a constant preparedness for battle with
external (slave society) forces. In review of some writing on the Suriname
Maroons, Silvia W. de Groot characterizes the pre-treaty era of Maroon
history in Suriname:

'First time' (jesi-ten) is the period regarding the formation of Maroon

community in freedom ... the period from 1685 to 1762. The Maroon
sense of identity is derived from the memory of this period of the
origin of their community: their liberation from slavery and from

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 Maroon communities in the circum~aribbean

plantation life, their wandering and the struggle for survival in the
wilderness, their defence against armies and patrols sent by the whites
and their attacks on the plantations .... In this period clans were
formed, land rights were divided, succession procedures were estab-
lished, ritual centres of power were established, in short, the whole
social fabric originated during these 77 years. 41

Separate Maroon bands concluded treaties with the Dutch authorities in

1760, 1762 and 1767. By and large these treaties marked the end of warfare
between the Maroons and the government, a significant change in relations
for both Maroons and white settlers. But as de Groot indicates, the predomi-
nant characteristics of Suriname Maroon society were already established
before the treaties were ever negotiated.
When the Dutch took over Suriname in 1667, a group of several
hundred Maroons were already settled on the Coppename river. In 1684 the
Dutch governor made peace with them, and from that time they did not
disrupt the Dutch settlement. In the early 1700s two new groups, known as
the Saramaka and the Djuka, were formed. Like the earlier Suriname group,
these Maroon bands, or clans, were far larger than any encountered on the
islands of the Caribbean. By 1738 an estimated 6000 Maroons were settled in
Suriname. After 1750 a third, smaller group of Maroons, the Matuaris, was
formed. They stayed in the coastal area, much closer to the plantations than
the two previous groups. With more Maroons needing larger quantities of
commodities only available on the white plantations, raiding escalated into
guerrilla warfare.
Each of these large Maroon groups were comprised of smaller groups,
known as '10', composed of slaves who had escaped from the same planta-
tion together. The names of these '10' were modifications of the names of the
plantation the original group members escaped from. These '10' groups
formed social entities which came to be regarded as individual kin groups. 42
Matrilineal descendants of kinsmen within each group were considered
family and marriage with 'family' members was proscribed. Members of these
'families' claimed the same ancestors, sharing the responsibility of homage to
these forebears.
The responsibilities of daily life in the Maroon settlement were divided
among members of the '10' groups. Except for manufactured goods, the
Maroons provided for their own needs, including food. When their scouts
signalled the approach of Maroon hunters, 'they gathered as much as
possible [of their cropsl in baskets land then replanted theml. Usually the
new plots of lands had already been prepared.' Salt came from palm tree
ashes, oil from palm kernels and their houses were built of timber and palm
leaves.

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 General History of the Caribbean

Prolonged, expensive and unsuccessful attempts to subdue the

Maroons by force caused the Dutch government by the mid-eighteenth
century to sue the Maroons for peace. In 1760 the Djuka Maroons signed
peace treaties with the government. In 1762 the Saramaka Maroons, and in
1767 the Matuaris (from the coastal area) did likewise. The conditions of the
treaties were very similar to those between the Jamaican Maroons and the
British signed in 1739, and they were in fact modelled after those treaties.
The Suriname Maroons were not as assiduous as the Jamaican Maroons at
keeping other slaves from running away and establishing their own Maroon
settlements. New runaways were not as threatening to their existence, since
there was far more space to be divided among new and old Maroon groups
in Suriname than in Jamaica. Consequently their tolerance towards new
recruits caused occasional serious strains in the Maroons' treaty relations with
the Dutch government.
A new Maroon group of between 300 and 600 aggravated the treaty
relationship. These were the Boni, who came into being around 1765. When
the government requested help in subduing them, the Saramaka and Matuari
Maroons refused, considering themselves too far away to be concerned. The
Djuka only responded when the Boni began to encroach on Djuka territory.
In 1777 they attacked the Boni, but that same year negotiated an agreement
that lasted until 1791. For its own political ends, the colonial government
tried to reawaken hostilities between the two groups. A series of attacks and
counterattacks culminated in 1793 in the death of several key Boni warriors,
including the chief.
As the case of the Boni indicates, tbe peace that followed the treaty
signings was not entirely harmonious. The colonists, fearing renewed
attacks from the Maroons, instituted a pass system, which severely
limited the rights of the Maroons to approach the plantation areas. The
Maroon groups, preferring their isolation, settled individually on territory
along rivers, distant from other groups. In these settled communities, the
Maroon cultures developed along the line established during the pre-treaty
era. 43

Some conclusions
Formal treaties, when they were concluded, invariably appear as watersheds
in Maroon history. Treaties provided a valuable respite for both Maroons and
the colonial authorities. The latter were relieved of the economic and military
burdens of waging war against a particular Maroon society. Formal treaties
also guaranteed allies against future runaways, as long as the Maroons felt
sufficiently compelled to keep their side of the bargain.

186
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

For the Maroons, treaties gave relief from incessantly assigning part of
their limited resources to waging war. The treaties denoted legal recognition,
at least theoretically, of the Maroons as a virtually separate political entity, a
'state within a state'. With the treaties came specific grants of land. The
treaties also brought significant new sources of income, particularly the
bounties earned in capturing runaways, and in the case of the Jamaican
Maroons, regular paid appointments with the British military. The Maroons
were granted these economic concessions on a tax-free basis. The stability
introduced by these changes invariably brought a rise in the natural Maroon
birth rate, allowing the Maroon communities to feel more secure about their
long-term as well as their short-term prospects.
In the long run, however, the treaties usually proved deleterious for the
Maroons in certain respects. Maroon societies evolved under warlike condi-
tions and this was reflected in their political forms. The political structure of
pre-treaty Maroon society centred around a headman whose word was law,
chosen by the group because they believed in his ability to make judicious
military and civil decisions favourable to their interests. In Jamaica, this
meritocratic system broke down with the treaties, since the British appointed
headmen and white superintendents. Maroon society started to break down.
In Suriname, the greater isolation of the Maroons and the less intrusive Dutch
colonial society allowed greater retention of pre-treaty political forms.
Maroons there maintained more internal social and cultural unity than their
Jamaican Maroon counterparts.
Unlike white colonial settlements Maroon communities were not
consciously structured. Opportunities for escape to the hinterlands were cir-
cumstantial. Maroons did not always know with whom they would create a
settlement nor did they establish its social rules beforehand. A large pro-
portion of Maroons were African born, especially prior to the abolition of the
slave trade. Creole slaves often had better opportunities of escape in urban
areas since they blended more easily with the population of freedmen.
Though slaves often developed Maroon polities with other members of their
ethnic group, this was by no means universal. Maroon societies were not
reconstituted African polities.
Africans of many distinct ethnicities were brought to the Americas
during the era of the Atlantic slave trade, and their variety was reflected in
the composition of Maroon communities. Each African group spoke a differ-
ent language, and displayed distinct cultural attributes. Even when particular
Maroons remembered regional African cultural ways and practised them,
they had to compromise with other band members versed in different ways
in order to develop a common society.
Cudjoe, leader of the leeward Maroons, was a Maroon-born Creole. Yet
he was considered Coromantee because of his parentage, a clear example of

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 General History of the Caribbean

the persistence of African ethnic identity within the Maroon band. Still,
Cudjoe understood the necessity of compromise among different ethnic
groups, and insisted that all the members of his band speak only English. His
intention was to unite and promote a Maroon identity shared by members of
the Coromantee majority and members of the minority groups such as the
Madagascar. 44
Maroons had to adapt what was available in their immediate environs
to serve their needs. African-born Maroons adapted some of the practices
learned in Africa, but they were intent on developing a functional mode of
existence, not with recreating a 'pure African' society or political structure.
Kopytoff describes this characteristic of flexible African identity among the
Maroons as a 'linking principle rather than a fixed attribute [Author's em-
phasis).45 Maroons were socially opportunistic and eclectic. Practices derived
from any available culture area - African, European, plantation slave culture,
occasionally even Amerindian - were incorporated. 46
Though men dominated among the military leadership and civilian
authorities in Maroon groups, those societies which contained women had a
much better long-term survival record. Without women the Maroon society
could only maintain its size with the constant incorporation of new recruits.
Women often strengthened their society by their leadership in encouraging
social and cultural unification and among both the Jamaican and Suriname
Maroons women were the primary spiritual practitioners. Females who make
intercession with the ancestors are still of great importance in the functioning
of Suriname Maroon societies today.47
Understanding the cultural and ideological Significance of marronage is
a task historians of this subject often set for themselves. Kopytoff describes
the motivation for this task:

... several [writers} have attempted analysis of marronage in general.

The interest in marronage is two-fold. First, it bears on the question of
the slaves' resistance or accommodation to slavery. Second, because it
offered Africans and Afro-Americans a unique opportunity to create
their own societies outside the control of plantation America, it adds a
dimension to our plantation-bound vision of black history and culture. 48

The subjects of 'Maroon' and 'marronage' provide an opportunity for

some writers to express a perceived identity of motivations shared by people
still enslaved, individual escaped ex-slaves, and members of the slave class
living in autonomous groups. If Maroon settlements represented the ultimate
expression of the 'unique opportunity' some slaves had to create inde-
pendent (and independent-minded) societies, describing the far more
common slave practice of spontaneously leaving the plantation for a few

188
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

days or a few weeks as 'petit marronage' invests those actions with a similar
independence of thought.
Many historians agree that to most slaves the primary function of the
Maroons was first as a symbolic opportunity for escape and second, as an
example of the denial of planter assertions that the slave was not capable of
living autonomously in freedom. Whether this conception was historically
present or a recent ideological reading of the past is occasionally a problem.
The clearest example of the possibility of over-interpreting the significance of
the Maroons for the slaves may be found in the recent tradition of Haitian
history, which has drawn heavily on the Maroons supposedly to illustrate a
spirit of independence responsible for the Haitian revolution. Jean Fouchard
even places the origin of the quest for national independence with the
Maroons. 49 .

To the colonial white settlers, Maroon societies represented the con-

stant threat of massive slave revolt. To many historians today they symbolize
the existence among the mass of slaves of an independence of thought and
the ability to conceive of their own freedom. Many historians write about the
creation of Maroon societies in the context of slave rebellions, and a good
deal of attention is paid to the influence of the Maroons on rebellious
slaves. 5o It is certain that in some societies, such as that of Jamaica, slave
rebellions led directly to augmentation of Maroon societies. Sometimes
Maroons provided assistance to rebellious slaves, as the Jamaican Maroons of
Accompong town did in 1742, or as the Maroons of Antigua were believed to
be doing in the eighteenth century.
Whether or not Maroon societies functioned as practical alternatives to
slavery for the mass of slaves, they certainly lived in symbiosis with settled
societies, without which they could not easily survive. Autonomy on the
colonial frontier was difficult. Maroons could not produce all of the com-
modities necessary for existence, so through raiding or trading networks they
kept up contact with the colonial settlements. There were also cases of
Maroons visiting family members on plantations, and vice versa, with the
cooperation of slaves. Sometimes the raids were carried out in collusion with
plantation slaves, who would gather up items needed by Maroons and bring
them out to the field or some specified 'drop' area. Soon afterwards, a
Maroon 'raid' would take place. Sometimes the slaves did not appreciate the
marauding acts of the Maroons, particularly their destruction of slave gardens
and kidnapping of slave women.
Maroon settlements in the Caribbean, Belize and the Guianas did
present an alternative to slavery for some members of the slave class,
however few. In Suriname, where perhaps the best opportunity was avail-
able, only an estimated 10 per cent of the slave class were Maroons at any
given time. Successful Maroons always had a vested interest in maintaining

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the status quo, and not encouraging many more slaves to join them, particu-
larly in islands such as Jamaica. This self-interest was reinforced by signing
treaties promising to deliver up runaways in exchange for guaranteed
freedom and land. In Suriname, where more space was available, the pres-
sure to prevent other slaves from becoming Maroons was not so great,
although existing Maroon clans still functioned to some extent as a deterrent.
When slavery was abolished in the circum-Caribbean, colonial author-
ities that had made treaties with Maroon societies in their territories displayed
single-minded self-interest in seeking to abrogate these treaties. In Jamaica,
where slavery was abolished in 1834, a law of 1842 was intended to break
up the common lands of the Maroons into separate lots. The British tried to
levy taxes on the Maroons, and otherwise merge them with the general mass
of ex-slaves, disregarding the fact that a legal document signed by repre-
sentatives of the British government had given the Maroons the rights that set
them apart. This policy was unsuccessfupl
In Suriname, even before abolition was declared in 1863, the govern-
ment tried to persuade the Maroons to abandon their autonomous economic
practices of occasional freelance labour combined with small-scale agricul-
ture, and to take regular wage labour jobs. Again, due in large part to the
isolation of these Maroons, they were able to resist governmental pressure,
but since that time the Suriname Maroons have faced pressures to abandon
their traditional ways, abandon their land rights and adopt a more 'modern'
lifestyle.
At times, traditional Maroon territory has simply been taken away from
the Maroon clans. Several years ago about half of the Saramaka's land was
flooded to make way for a hydro-electric dam. 52 The mistrust present-day
Maroons feel for government is reflected in their prediction that the days of
slavery and warfare 'shall come again'.53 Almost inevitably, surviving Maroon
societies are facing slow assimilation to the ways of the broader Afro-
Caribbean communities.

NOTES

1 The English term derived from the early Spanish 'cimarron' which was originally
used to describe escaped animals, and later, runaway Indians and slaves.
2 Monica Schuler, 'Day to Day Resistance to Slavery in the Caribbean During the
Eighteenth Century', African Studies Association of the West Indies, Bulletin 6,
1973, p. 60.
3 o. Nigel Bolland, 'Slavery in Belize', Journal of Belizean Affairs, 6, January 1978,
pp.3-36.
4 Gabino De la Rosa Corzo, 'Los Palenques en Cuba: Elementos para su
Reconstrucci6n Hist6rica', in La Esc/avitud en Cuba (La Habana: Editora de la
Academia de Ciencias de Cuba, 1986), pp. 86-123.

190
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

5 Jose Franco, 'Maroons and Slave Rebellions in the Spanish Territories', in

Maroon Societies, pp. 3H8; Francisco Perez de la Riva, 'Cuban Palenques', in
Maroon Societies, pp. 49-59. Perez de la Riva (p. 59) enumerates several of
these towns noting that they 'later grew so much that they lost all trace or
influence of the primitive palenque, except ... their names.' Several were simply
known as 'Palenque'.
6 Mavis C. Campbell, 'Marronage in Jamaica: Its Origin in the Seventeenth
Century', in Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden (eds), Comparative Perspectives on
Slavery in New World Plantation Societies, proceedings of a Conference held by
the New York Academy of Sciences, 24-27 May, 1976 (New York: New York
Academy of Sciences, 1977) pp. 292, 389-419.
7 Barbara Klamon Kopytoff, The Maroons ofJamaica: An Ethnohistorical Study of
Incomplete Polities, 1655-1905 (Diss: University of Pennsylvania, 1973; Ann
Arbor: University Microfilms, 1973).
8 Franco, 'Maroons and Slave Rebellions', p. 39. This figure may be a serious
over-representation on the part of planters. Maroons used various tactics to
inflate the apparent population of their bands, and later planter estimates of
thousands of Maroons in Le Maniel (St Domingue) were quite exaggerated.
9 Yvan Debbasch, 'Le Marronage: Essai sur la Desertion de l'Esclave Antillais',
L'Annee Sociologique, 3rd ser., (1%1), pp. 3-112; (962) pp. 120-95.
10 Benjamin Nistal Moret, Esc/avos Profugos y Cimarrones: Puerto Rico, 1770-1870,
(Rio Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1982), p. 13.
11 Neville A. T. Hall, 'Maritime Maroons: Grand Marronage from the Danish West
Indies', paper presented at the Sixteenth Annual Conference of Caribbean
Historians, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 8-13 April, 1984,
p.2.
12 Neville A. T. Hall, 'Maritime Maroons', pp. 1-5.
13 Richard Frucht, 'From Slavery to Unfreedom in the Plantation Society of St Kitts,
W. I.', in Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies,
p.384.
14 David Barry Gaspar, 'Runaways in Seventeenth-Century Antigua, West Indies',
Boletin de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 26 (June, 1979), pp. 3-14.
15 Gabriel Debien, Les Esc/aves aux Antilles Fran~aises (Basse-Terre: Societe
D'Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1974), pp. 412-13.
16 Debien, Les Esc/aves, p. 423; 'Mais chez les gerants comme chez les colons rentres
est une part d'insouciance'.
17 Quotations are from Bernard A. Marshall, 'Marronage in Slave Plantation
Societies: A Case Study of Dominica, 1785-1815', Caribbean Quarterly, 22
(June-September 1976), pp. 26-30.
18 Hilary Beckles, 'From Land to Sea: Runaway Slaves and White Indentured
Servants in Seventeenth-Century Barbados', paper presented at the Sixteenth
Annual Conference of Caribbean Historians, University of the West Indies, Cave
Hill, Barbados, 8-13 April, 1984, pp. 19-21.
19 Beckles, 'From Land to Sea', pp. 1-7.
20 Charles F. Gritzner, Guyana (New York: Sterling, 1975), pp. 22-30.
21 Silvia W. de Groot, 'Maroons of Surinam: Dependence and Independence', in
Comparative Perspectives on Slave New World Plantation Societies, pp. 455-60.
22 De la Rosa Corzo, 'Los Palenques en Cuba', Cuban Palenques in Maroon
Societies, pp. 93-7: 'En los informes officiales de asaltos a palenques son muy

191
 General History of the Caribbean

raros los casos en los que se informa la captura de mas de tres negros.' ['Official
reports on attacks on palenques seldom tell of the capture of more than three
blacks.') An apalencado was a resident of the pa/enque or Maroon settlement.
23 Quotations are from Franco·, 'Maroons and Slave Rebellions', p. 46. Anyone
walking on these paths was probably visible to the Maroon settlement.
24 De la Rosa Corzo, 'Los Palenques en Cuba', Cuban Pa/enques in Maroon
Societies, pp. 93-4; Demoticus Philalethes, Yankee Travels Through the Island of
Cuba (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1856), pp. 3~2; 'Hunting the Maroons
with Dogs in Cuba', in Maroon Societies, p. 60.
25 Perez de la Riva, 'Cuban Pa/enqueS, pp. 51-3.
26 De la Rosa Corzo, 'Los Palenques en Cuba', p. 112.
27 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, 'Saint Domingue', in David W. Cohen and Jack
P. Greene (eds), Neither Slave nor Free (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1972),
p.I80.
28 Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery, Description de la Partie Franr;aise de
L'Isle Saint-Domingue, (eds) Blanche Maurel and Etienne Taillemite (Paris:
Societe de l'histoire des colonies Fran~aises, 1958), II, 1131; 'Places derrli!re un
epaulement les negres dejiaient leurs adversaires en dansant. Ceux-ci furieux, se
precipiterent dans des fosses dont Ie fond etait plein de pointes de bois de pin et Ie
haut recovert de lianes et d 'herbes rampantes ... la moitie des attaquants furent
estrop;es. '
29 Debbasch, 'Le Marronage', pp. 74-7, 108-9.
30 Moreau de Saint-Mery, p. 1133.
31 Moreau de Saint-Mery, p. 1135: 'que les insinuations de quelques espagnols qui
avaient leur chasse et leur peche presque pour rien, en ont ete la vraie cause.'
32 Kopytoff, The Maroons ofjamaica, p. 17.
33 Campbell, 'Marronage in Jamaica', p. 409; Michael Craton, in Testing the Chains:
Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1982), p. 75, concurs with this interpretation of the attitude of the Spanish
Maroons, which contrasts with that of Kopytoff in 'The Early Political
Development of Jamaican Maroon Societies', William and Mary Quarterly, 35
(1978), pp. 305-6; Kopytoff states that the Spanish Maroons developed a 'non-
domination' policy, and merely ignored, or passively accepted the presence of
new Maroons. She cites Spanish Maroon policy as having 'set the tone' for the
'federation' of Maroons in the windward mountains.
34 Kopytoff, 'Early Political Development', pp. 292-7; Kopytoff, The Maroons of
jamaica, p. 73.
35 Kopytoff, jamaican Maroon Political Organization: The Effects of the Treaties',
journal of Social and Economic StudieS, 25 Qune, 1976), p. 90.
36 Kopytoff, 'Jamaica Maroon Political Organization', p. 90.
37 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the
West Indies, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Cole and Thomas, 1810) I, p. 340.
38 Kopytoff, jamaican Maroon Political Organization', pp. 94-9.
39 Richard B. Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica, 173~1830', in Gad Heuman
(ed.), Out of the House of Bondage, (London: Frank Cass, 1984), p. 158, also,
Slavery and Abolition, p. 6.
40 Sheridan, 'The Maroons of Jamaica', p. 159.
41 Silvia W. de Groot, 'Review Article: The Maroons of Surinam', Slavery and
Abolition, 5 September, 1984, p. 170.

192
 Maroon communities in the circum-Caribbean

42 John D. Lenoir, The Saramacca Maroons: A Study in Religious Acculturation

(Diss: New School, 1973; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1974), p. 19.
43 Quotations are from de Groot, 'The Maroons of Surinam', (Unpublished
manuscript, 1987), pp. 7-14; de Groot, 'Maroons of Surinam: Dependence and
Independence', pp. 455--60.
44 Kopytoff, 'The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity', Caribbean
Quarterly, ~2 (June-September 1976), p. 45.
45 Kopytoff, 'The Development of Jamaican Maroon Ethnicity', p. 35.
46 Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts
in the Making of the Modern World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1979), p. 53.
47 de Groot, 'Maroon Women as Ancestors, Priests and Mediums in Surinam',
Slavery and Abolition, 5 September, 1986, pp. 162-3; Kopytoff, 'Early Political
Development', p. 301.
48 Kopytoff, 'Early Political Development', p. 287.
49 Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death (New York: Edward W.
Biyden Press, 1981). Fouchard is including all long-term runaways in this cat-
egory, not just those who banded together in Maroon settlements, but he distin-
guishes these from practitioners of short-term 'petit-marronage'; David Geggus
provides some commentary on this point in Slavery, War and Revolution: The
British Occupation of St Domingue, 1793-1798, (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1982), p. 27. See also Leslie Manigat cited below.
50 Among the works which consider these topics are Genovese, From Rebellion to
Revolution, pp. 51-81, 'Black Maroons in War and Peace'; Leslie F. Manigat, 'The
Relationship between Marronage and Slave Revolts and Revolution in
St Domingue-Haiti', in Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World
Plantation Societies, pp. 420-38; Orlando Patterson, 'Slavery and Slave Revolts:
A Socio-Historical Analysis of the First Maroon War, Jamaica 1655-1740', Social
and Economic Studies, 19 (September 1970), pp. 289-325.
51 Kopytoff, The Maroons of jamaica, pp. 277-9. Also see Kopytoff, 'Colonial
Treaty as Sacred Charter of the Maroons', Ethnohistory, 26 (Winter, 1979),
pp.45-65.
52 Price, Saramaka Social Structure: Analysis of a Maroon Society in Surinam (Rio
Piedras: Institute of Caribbean Studies, 1975), p. 23. Construction of the dam
was a joint effort of Alcoa and the Suriname government.
53 Silvia W. de Groot, 'A Comparison between the History of Maroon Communities
in Surinam and Jamaica', in Gad Heuman (ed.), Out of the House of Bondage
(London: Frank Cass, 1984), p. 181; Quotation from de Groot, Review Article,
p.169.

193
 6

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTROL

IN THE SLAVE SOCIETY

Hilary McD. Beckles

C ARIBBEAN slave owners, like their counterparts elsewhere in the

Americas, paid close attention to the level of social and economic
return on their capital investment in African slave labour. In general,
they aimed to, minimize cost and maximize efficiency in the use and super-
vision of their human chattels. Slaves, however, concerned with the preser-
vation of their humanity, and the establishment of social rights, proved
difficult to control. The result of this contradiction of objectives was that
the personal security and social stability slave owners pursued were as
elusive as their slaves' quest for civil liberties.! Between the early sixteenth
century when slaves were introduced into the region in large numbers by
Spanish settlers at Hispaniola, and the end of the nineteenth century when
slavery was finally abolished throughout, slave owners experienced inci-
dents and episodes of violent slave unrest that destroyed profits, property
and lives.
As a result of the endemic nature of anti-slavery activities, slave owners
had to be preoccupied with the increasingly difficult task of keeping slaves
in subjection. Some learnt how to live in a state of acute social tension while
all hoped that slaves would not rise up and destroy their enterprises and
communities. 2 Everywhere, they invested considerable resources and much
time in keeping slaves socio-politically subordinated, while ensuring that
their operations were economically profitable. These objectives dominated
the daily considerations of slave owners as much as they did the adminis-
trative thinking of their metropolitan sponsors - whether these were parlia-
mentary governments, monarchs or commercial companies.
Slave societies constructed an elaborate system of laws and regulations
designed to secure obedience among slaves, and to define their in-
subordination as a dereliction of their duty to masters. Transgressors were
subject to punishment. In addition to legal provisions, slave owners and
imperial officials devised and implemented a wide range of control methods
and techniques. These measures were military, economic, social, psychologi-

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 Social and political control in slave society

cal, judicial and ideological in character, and together they illustrated the
complexity and magnitude of the task of social control. 3
Slave owners fashioned their control measures to deal with crises
arising from slave insubordination at the micro (plantation/town), macro
(colony) and ultra-macro (regional) levels. Together with Imperial officials,
they attempted to be both comprehensive and specific in their approaches.
Policies were rarely ad hoc or shoddy, but illustrative of determination and
thoroughness. Basically, there were two schools of thought as to where
greater emphasis should be placed in implementing strategies for the control
of slaves. The minority group consistently favoured leaning in the direction
of a relaxed and elastic set of policies based upon the values of a traditional
moral order and the principle of patronage. The majority, however, swayed
largely by fear and prejudice, believed in the aggressive use of power,
coercion and terror. Social reality, however, dictated that a mixture of
both views would shape policy and practice. In most places, some slave
owners recognized the need to offer incentives in order to encourage slaves
to perform their duties peaceably and efficiently, as well as the importance of
using force in repressing anti-slavery consciousness and actions.

Forces for law and order

The collective security of slave-owning communities was placed in the hands
of militia regiments, garrisoned Imperial troops, urban and rural constables,
and specialist freelancing slave-hunters. When security on individual estates,
or in towns, broke down under pressure exerted by rebel slaves, these
repressive forces were called upon to restore order and stability. Militia
regiments generally consisted of able-bodied white males, although in most
places free coloureds, free blacks, and in some instances slaves, also served.
Regiments were nearly always led by an officer corps of prominent white
slave owners. Their structures were generally formalized by legislation, and
much social status was attached to the officer rank. Only whites were
entrusted with such military power and authority, and allowed the social·
benefits that resulted from high office.
Militia regiments were required, in addition, to maintain social stability
by policing not only slaves, but all free subordinate social groups. They were
expected to conduct random searches, interrogate suspects and, in the final
instance, crush uprisings of slaves or free persons. In French St Domingue,
whites, the gens de couleur (free coloureds) and slaves performed militia
service, and were also part of the marechaussee, a local police organization
established for general law enforcement. In Spanish Santo Domingo and

195
 General History of the Caribbean

Cuba some poor whites found steady and rewarding employment as profes-
sional slave-hunters. Together with their bloodhounds, they tracked down
runaways and sought to uproot their Maroon villages. Customarily, they
worked on a commission basis and collected money rewards per head for
captured rebels. In the Guianas, where the Dutch, French and English
established colonies, large numbers of slaves were able to disappear in the
forested interior, and throughout the period of slavery military corps of white
and black soldiers and Amerindian trackers, engaged Maroons in protracted
retrievaloperations. 4
In all colonies, however, collective slave control was primarily the
responsibility of slave owners. Laws were designed to militarize adult white
and some free coloured males, and to convert the entire white community
into an extensive police force. In the second instance, the task of slave
control fell upon militia regiments, though in towns, police constables were
also employed for this purpose. In general, it was understood that individual
slave owners and their overseers, especially those with large numbers of
slaves on isolated sugar plantations, could not suppress a large-scale armed
revolt. As a result, it was not unusual for large-scale planters to maintain
militia tenants on their properties whose duty it was to intimidate slaves, and
in the case of revolt, to contain rebels until militia regiments could be
mustered and put into the field.
By the mid-1650s the sugar revolution had ensured the dependence of
English colonists upon slave labour. By this time blacks outnumbered whites
four to one on Barbados and the Leeward Islands (Antigua, St Kitts, Nevis
and Montserrat) and the role of militia regiments in maintaining social
order assumed even greater proportions. In 1655, for example, Barbados
planters in the St Philip parish informed Governor Daniel Searle that many
of their slaves had run away and were out in rebellion 'making a mockery
of the law' in a most 'arrogant manner', and endangering the lives of whites.
Governor Searle, on hearing this alarming evidence, ordered Colonel John
Higginbottom to raise Colonel Henry Hawley's regiment and to use his
utmost endeavour to suppress or destroy them. During the 1660s the
continuing problem of suppressing rebel slaves dominated official thinking,
and in 1667 Governor William Willoughby informed the Privy Council that
unless white indentured servants were imported in large numbers in order
to expand the militia, the keeping of slaves in subjection could not be
guaranteed. 5
Slaves, then, were considered the principal internal threat to social
order and stability. Even when sla<ve owners were mobilized into militia
regiments, they rarely considered themselves competent to suppress qUickly
any large-scale slave uprising, and were greatly comforted by the presence in
their colonies of garrisoned Imperial soldiers. For example, in 1790, on the

196
 Social and political control in slave society

eve of the St Domingue (Haitian) Revolution, though militia forces in that

colony comprised companies (the gens de couleur forming 104 of them),
slave owners expressed confidence in the control of rebel slaves mainly
because of the presence of 2000 regulars of the King's army. In the British
islands, troops were garrisoned at Antigua and occasionally at Barbados for
extended periods of time during the late seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. In both places, slaves recognized the significance of standing pro-
fessional armies in their midst. There were no revolts of slaves in these
colonies during this period, and the conspiracies of 1692 (Barbados) and
1736 (Antigua) coincided with the departure of the garrisons.
The presence of troops strengthened the hand of slave owners and
consequently weakened that of slaves. According to David Geggus, the
timing of slave rebellions was often directly related to the weakening of mili-
tary power, normally occasioned by the departure from a colony of Imperial
troops. Taking Cuba as an example, he suggested that during the entire
eighteenth century the island had the 'strongest garrison in the Caribbean',
and experienced little 'overt slave unrest'. In 1795 there began a succession
of revolts and conspiracies culminating in the very extensive plot of Jose
Antonio Aponte that reached fruition in March 1812. During this period, he
argued, 'starting in 1793, the colonial garrison underwent a steady decline, as
troops were sent to Santo Domingo, Florida and Louisiana.' As slave owners'
military might weakened, slaves took opportunities to strike for freedom.
'The slaves', Geggus concludes, 'paid closer attention to the troops who
stood guard over them than have historians who have studied their be-
haviour. ,6 Evidence from the English colonies shows that it was certainly the
deployment of hundreds of regulars that reduced the offensive of slaves and
tilted the balance of power overwhelmingly in favour of slave owners during
the rebellions of Grenada and Barbados in 1795 and 1816 respectively.

The control of urban slaves

The towns, however, posed certain special problems for slave owners in
fashioning appropriate mechanisms for the control of slaves. The economic
structures of towns demanded that slaves be employed under less restricted
and regimented social conditions. Working in the domestic and service
sectors, the retail and distributive trades, as artisans, fishermen and as sailors
and Imperial soldiers, urban slaves had greater latitude for an autonomous
life in which they built complex social networks. In real terms, many were
more free than rural slaves, and this condition, whites argued, bred in them a
disturbing proclivity for deviance and the violation of 'received codes of
deference'. 7 Urban slave owners, therefore, complained constantly of the

197
 General History of the Caribbean

'insolence' of their slaves, and reported that 'nothing awes or governs' them
but the 'lash of the whip or the dread of being sent into the fields of labour'.8
The fear of being relegated to the plantation was often a sufficient deterrent
for domestic and urban slaves who saw labour in the canefields as the worst
experience slavery could offer.
Special policing and security arrangements had to be made, therefore,
for town slaves. In the Danish islands, for example, the 1755 slave laws pro-
vided that no slave in the towns should be on the streets after 9.00 p.m.,
unless on a properly authenticated errand. In Dutch Cura~ao, a 1745 decree
prohibited slaves from walking on the streets after 9.00 p.m. without a
lantern and a night permit from their owners. Neither could they play music
or buy liquor after that hour. The use of curfews was universal and was
enforced by urban constables employed to patrol the streets. In Barbados
specially built prisons, referred to as cages, were located in the centre of
Bridgetown, the capital, to harbour and punish rebel slaves. In Jamaica,
urban police, known as town guards, were established in Kingston under
special town Ordinances to deal with the endemic nature of urban slave
unrest; also, places of correction, known as workhouses, were constructed
under the 1780 Act for the detainment and punishment of rebel slaves. 9 In
addition, constables also functioned as freelance slave whippers. In Barbados
they were called 'Jumpers', and could be called upon by individuals to flog
their slaves for a fee. This facility was used Widely by slave owners who did
not wish their insubordinate slaves to be sent to the cage or workhouse.

Slave laws and codes

Militia regiments, urban constables and garrisoned soldiers functioned within
the ambit of colonial constitutionality. In all colonies laws laid the ground-
work for these elaborate systems of repression. In English territories elected
legislative Assemblies dominated by elite slave owners passed such laws.
Invariably, these laws were sanctioned by Imperial officials and were not
considered repugnant to English jurisprudence. Rather, they were facilitated
by legal principles found in both the statute law and the common law of
England. Property rights in person was the fundamental legal principle
advocated, and was upheld by the English judiciary without difficulty for
nearly 200 years. In 1788, the Privy Council was given the following outline
of the concepts and principles governing colonial slave laws:

The leading Idea in the Negro System of jurisprudence is that which

was the first in the Minds of those most interested in its Formation;
namely, that Negroes were Property, and a species of Property that

198
 Social and political control in slave society

needed a rigorous vigilant Regulation. The numerous Laws passed in

the different Islands immediately upon their Settlement, and for a con-
siderable Time after, with all their multifarious and repeated Provisions,
had uniformly this for their Object. To secure the Rights of Owners and
maintain the Subordination of Negroes, seem to have most occupied
the Attention and excited the Solicitude of the different Legislatures;
what regards the Interests of the Negroes themselves appears not to
have sufficiently attracted their notice. to

The general correctness of this assessment is not undermined by references

to the few, and very limited, provisions in most-laws that held slave owners
accountable for the adequate clothing, feeding and housing of slaves. Rather,
such references would reinforce slave owners' perception of slaves as
property since it was expected that even inanimate properties ought to be
properly maintained with due regard for their social and economic
significance.
In general, similarities in the perception of blacks as an inferior race
whose role Europeans conceived in their colonial mission as that of enforced
labour, could be found in the structure and wording of all Caribbean slave
codes, irrespective of their different imperial backgrounds. There were,
however, important philosophical differences that informed their origin and
content, if not their social applications. Differences can be traced to
divergences in the economic and political development of European imperi-
alist nations, while similarities have much to do with commonalties across
imperial boundaries in colonial circumstances, and the slave owners' search
for broadly similar solutions within judicial administration.
Codes conceived and enacted by imperial governments, such as the
Spanish Siete Partidas, that emerged from the socio-philosophical con-
sciousness of a thirteenth century feudal elite, and the French Code Noir of
1685 that expressed the semi-feudal paternalist ideology of an absolute
Catholic monarchy, bore closer resemblance to each other than to those of
English colonies that were conceived and enacted by largely unrestricted,
capitalist Protestant sugar planters. Both the Spanish and French invoked
the moral attractiveness of an explicit paternalism, seeking to mask the
racism and class exploitation which slavery represented, and to suggest the
slave's acquiescence as the legitimizing factor in the slave owners' right to
dominate. Under these ideological regimes slaves were firmly controlled
and masters conceived their profits, and other benefits, as honourable
returns for their protection, instruction and guidance. Paternalism in this
setting, then, as Eugene Genovese has shown, defined the relations of
superordination and subordination, and carried brutality as its principal
characteristic. 11

199
 General History of the Caribbean

The Siete Partidas, Elsa Goveia argued, were less completely adapted
to the will of the slave-owning classes than the Code Nair that was made in
France but 'with West Indian conditions firmly in mind'. The fact that it was a
'metropolitan code', she added, is nevertheless important. 12 In the Siete
Partidas the need for strict gUidance and control of slaves was not seen as
contradicting the perception of them as persons with civic identities and a
right to freedom. Indeed, according to Alfonso the Wise who framed these
laws, freedom was the natural and desirable status of all mankind. Franklin
Knight has described the Siete Partidas as an 'extremely liberal Code' that
recognized and accepted the 'personality of the slave' and held 'aloft the idea
of liberty', though he emphaSized that marked differences existed between
words and deeds.13 The result of this dichotomy was that over time imperial
legislators were forced to come to terms with slave owners' perceptions of
colonial reality and reiterate specific laws that were directly applicable. When
a recopilaci6n, or digest, of colonial laws was compiled by Spanish officials
in 1680, its provisions laid much stress on police regulations to keep slaves
under control. Under this code, slaves were to be policed as potential sub-
versives, and though it called upon colonists to baptize and manumit slaves,
and sought to enhance and protect their family lives, the core of the digest
called for restriction of black freedom. In it, blacks, whether free or slave,
were conceived as members of a dangerous and destructive caste, as well as
a subject race. 14
Like the Siete Partidas, the French Code Nair has been interpreted as a
great legislative action in the field of slave control. This 60-article edict,
conceived by Louis XIV's officials, recognized no contradiction between the
interests of colonists and the metropolitan government on the issue of slave
regulation and discipline. As such, it is worded so as to protect the slave's
right to life and social identity and the master's property rights in that life. It
was designed, however, to give minimum protection to the slave without
encouraging insubordinate patterns of behaviour. Under its provisions the
slave could legally make complaints to the Crown's procureur-general in
cases of perceived maltreatment by owners. As in the Spanish codes, the
French slave was to be baptized and raised in the Catholic faith, encouraged
and allowed to keep a family, and had no limitation placed upon manu-
mission possibilities. Furthermore, slaves were not to work on Sundays or
Catholic holidays.
But the Code Nair was concerned also with the owners' power over
slaves. It demanded absolute obedience from the slave, who could own no
property and was punishable by death for striking whites. The amount of
food and clothing for slaves was specified, and though in punishments slaves
were not to be tortured, Article 42 allowed owners to chain and whip them.
Slaves were not allowed to assemble (Article 16), not even for marriages,

200
 Social and political control in slave society

unless owners agreed, and under no circumstances could they own or sell
sugar-cane (Article 18).15 Over time, these provisions hardly reflected the
social reality of the slaves' plantation and urban life, and do not represent an
adequate window through which to view the experiences of either slaves or
slave owners.
Legal codes, whether they emerged directly from colonial legislatures,
or were imposed by the imperial government, were designed to regulate the
behaviour of slaves as social subordinates. Whereas the Siete Partidas and
Code Noir attempted to balance the need for repression and protection of
slaves, English laws carried no philosophical articulation of a humanist pro-
tectionist ideology. Rather, English laws reflected primarily the need to be
constantly vigilant, and according to Richard Dunn, 'legitimized a state of war
between blacks and whites, sanctioned rigid segregation, and institutional-
ized an early warning system against slave revolt.'16 English slave owners did
not recognize any civil rights of slaves until the final years of slavery, and
believed that their tasks of subjecting them could best be accomplished by a
denial of any privileges that whites were bound to respect. English slaves,
then, for the better part of slavery had no legal identity, no right to family
life, leisure time or religious instruction, and no access to legal institutions for
purposes of protest or litigation against masters.
The Barbados Slave Code of 1661, which served as the blueprint for
colonists in Jamaica and the Leeward Islands, clearly illustrates English
opinions on the control of slaves. Africans are described as 'heathenish',
'brutal', and 'a dangerous kind of people' whose 'naturally wicked instincts'
should at all times be suppressed. Also, in the preamble to the more elabo-
rate 1688 Code, under which Barbados' slaves were governed for the entire
eighteenth century, and which was copied by settlers in the Windward
Islands CSt Lucia, St Vincent, Tobago and Dominica) blacks are defined as 'of
a barbarous, wild and savage nature', 'wholly unqualified to be governed by
the laws, customs and practices' of the 'English Nation'. English legislators,
therefore, thought it absolutely necessary that: 'such other constitutions, laws
and orders, should be in this island framed and enacted for the good regu-
lating, or ordering of them, as may both restrain the disorders, rapines, and
inhumanities to which they are naturally prone and inclined' .17
English slave laws reflected elements of a paranoid social response to
the presence of Africans by early settlers. Slaves found guilty of serious
offences or suspected of being so were put to death, with the element of
torture being used as a public spectacle to deter potential offenders. Under
these laws, slaves could be gibbeted, castrated, branded with hot irons, dis-
membered and locked in dungeons for unlimited periods as punishment for
insubordination. These socio-Iegal perceptions of Africans, and the punish-
ments slaves received, reflected not only the English definition of them as

201
 General History of the Caribbean

property, chattel to be exact, but their belief that Africans were inferior
people deserving of enslavement as a designated status for non-Christians.
Whites who killed their slaves while administering punishments committed
no criminal offence, while the wanton murder of a slave by an owner was
punishable by a fine of £15. It was only at the end of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, that the murder of a slave became a capital felony
in the British colonies. 18
Danish slave codes were shaped, in part, by philosophical concepts
and social rationalizations that led to conflict between the need to repress
slaves for purposes of security and economic accumulation and to protect
them as social beings from the vices of unscrupulous owners. In reality, it
was repression rather than protection that triumphed. Danish settlers in the
Virgin Islands of St Croix, St Thomas and St John debated at length the in-
surrectionist behaviour of slaves, and their laws reflect the urgent need to
suppress them. Like those passed in other parts of the Caribbean, Danish
laws became more severe as the ratio of blacks to whites increased. The
Code of 1733, for example, which revised laws of 1672 and 1684, introduced
punishments that included hanging, dismemberment and branding with hot
irons for offences such as theft and 'insolence' - that formerly were punish-
able by flogging and specified periods of imprisonment. Following the
English, indemnity for economic losses that resulted from 'just' punishment
of slaves was also introduced. Though provisions remained in place to
ensure slave access to maintenance and subsistence, as in English laws,
measures were taken to protect masters' rights to discipline them and to
freely enjoy the many benefits derived from owning human chattels. Over
time, social custom played a greater part in the management of slaves and, as
elsewhere, slave owners' authority over slaves transcended the letter of
laws. 19
Dutch legal provisions for the control and regulation of slaves and
other subordinate social groups, resembled more those of the French than
any other Imperial group. The Dutch West India Company that formulated
these laws was determined to enforce the suppression of slaves, and their
use as alienable property, while at the same time insisting that masters had
an obligation to provide for their social, educational and religious guidance
and instruction. As in French colonies, masters' obligations to slaves were
soon subjugated by a series of police regulations that took primacy in
controlling the daily lives of slaves. The Dutch, David Lowenthal suggests,
emerged in popular stereotypes about the severity of slave control methods
as the 'cruellest' masters of all Europeans. 2o According to van Lier, however,
this reputation owes more to the demographic, physical and pathological
circumstances of Suriname than to cultural traits among Dutchmen. 21

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 Social and political control in slave society

Developing socio-political control policies

The diversity of Dutch colonial economic enterprises illustrates the manner in
which economic and demographic circumstances ultimately shaped slave
owners' attitudes and determined the nature of socio-political control
policies. During the eighteenth century, for example, the Dutch West India
Company maintained and developed the islands of Cura~ao and Aruba as
trading settlements, while Suriname was its major sugar plantation colony. In
Suriname sugar planters, by virtue of the intensive use of unskilled labour
required by sugar production, employed a slave population that outnum-
bered them by nearly eight to one. Slaves, however, remained a minority
group in Cura~ao, constituting no more than one-third of the total popu-
lation. This condition, noted Hoetink, 'operated to make master-slave rela-
tionships in Cura~ao relatively mild', as they were 'based on personal and
face-to-face contact'. Slaves, he argued, 'could feel they were part of the
paternalistic complex of the Cas Grandi (Big House) community. '22
Master-slave relations in Suriname, however, tended to be antagonistic.
The constant dread of slave revolt and persistent marronage to the interior
forest, provided a context for slave owners to adopt brutal and harsh control
methods. In 1762 they critiqued slave laws for offering slaves some protec-
tion, unlike their island counterparts, and in calling for harsher measures
made the following protest to Governor Crommelin:

although an owner should never presume the right of life and death
over the slave, it is imperative that the slave continues to believe that
his master has that right, as it would be iplpossible to control them if
they were aware that their masters were liable to punishment or the
death penalty for beating a slave to death. 23

In Suriname, as elsewhere, laws that provided for the less gruesome

treatment of slaves, and sought to penalize owners for acts defined as cruelty
were circumvented or jettisoned by minority slave owners under the
perceived pressure of keeping large numbers of sl~ves in subjection.
The overall trend, therefore-,was-for slave ow-ners' adoption, over time,
of broadly similar methods and techniques for the control and regulation of
slaves irrespective of imperial linkages. Issues targeted for redress by slave
owners were strikingly similar, as were measures adopted. Provisions for the
confinement of rural slaves to their estates, imposition of curfews on urban
slaves, criminalizing of Afro-centric socio-religious cultures, banning of
slaves' autonomous commercial activities, and the prevention of slaves

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 General History of the Caribbean

owning, accumulating and inheriting property, could be found in most

colonies. Laws could therefore be found governing all areas of slaves' lives -
cultural, social, economic, political, as well as spiritual dimensions. Where
laws could not, or did not apply, customs took over. The marriage of whites
and blacks was taboo, for example, churches were segregated racially, and
official institutions were designed to enhance and express the power and
authority of whites.
Both Luis Diaz Soler and Fernando Ortiz suggest that such repressive
measures had to do with slave owners' views that the problem of shaping
slave relations was one of maintaining public order. This meant that whites'
use of power in social suppression became more absolute as the number of
slaves increased, in spite of the existence of laws that offered slaves some
protection. 24 Slave owners' increasing need to display their power and
authority, therefore, was dialectically related to their fear of growing endogen-
ous anti-slavery forces. As colonial circumstances changed slave owners
either ignored less harsh legal provisions, and established more relevant
customs, or used a range of police regulations that did not require official
Imperial approval.
For Danish colonies, Waldemar Westergaard has shown that slave laws
made by local governments 'became more severe as the ratio of Negro to
white population increased'.25 The first major Slave Code of 1672 was not
considered harsh in that its emphasis upon the protection of slaves meant
that there was nothing in it that was mandatory on slaves; masters were
solely responsible for their good conduct, though punishments were clearly
outlined. The second code of 1684, however, differed by intensifying the
restraints upon slaves who were now held responsible for observing the
laws. But it was in 1733 that the major leap in legal severity came. By this
time blacks outnumbered whites eight to one, whereas in 1672 these popula-
tions were roughly balanced. In 1733 whites stated that their situation had
become vastly more dangerous and more draconian measures were needed
to cope with mounting social tension. Branding and pinching with hot irons,
hanging and dismemberment, were made legal punishments for slave
offences such as theft, not stepping aside on roads as whites approached,
and carrying weapons; dances and cultural festivals were forbidden unless
owners agreed, and stricter systems of surveillance in the towns provided
for. 26
A similar trend in the evolution of attitudes and practices occurred in
the Spanish territories. As far as eighteenth century slave owners were con-
cerned, the world view inherent in the Siete Partidas had become obsolete.
As a result, they gradually blended their own systems of rules and regula-
tions into a culture of customary practices by the beginning of the nineteenth
century that came closer to that of their English counterparts. The forces

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 Social and political control in slave society

behind this transformation were released when the revolutionizing sugar

industry began to take hegemonic control of Cuba and parts of the southern
coastal areas of Puerto Rico at the end of the eighteenth century. As the
bacendados'dependency upon large numbers of imported African slaves
increased, the question of security dominated local as well as official imperial
thinking. The 1789 Code, noted for its overriding concern for the protection
of slaves, was not even promulgated in Cuba, where sugar and slavery were
more developed, while the 1842 Code, which was more typically Caribbean
in its harshness, won popular appeal.
The rejection of the 1789 Code, and the acceptance of its 1842 succes-
sor, could be said to have finally broken the spell of the medieval Siete
Partidas over Spanish colonial policy. In real terms this meant the triumph of
slave owners' attitudes over imperial thinking in shaping provisions for the
control of slaves. Puerto Rican officials and slave owners, meanwhile, posed
no aggressive objection to the 1789 Code. The explanation for this appar-
ently anomalous situation is to be found in the relatively underdeveloped
material conditions of the colony, as well as its lesser dependency on slave
labour. The spatial containment of the slave-based sugar industry meant that
the numerically dominant non-sugar cultivators did not believe public order
seriously threatened by the black minority, even though they were aware of
the influence upon their slaves of revolutionary Haiti. 27 In the Ponce sugar-
producing area, however, where economic and demographic conditions
paralleled those of Cuba, bacendados responded by increasing the severity
of police controls and regulations. As a result, according to Scarano, 'illegal
and inhumane treatment' reflected their strategy of tailoring the rules of slave
control to suit 'the accelerated labour demands of full-scale plantation
slavery'. In this sugar-producing area, he added, 'the legal and moral setting
of their masters' brutality had definitely taken a turn for the worse.'28 In
general, then, if by the 1840s Spanish slave law was stripped of its inopera-
tive provisions it became very similar to that of the colonies of other powers,
as its workable core defined the authority of the master over the slave rather
than the rights of the slave against the master.
The English approach to slave control was characterized at the outset
by an explicit race prejudice, but it took considerable time for similar con-
ceptual articulation to become widespread in French colonies. This was so
even though in both sets of colonies the spirit of an unbridled capitalist
exploitation of slave labour was the norm. Goveia has shown that from
about the mid-eighteenth century, however, a definite trend towards
allowing French slave owners a freer hand with slaves had emerged, with the
Widespread effect that both the spirit and the provisions of the Code Noir
were practically abandoned. 29 By the end of the century official opinion in
Paris with regard to slave control had fallen in line with that of colonial slave

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 General History of the Caribbean

owners. This development was reflected in the influential 1771 Crown's

instructions to the colonial authorities. This directive, while not removing
slaves' rights to Imperial assistance in their protection from vicious owners,
sought to subordinate it to the concern of keeping them firmly under control.
It stated:

that it is only by leaving to the masters a power that is near absolute,

that it will be possible to keep so large a number of men in that state of
submission that is made necessary by their numerical superiority over
the whites. If some masters abuse their power, they must be reproved
in secret so that slaves may always be kept in the belief that masters
can do no wrong in their dealing with them. 30

The evolution of French policy may have accounted for the refusal of
the St Domingue Council to punish Le Jeune, a coffee planter who was
accused of murdering four slaves and torturing others in the famous trial of
1788. Planters in that colony took to the streets and signed petitions for the
freeing of Le Jeune as well as for the punishment of the fourteen slaves for
their audacity in making accusations against their master, even though the
official investigation had suggested Le Jeune's guilt. The judges' decision was
thus influenced. According to Pierre de Vaissiere, this incident affirmed 'the
solidarity' which united whites before their slaves, and undermined the long-
established provision in the Code Noir of allowing slaves the right to make
complaints to the Crown's procureur-general in cases involving maltreatment
by masters.31 Slave owners' reading of their local circumstances, and
measures conceived to address them, had therefore taken precedence over
traditional protectionist concepts in the final instance. According to
C.L.R. James, by the end of the eighteenth century it was clear that the 'home
government could pass what laws it liked' but 'white San Domingo would
not tolerate any interference with the methods by which they kept their
slaves in order.'32

Unwritten laws and customary behaviour

In all colonies, in addition, unwritten laws generated patterns of customary
behaviour that strengthened slave owners' control over their slaves. These
were especially important in cases where Imperial authority mitigated slave
owners' power in an effort to establish a legal balance in the relations
between the free and the enslaved. This was especially evident in slave
owners' attempts to root firmly in the consciousness of slaves the ideology of

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 Social and political control in slave society

blacks' racial inferiority to whites so as to strengthen the social basis of their

domination. Persistent efforts were made to ensure that all classes within the
white caste were placed above non-whites, irrespective of class, in all
spheres of society. As slave societies matured and their economies devel-
oped, these divisions of caste, colour and class therefore became more pro-
nounced. In nineteenth century Cuba, for example, even low-class whites,
noted Knight, 'enjoyed a status superior to all non-whites.'33 Everywhere, the
black skin was associated directly with slave status and social inferiority in
white values and policies, and the ideology of black inferiority became a
powerful basis of popular culture.
In 1801 Barbados' Creole historian, John Poyer, provided a most
precise formulation of the English notion of black inferiority and how it
impacted on social structure. He stated:

In every well-constituted society, a state of subordination necessarily

arises from the nature of civil government. Without this no political
union can long subsist. To maintain this fundamental principle, it
becomes absolutely necessary to preserve the distinctions that naturally
exist or are accidentally introduced into the community. With us, two
grand distinctions exist resulting from the nature of our society. First,
between the white inhabitants and free people of colour, and secondly,
between masters and slaves. Nature has strongly defined the differences
[notl only in complexion, but in the mental, intellectual and corporal
faculties of the different species. Our colonial code has acknowledged
and adopted the distinction .... 34

To assist the social entrenchment of this ideology, symbols of

achievement were denied blacks, and at times other non-whites. Determined
to help themselves in the struggle against general impoverishment, and to
acquire some trappings of material betterment, slaves displayed an aggressive
propensity for marketing which slave owners sought to curb. Economic laws
were passed that prohibited them from buying, selling, bartering, raising
stocks and cultivating certain crops without permission from white author-
ities. These laws that also deemed much of the commercial produce and
property in slaves' possession as stolen goods were passed in order to:
1) prevent slaves from accumulating money and possessing property,
2) remove black competition from white businesses at the lower end of the
economy, and 3) control the drift of rural slaves into towns to attend
markets. 35 In Barbados the material suppression of slaves also meant that
they were not allowed to use stone in constructing their huts, and in
Bermuda only the Governor's slaves had permission to wear silk, lace,
ribbons, rings, bracelets and buckles. Similar provisions existed in the Danish

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 General History of the Caribbean

islands and had the 'undisputed purpose', noted Oldendorp, '6f impressing
on the Negroes a sense of respect for all whites.'36
According to Rebecca Scott, nineteenth-century Cuban slav:e owners
wanted social culture and ideologies arranged in such a manuer as to
promote the black race's respect for whites as part of the 'moral force' neces-
sary to keep slaves in submission, since it was clear that this could not be
achieved by 'material force alone'.37 This desire provided the impetus for
describing Mrican culture as inferior, a subject of social ridicule and official
suppression. Everywhere, whites used animal and demonic references to
blacks in social discourse, and Eurocentric value systems and cultural expres-
sions were held up as superior and officially sanctioned. Anti-black racism
became more virulent as whites' need for racial domination increased. It
sought to undermine the slaves' sense of self-worth and foster their
dependence upon white masters. By dehumanizing blacks, whites hoped to
increase the VUlnerability of slaves, not only to social domination, but also to
economic exploitation.
From Cuba in the north to the Guianas in the south, Christianity was
used by slave owners in the promotion of black submissiveness, and in the
ideological projection of slavery as an inseparable constituent of their way of
life. Catholic slave owners in the Spanish and French territories, like their
Protestant counterparts in English and Dutch colonies, carefully selected,
interpreted and censored the scriptures for the slaves' consumption. Religious
instruction, both in the early and later part of the slavery period, was
deSigned to encourage slaves into docility and meekness. At first, English
colonists were hostile to the policy of converting Mricans to Christianity, but
later adopted it, still reluctantly, once they were assured that missionaries
would instruct slaves that God had willed their lowly position, and that
unless they performed their allotted tasks well they would suffer eternally in
a fiery Hell.
Pro-slavery ideas shaped the theology directed at slaves in the West
Indies by white missionary societies at the end of the eighteenth century.
The Royal Charter under which The Society for the Conversion and
Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro slaves in the British West
India Islands was incorporated in 1793 stated, for example, that missionary
work:

would not only be an act of true Christian charity and benevolence, but
a measure of the soundest policy, by promoting the prosperity of the
commercial interest of those Islands, and would tend more effectually
than anything else can do to check and extinguish those pernicious and
destructive vices so prevalent among them.

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 Social and political control in slave society

It further stated, that

slaves who had been made real Christians are much better servants;
more sober, more industrious, more tractable, more faithful, and more
obedient to their masters, than those who remain heathens. 38

Generally, missionaries considered it necessary to instruct slaves that God

was opposed to their sullen, stubborn and impudent behaviour, and that
slavery was God's punishment to blacks - a cross they had to bear until he
declared the time for their salvation and deliverance. Oldendorp, the
Moravian missionary in the Danish islands, similarly told his slave congre-
gation that it was their duty to serve their masters 'with the same fidelity and
submissiveness' that they feel 'obliged to exercise in the service of Jesus
Christ, the Redeemer.'39

Slave unrest and planter response

Effective slave control, none the less, resided as much in the complex reality
of everyday relations in the work place, as in these various macro-level
systems of domination. Slave owners had little choice but to devise personal
survival strategies, in spite of official provisions, based upon their ex-
periences and perceptions of immediate circumstances. For individual slave
owners on large estates, for example, legal codes, militia regiments, over-
seers and racist ideologies were of little immediate use when hundreds of
their slaves resorted to arms. As such they understood most clearly the
principle that prevention was better than cure. Strategies were conceived,
therefore, to SOCially and politically divide slaves and other subordinate non-
white groups, in order to undermine the effiCiency and weaken the potency
of their anti-slavery actions.
Large-scale slave owners, as a result, thought it necessary to study and
assess the general and specific characteristics of their slave populations. Over
time, in most places, they boasted a familiarity with the ethnic origins of
slaves and their cultural peculiarities, which they believed could be used in
their control strategies. In 1657, Richard Ligon, the Barbados sugar planter
and historian, outlined this general point:

It has been accounted a strange thing that the Negroes being more than
double the number of Christians that are here, and they are accounted a
bloody people ... , would have power or advantage ... and commit some
horrid massacre upon the Christians, thereby to enfranchise themselves,

209
 General History of the Caribbean

and become masters of the island. But there are three reasons that take
away this wonder: the one is, they are not suffered to touch or handle
any weapons; the other, that they are held in such awe and slavery, as
they are fearful to appear in any daring act; besides, there is a third
reason which stops all designs of that kind, and that is, they were
fetched from several parts of Africa, who can speak several languages,
and by that means, one of them understands not another. 40

Likewise, in 1694, in spite of the discovery of islandwide conspiracies

in 1675 and 1692, an official observed that 'the safety of the plantations
depends upon having Negroes from all parts of Guinny, who not under-
standing each others' language and customs, do not and cannot agree to
rebel, as they would ... when they are too many Negroes from one country.'41
This view was supported by slave owners in Martinique, who also believed
that 'the disproportion of blacks to whites being great, the whites have no
greater security than the diversity of the Negro languages,' which would be
destroyed if it was necessary to teach them all French.42 The evidence,
however, does not convincingly suggest that culture-based 'divide-and-rule'
techniques of slave control, as crudely conceived by large-scale planters,
were effective. Slaves consistently organized trans-ethnic political attempts to
undermine and resist planter authority. Even in societies that were experien-
cing a slow rate of demographic creolization, the composition of runaway
bands, and the leadership structures of revolts were trans-ethnic, though in
some instances one particular group appeared dominant.
As slave populations became increasingly creolized, and ethnic differ-
ences among slaves seemed less pronounced, slave owners recognized that
slaves seemed more determined than ever to free themselves by whatever
means possible. Many responded to slaves' increasing anxiety about personal
freedom and general emancipation with more elaborate systems of patronage
and amelioration measures. Undoubtedly, slaves became more difficult to
control over time, and as a result, an increaSingly effective socio-political
control mechanism devised by slave owners in both town and country was
selectively to concede to slaves certain 'rights' and benefits within the
confines of their enslavement. Granted in expectation of slaves' commitment
to higher levels of productivity and social stability, ameliorative measures
were, in general, legitimized within the overall legislative provisions for
control and regulation. These adjustments were affected in three basic ways:

(a) by liberally, and at times, progressively, interpreting the slave laws, espe-
cially in-the removal of specific irritants to slaves. Slaves were granted
rights to attend markets, purchase their freedom, give evidence in courts
against whites, own property, have marriages and familial relations

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 Social and political control in slave society

recognized at law, and greater cultural autonomy. At times, reforms

meant the official abandonment of existing legislative provisions, the
enactment of new measures, and slave owners turning their backs on
certain slave transgressions;
(b) by allowing slaves greater access to occupational and status mobility, in
addition to easier access to formal schooling and religious instruction;
(c) by passing laws which gave slaves a greater sense of their human worth;
for example, the provision that the murder of a slave by a white was
felonious.

Though some of these measures were long embodied in the Siete Partidas
and the Code Noir, their adoption by the English and Dutch during the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries constituted a major ameliorative
initiative designed to weaken abolitionist charges with regard to the ill
treatment of slaves. Also, these revisions were designed to stimulate the
natural increase of slaves in expectation of European legislative abolition of
the slave trade on which slave owners depended primarily for labour
supplies.
Slave owners, then, came to appreciate the basic managerial point that
in order to establish and maintain satisfactory levels of labour productivity
and socially acceptable levels of tension and conflict, it was necessary to
accommodate themselves to some slave demands. By attempting to substitute
hegemonic consensus and persuasive bargaining for armed domination and
terror, some slave owners sought to refine forms of socio-political control.
One such development was the creation of a privileged group of slaves that
comprised artisans, supervisors and domestics. These slaves were allowed
greater social rights and material benefits. Whites hoped that privileged
slaves would appreciate these benefits to the extent that they would identify
more closely with masters and abandon commitment to anti-slavery.
Such reform policies, however, brought mixed results to slave owners.
Some argued the case of their reasonable success, while others suggested
that slaves who were the main beneficiaries were 'generally the first and
greatest conspirators'. 43
Ameliorative measures, then, reflected not only the maturity of slave
systems, but also the increasing anxiety of slaves in relation to freedom. As
revolutionary Creole nationalism gripped the Americas, and blacks in Haiti
showed that whites could be defeated, slaves in most colonies were quicker
to resort to arms, and in many places Imperial legislative abolition of slavery
was preceded by violent slave rebellions designed for self-liberation. This
was certainly the case in Barbados, Jamaica, Demerara, Cuba, St Croix,
Martinique and Guadeloupe. While slave owners sought ameliorative reforms
towards the end of the period of slavery in order to combat the intellectual,

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 General History of the Caribbean

moral, political and economic articulations against slavery, the multi-faceted,

anti-slavery struggle of blacks was intensified, rendering more societies less
stable.
By the nineteenth century many slave owners intimated that the tem-
perament and consciousness of slaves, and their responses to patronage and
authority, were not easily predictable, but were shaped by an overriding
concern for greater day-to-day social freedom and general legislative emanci-
pation. Manager Sampson Wood of Newton estate, Barbados, informed his
absentee employer in 1796:
(Slaves) are the most extraordinary animals to deal with in the world,
and indulgences are tried by us in a thousand ways, the one consistent
with all the forms and tenderness and humanity and the other kept
from excess, but there is no such thing as finding a medium that will
hold for any time. 44
In 1831, furthermore, Robert Scott, a Jamaican proprietor, informed a
Parliamentary Committee, that: 'the slaves had become impatient of control;
if you exact more from them than you ought to do, they will not submit to it,
but they know very well what duty they have to do on a plantation and if no
more is exacted, they are very easily managed and require no harsh treat-
ment whatsoever'. 45
When a family of elite slaves at Newton Plantation pressed Manager
Wood for the right to have their children schooled, he agreed in principle,
but thought it a 'bad policy in their situation to bestow on them the power of
reading and writing'. 'It is of little good', he stated, 'and very frequently
producer of mischief with them'.46 On this issue, Wood got his way, largely
because it reflected popular opinion among even the most liberal slave
owners that too great a concession to slaves became a destabiliZing influence
on the social order. In this sense, then, the governor of Martinique spoke for
most Caribbean slave owners when he stated in 1789 that in spite of amelio-
rative measures, 'the safety of the whites demands that the Negroes be kept
in the most profound ignorance.'47

Slave control through pro-slavery alliances

In places where whites were greatly outnumbered, they relied also upon
political and ideological pro-slavery alliances with free non-white social
groups who stood to benefit from the existence of a well controlled and
pacified slave community. These groups spanned the full spectrum of the
colour and class hierarchy of free society; they included all classes within the
free coloured caste, poor whites, free blacks and, occasionally, Maroon

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 Social and political control in slave society

bands. In most colonies, the nature of social relations within the free
community was influenced largely by the ratio of blacks to whites. In
Jamaica, where whites were outnumbered by blacks near ten to one in the
mid-eighteenth century, whites made significant civil rights concessions to
coloureds for their loyalty. In Barbados, whites, outnumbered by blacks four
to one, believed that liberal relations with coloureds were unnecessary for
the control of slaves. Indeed, in 1803, slave owners in Barbados debated a
bill to reduce the amount of property that free coloureds could own. It was
defeated only when the Attorney-General suggested to the House that the
Haitian State owed its existence to a revolutionary black-coloured anti-white
alliance and outlined the interest of whites and the need to control slaves in
the following terms:

I am inclined to think that it will be politic to allow them [the free

coloured] to possess property. It will keep them at a greater distance
from the slav~s, and will keep up that jealousy which seems naturally
to exist between them and the slaves; it will tend to our security, for
should the slaves at any time attempt a revolt, the free coloured
persons for their own safety and the security of their property, must
join the whites and resist them. But if we reduce the free coloured
people to a level with the slaves, they must unite with them, and will
take every occasion of promoting and encouraging a revolt. 48

The Attorney-General's political perceptions were proved correct in

1816 when the slaves launched an islandwide rebellion to emancipate them-
selves. The free coloured elite mustered for militia service under the white
captain of regiments and distinguished themselves for their bravery in
combat against slaves. The following year they were rewarded by whites
with the right to give evidence in courts on all occasions, for which they
thanked the Legislature, and assured them that they would be ready at all
times to 'give proof of our loyalty and sincere attachment to King and
Institution and risk our lives in the defence and protection of our country
and its Laws'. 49
In addition to free coloured slave owners, free blacks working as slave-
hunters, constables and militia scouts, also strengthened pro-slavery forces.
Some of them, unable to gain employment in other areas, accepted these
seemingly anti-black occupations under the threat of starvation. Maroon com-
munities and roaming bands also played similar strategic pro-slavery roles, in
spite of the popular perception that their very existence symbolized revolt
and freedom. During the eighteenth century, for example, Jamaican Maroons
signed elaborate treaties with slave owners that bound them to return run-
aways and assist in putting down slave revolts. In return, they gained some

213
 General History of the Caribbean

official recognition of their free status within the wider confines of the slave
society. 50

Conclusion
The overall success of slave owners' control, then, rested in their ability to
bind together most whites and their black and coloured allies in defence of
the slave regime. So long as the concept of black freedom was seen by
whites and non-white slave owners as diametrically opposed to their inter-
ests, they were willing to reinforce each other for the protection of their
privileged positions. As a rule, white communities were intolerant of major
dissension on the question of slave control and black subjugation - but
accepted minor disagreements on the details of methods and techniques.
When, for example, the Methodist missionary Reverend William Schewsbury
preached to slaves in Barbados in 1823 that all men were created equal
before God, and that such equality should have an earthly social expression,
whites considered him a dangerous revolutionary; they destroyed his chapel
and drove him from the colony. None of the mob was arrested or charged,
as the Governor was restricted by the knowledge that they were persons of
'the first respectability'. 51
The institutionalization of anti-black racism ensured the presence of
powerful structural barriers between blacks, coloureds and whites, which
imposed on black slaves the lowest levels of social status and material
welfare. All slave societies, therefore, were functionally racist, and the firm
control of slaves was perceived by whites as necessary for the protection of
their colonial interest from persons of inferior racial stock. As a result, every
force, from military might to ideological manipulation, was used by slave
owners against slaves. But as Goveia has stated, it was not that all slave
owners were inherently inhumane persons, rather that they found the
subjugation of slaves possible, and necessary. All slave owners, then, worked
consistently to make their slaves submissive and deferential. The adminis-
tering of lashes was everywhere the norm, in addition to various forms of
gruesome punishments designed to inculcate in blacks, especially the young,
the awesome power of whiteness. Rituals of deference were encouraged and
severe penalties imposed for their non-recognition. David Lowenthal, for
these reasons, in assessing the evidence across Imperial lines, concluded that
to debate the severity of slave control methods in comparative terms might
well be a 'waste of time'. Since custom tended to converge where legislation
diverged, Lowenthal argued, the 'differences of degree' hardly mattered to the
slave population beyond 'a certain point of brutality and dehumanization. '52

214
 Social and political control in slave society

Within slave societies, therefore, the study of control could be approach-

ed from the viewpoint of the complex and uneven development of power
relations within the context of creolization. In general, five important features
can be identified within the regional experience:

1) European sponsors of slavery conceived of ways to control slaves in

accordance with their political, social and philosophical understanding of
slave relation5, and as a result slave societies were characterized by con-
siderable conceptual divergence on the problem of disciplining slaves.
2) In colonies, practice and custom tended to evolve with common charac-
teristics, in spite of their different imperial connections, as slave owners
in towns and country sought broadly similar solutions to their problems
associated with slave insubordination.
3) Economic development and demographic structures were critical in
shaping slave owners' attitudes and fashioning slave control methods
and techniques.
4) Laws and regulations became increasingly harsh and restrictive in
colonies where Imperial provisions initially called for paternal considera-
tion in the treatment of slaves. Conversely, in colonies where initially
control methods and attitudes were harsh, slave owners finally adopted
ameliorative measures partly in order to ensure more effective control.
5) As societies became creolized and matured, slaves became more difficult
to control, forcing slave owners to seek social stability and hegemony by
negotiating with slaves the terms and conditions of their labour, and
recognizing their social rights and material interest.

By adopting these reforms and liberalizing strategies, slave owners sought to

extend the period of slavery deeper into the nineteenth century as the
institution came under increasingly severe international moral, economic and
political attack.
In general, none the less, slave owners had reasons to believe that the
final disintegration of the slave system was not the result of their ineffective
socio-political control. They could not prevent slaves from rebelling and
destabilizing society, but they lost only one entire colony, St Domingue, to
their slaves, and elsewhere they lost only small pockets of territory that gave
birth to at best semi-free Maroon communities. To the very end, most argued
that they were efficient users of slave labour and competent social managers.
In spite of the endemic nature of slave revolt, they achieved an impressive
record of minority socio-political control over an extended period of time.
The evidence suggests, furthermore, that they were effective primarily
because the balance of power and terror, for the most part, resided with
them.

215
 General History of the Caribbean

NOTES

1 See David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1972), p. 39; Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented
Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 118; jose Curet,
'About Slavery and the Order of Things; Puerto Rico, 1845-1873', in Manuel
Moreno Fraginals, et al. (eds), Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-
Speaking Caribbean in The Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: johns Hopkins
University Press, 1985), pp. 128-9; Gwendolyn Hall, Social Control in Slave
Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St Domingue and Cuba (Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1971), pp. 66-9.
2 Mervyn Ratekin, 'The Early Sugar Industry of Espaniola', in Hispanic American
Historical Review, vol. 34, no. 1, 1954. p. 17; Gabriel Debien, 'Marronage in the
French Caribbean', and M. L. E. Moreau de Saint-Mery, 'The Border Maroons of
Saint Domingue: Le Maniel', in R. Price (ed.), Maroon Societies, pp. 107-35 and
135-43.
3 Edward Brathwaite, 'Controlling the Slaves in jamaica'; paper presented at the
Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Guyana, 1971; Elsa
V. Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), pp. 319-22;
Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), pp. 79-81; Herbert
S. Aimes, A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511-1868 (New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1907), pp. 66-9; H. Hoetink, 'Suriname and Cura~ao', in David Cohen and
Jack P. Greene, Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the
Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore: johns Hopkins University Press,
1972), pp. 66-7.
4 Alvin Thompson, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580-1803
(Bridgetown: Carib Research and Publications, 1987), pp. 42-3, 112-13, 137-51;
Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 (Knoxville: The University
of Tennessee Press, 1973), pp. 13-14; Hilary Beckles, Natural Rebels: A Social
History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1990), pp. 157-72; Michael Craton, Testing the Chains,
pp. 112-13, 118, 129-30, 262, 265, 377; Jose L. Franco, 'Maroons and Slave
Rebellions in the Spanish Territories', in R. Price (ed.), Maroon Societies,
pp. 35-49; Rebecca Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free
Labor, 1860-1899 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 172-97; see
also Chapter 7.
5 Minutes of Council, 7th November 1655, Lucas Mss. Reel I, ff. 160-2,
Bridgetown Public Library; also Davis Mss. Box 12, MS. 1; Royal Commonwealth
Society Archives; Hilary Beckles, Black Rebellion in Barbados: The Struggle
Against Slavery, 1627-1823 (Bridgetown: Antilles, 1984), p. 34; Governor
William Willoughby to Privy Council, 16 December, 1667, Calendar of State
Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668, p. 526.
6 David Geggus, 'The Enigma of jamaica in the 179Os: New Light on the Causes of
Slave Rebellions', William and Mary Quarterly, April, 1987, no. 2, vol. XLIV,
pp. 295-7; Michael Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 186-94; Hilary Beckles, 'The
Slave Drivers' War: Bussa and the 1816 Barbados Slave Uprising', Boletin de
Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, no. 39, December, 1986; Edward L.

216
 Social and political control in slave society

Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), pp. 77-91.
7 N. A. T. Hall, 'Slaves and the Law in the Towns of St Croix, 1802-1807'; paper
presented at the XVIII Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean
Historians (Nassau: Bahamas, April 1986), p. 4; Hall also articulated the role of
towns in fostering slave escape by sea; see 'Maritime Maroons: Grand
Marronage from the Danish West Indies'; paper presented at the XVI Annual
Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Cave Hill, Barbados; see
also his 'Slavery in Three West Indian Towns: Christiansted, Fredericksted and
Charlotte Amalie in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century', in
B. W. Higman (ed.), Trade, Government and Society in Caribbean History,
1700-1920 (Kingston: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 17-33; see also B. W. Higman,
Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 226-33, 389-91; Hilary Beckles, Natural
Rebels, pp. 164-70.
8 A. F. Fenwick (ed.), The Fate of the Fenwicks: Letters of Mary Hays, 1798-1828
(London: Methuen, 1927), p. 168; Hilary Beckles, Natural Rebels, p. 63.
9 Lorna Simmonds, 'The Whip and the Workhouse: The Legal Mechanisms of
social control in an urban Slave SOCiety, Jamaica, 1780-1834', seminar paper,
Department of History, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, pp. 14-15;
see also, Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica
1770-1820 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 157-64.
10 House of Commons Accounts and Papers, vol. XXVI, 1789, No. 646a, pt. iii, 'A
General View of the Principles upon which this System of Laws appears to have
been originally founded': see also, Bernard Marshall, 'The Treatment of the
African Slave in Law and Custom on the Plantations in the British Windward
Islands - Dominica, St Vincent, Tobago and Grenada during the 18th Century';
unpublished seminar paper, Department of History, University of the West
Indies, Mona, Jamaica; Elsa Goveia, Slave Society, p. 167.
11 See Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York:
Vintage, 1976), p. 6. The case for religion as the principal factor behind the
divergence in severity of slave laws is made by Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and
Citizen: The Negro in the Americas, 1946 (New York: Vintage, 1963); also, see
Stanley Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual
Life, 1959, 2nd ed., (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968), pp. 27~0.
12 Elsa Goveia, 'The West Indian Slave Laws of the 18th Century', in Douglas Hall
et al. (eds), Chapters in Caribbean History (Kingston: Caribbean Universities
Press, 1970), p. 36; also published in Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 4, 1960,
pp.75-105.
13 Knight, Slave Society, p. 124.
14 Duncan Rice, Rise and Fall of Black Slavery, (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 67;
Knight, Slave Society, pp. 121-36.
15 Robert Stein, The French Sugar Business in the Eighteenth Century (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), p. 52; see also Lucien Peytraud,
L'Esc/avage aux Antilles fran~aises avant 1789 (Pointe-a-Pitre: Desormeaux,
1973), pp. 158-66; Didier Guyvarch and Gabriel Debien, 'Instructions des colons
des Antilles a leurs gerants', Anuario de estudios americanos, XXIV (1958),
pp. 532-3; see also, Gabriel Debien, Les Esc/aves aux Antillesfran~aises (Basse-
Terre: Societe d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1974) and 'Les grandes' cases de

217
 General History of the Caribbean

plantations a Saint Domingue aux XVII e et XVIII" siecles', Annuales de Antilles,

xv (970), pp. 1-20; 'Les vivres sur une cafeiere de Saint Domingue', Enquetes et
Documents, 1 (971), pp. 144-5; Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws, pp. 9,
36-7, 39, 41-9; Antoine Gisler, L'esclavage aux Antillesfran(:aises (XVII'-XIX"
siecle): contribution au probleme de L 'esclavage (Fribourg, Switzerland: Editions
Universitaires, 1965).
16 Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West
Indies, 1624-1713 (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 246.
17 'An Act for the better ordering and Governing of Negroes', 1661, in Acts of
Barbados, 1645-1682, CO 32/2, PRO London; Goveia, Slave Society,
pp. 152-202; also Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, pp. 238--46; Vincent T. Harlow, A
History of Barbados, 162~1685 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926),
pp. 4-5; Carl Bridenbaugh, No Peace Beyond the Line; The English in the
Caribbean, 1624-1690 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 195-229;
Richard Hall, Acts Passed in the Island of Barbados 1643-1762 (London, 1764)
No. 42, ff. 112-13.
18 Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, p. 246; Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws, pp. 22--6;
on compensations, see Barry Gaspar 'To Bring Their Offending Slaves to Justice:
Compensation and Slave Resistance in Antigua, 1669-1763', Caribbean
Quarterly, 30, p. 3-4 (September-December, 1984), pp. 45--60; Beckles, Black
Rebellion, pp. 42-3.
19 Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws, p. 50; also, C. G. A. Oldendorp, A
Caribbean Mission, 1770 (Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc., 1987),
pp. 225-37; Isaac Dookhan, A History of the Virgin Islands of the United States
(St Thomas: Bower Publishing Co., 1974), pp. 154--8; Hall, 'Slaves and the Law',
pp. 1-5; see also, David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1972), p. 40; see also, C. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean
and on tbe Wild Coast, 1580-1680 (Assen-Gainesville: Van Gorcum, 1971),
pp. 46-85; K. Felhoen and 1. G. Johanna, 'Esclaves et plantations de Surinam
vus malovet', West Indies Guide, 36, (954), pp. 53--6.
20 Pinson Bonham to Lord Bathurst, 8 June, 1813, PRO; see also R. A. J. van Lier,
'Negro Slavery in Surinam', Caribbean Historical Review, nos. m-IV, December,
1954, pp. 108--48; John Waller, A Voyage in tbe West Indies (London: Richard
Phillips, 1820), pp. 90-4.
21 van Lier, 'Negro Slavery in Surinam', pp. 108-18.
22 Harry Hoetink, 'Surinam and Curar;:ao', in Cohen and Greene (eds), Neither'Slave
Nor Free, pp. 66-7. Hoetink also stated that 'the numerical superiority of the,
slaves, which provoked fear, and the isolated locations of the majority of the
plantations, which made such social and judicial controls as might emanate from
the capital hardly effective, were the main causes of the generally severe and
often very cruel treatment of the slaves, especially on the sugar plantations, and
more so among field slaves than among artisan or house slaves', pp. 61-2; see
also, Knight, The Caribbean, p. 122.
23 Quoted in van Lier, 'Negro Slavery in Surinam', p. 116; van Lier outlines from
a detailed study of police court records the monthly sentences imposed upon
slaves, and assesses their cruelty in relation to other Dutch colonies.
24 Luis M. Diaz Soler, La historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico, 2nd ed.
(Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1965), p. 193; Fernando Ortiz

218
 Social and political control in slave sOciety

Fernandez, Hampa afro-cubana, los negros esclavos (Havana: Revista Bimestre,

1916), p. 342.
25 Waldemar Westergaard, The Danish West Indies Under Company Rule,
1671-1754 (New York: MacMillan, 1917), p. 158; see also, Lawrence
P. Spingarn, 'Slavery in the Danish West Indies', American Scandinavian
Review, Spring, 1957, p. 38.
26 See Dookhan, A History of the Virgin Islands, pp. 154-5; Goveia, The West
Indian Slave Laws, p. 50; John P. Knox, A Historical Account of St Thomas, West
Indies, (New York: Charles Scribner, 1852), pp. 51-6.
27 Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy
of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984),
pp. 32, 165-6; Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-
Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 33-9. Franklin W. Knight,
Slave Society, pp 190-1; and The African Dimension in Latin American Societies
(New York: MacMillan, 1974), p. 93.
28 Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, p. 165; see also, Benjamin Nistal-
Moret, 'Problems in the Social Structure of Slavery in Puerto Rico during the
Process of Abolition, 1872', and Andres A. Ramos Mattei, 'Technical Innovations
and Social Change in the Sugar Industry of Puerto Rico, 1870-1880', in Manuel
Moreno Fraginals et al. (eds), Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-
Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1985), pp. 141-57 and 158-78 respectively.
29 Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws, p. 44.
30 Cited in Pierre de Vaissiere, Saint Domingue: La Societe et la vie creole sous
L'Ancien Regime, 1629-1789 (Paris: Perrin et Cie, 1909), p. 181.
31 Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, pp. 15-16.
32 c. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo
Revolution (New York: Vintage Press, 1963 edition), p. 24.
33 Knight, Slave Society, p. 98.
34 John Poyer, A Letter addressed to ... Lord Seaforth by a Barbadian, (Bridgetown,
1801); see also, Beckles, Black Rebellion, p. 82.
35 Knight gives the following chronology: 'The Jamaican Assembly in 1711 pro-
hibited slaves from owning livestock or from selling meat, fish, sugar, sugar-
cane, or any manufactured item without the written permission of their masters.
St Lucia prevented slaves from dealing in coffee or cotton with laws passed
between 1734 and 1735. The French Antilles also passed laws between 1744 and
1765 that removed the opportunities for slaves to trade in cattle or engage in the
occupation of butcher, while higglering was prohibited on plantations or in the
towns. In 1767 St Vincent forbade slaves to plant or sell any commodity
exported from the island. In the 1840s the Cubans restricted the occupations
and movement of the free, non-white members of society. The planter class
which formulated the laws restricting the economic activities of the non-whites
were motivated by self-interest', in The Caribbean, p. 91; see also Hilary
Beckles, 'Slaves and the Internal Market Economy of Barbados; A Perspective on
non-violent resistance', in Historia y Sociedad, Mio n, 1989, pp. 9-32; Sidney W.
Mintz and Douglas Hall, 'The Origins of the Jamaican Internal Marketing
System', Yale University Publication in Anthropology, no. 57, 1960, pp. 23-4;

219
 General History of the Caribbean

Woodville Marshall, 'Provision Ground and Plantation Labour; competition for

Resources', paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference of Caribbean
Historians, College of the Virgin Islands, St Thomas, 1988; Robert Dirks, The
Black Saturnalia: Conflict and its ritual expression on British West Indian Slave
Plantations (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1987), pp. 73-5; Orlando
Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development and
Structure of Negro Slave Society in jamaica (Kingston: Sangsters Bookstores,
1973), pp. 21Cr22; 224-30.
36 Oldendorp, A Caribbean Mission, p. 30; Cyril Packwood, Chained on the Rock:
Slavery in Bermuda (Eliseo Torres & Sons, New York, 1975), p. 127.
37 Rebecca Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 9.
38 The Two Charters of the Society for Advancing the Christian Faith in the British
West Indies ... and in Mauritius ... (London, 1836); Robert Hodgson, The Life of
the Right Reverend Beilby Porteus, D. D., Late Bishop of London (London, 1811);
Rev. Beilby Porteus, 'An Essay Towards a Plan for the more effectual Civilization
and Conversion of the Negro Slaves', in Tracts on Various Subjects (London,
1807), pp. 165-217. Knight, Slave Society, pp. 1O(r.12.
39 Oldendorp, A Caribbean Mission, p. 229; Oliver Furley, 'Moravian Missionaries
and Slaves in the West Indies', Caribbean Studies, vol. 5, 1965, pp. 3-16; Mary
Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration ofjamaican Slave Society,
1787-1834 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982), pp. 65-74; see also,
Harry H. Johnson, The Negro in The New World (London: Methuen, 1910),
pp. 47-8; William Wilberforce, An Appeal to the Religion, justice, and Humanity
of the Inhabitants of the British Empire on Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West
Indies (London: J. Hatchard & Sons, 1823); David Brion Davis, The Problem of
Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1975), pp. 523-51.
40 Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados ... (London:
Frank Cass 1657), 1976 reprint, p. 46.
41 Some considerations humbly offered against granting the sale trade to Guinny ...
to a Company with a joint stock (London, 1694).
42 Cited in Charles de Rochefort, Histoire, Naturelle et Morale des Anttlles de
L'Amerique (Rotterdam, 1658); translated into English by John Davies, A History
of the Caribbean Islands (London, 1666), p. 202.
43 See Beckles, Black Rebellion, p. 75.
44 Cited in Mary Turner, 'Chattel Slaves into Wage Slaves: A Jamaican Case Study',
in Malcolm Cross and Gad Heuman (eds), Labour in the Caribbean (London:
Macmillan, 1988), pp. 19-20.
45 Cited in Jerome Handler and Frederick Lange, Plantation Slavery in Barbados:
An Archaeological and Historical Investigation (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1978), pp. 85-6.
46 Cited in Hilary Beckles, Natural Rebels, p. 68.
47 Cited in C. L. R. James, The Blackjacobins, p. 17.
48 Cited in Hilary Beckles, Black Rebellion, p. 83.
49 Ibid., p. 136.
50 See P. Wright, 'War and Peace with the Maroons; 1730-1739', Caribbean
Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 1, (970), pp. 5-27; Richard Hart, 'Cudjoe and the First
Maroon War in Jamaica', Caribbean Historical Review, vol. 1, 1950, pp. 4Cr79;

220
 Social and political control in slave society

also by Hart, 'The Formation of a Caribbean Working Class', in The Black

Liberator, vol. 2, no. 2, 1973n4, pp. 131-48; Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery,
pp. 269-71; also by Patterson, 'Slavery and Slave Revolts: A Sociohistorical
Analysis of the First Maroon War, 1665-1740', in Price (ed.), Maroon Societies,
pp.246-93.
51 Woodville Marshall, 'Amelioration and Emancipation: with Special reference to
Barbados', in Alvin Thompson (ed.), Emancipation [(Barbados: UWI, 1984),
p.81.
52 Lowenthal, West Indian Societies, p. 41.

221
 7

FORMS OF RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY

Michael Craton

E VEN such self-interested and racist planter writers of the Caribbean as

Edward Long, Elie Moreau de Saint Mery and Bryan Edwards recog-
nized that slave resistance was as inevitable as slavery itself. 1 Slaves
'naturally' resisted their enslavement because slavery was fundamentally
unnatural. Slave resistance of one kind or another was a constant feature of
slavery. Only the forms varied across time and place, according to circum-
stances and opportunities, mutating in rhythm to an internal dynamic, if not
also in relation to the larger historical context. This chapter defines the forms
of slave resistance, and describes how, if at all, they fitted into an historical
process.
If slave resistance was endemic, it was overt only in special circum-
stances. While it is probably true to say that slaves would always engage in
acts of open rebellion 'whenever they could, or had to', this was not very
often. Over the entire sphere of plantation America, scattered slave plots and
rebellions occurred with a frequency that looks impressive in a general
chronological table. But so infrequent were slave uprisings in most individual
territories - with some small colonies experiencing no major outbreaks at all
- that even a liberal historian like Richard S. Dunn can use this fact to ex-
aggerate the power of the masters and the effectiveness of plantation slavery
as a socio-economic system. 2
Defining slave resistance merely to include plots and acts of overt
rebellion is unduly limiting and misleading. Slave resistance shaped the initial
form of plantation slave society and its evolution, determined the efficiency
of slavery as an economic system, and speeded the eventual demise of
formal chattel slavery as an institution. Yet to understand fully how this was
so it is necessary to define slave resistance to include all forms of resistance
short of actual (or proposed) overt action. This proposes a whole spectrum
of activities and behaviour, shading from covert sabotage, through manifesta-
tions of internal rejection and anomie, to forms of dissimulated acceptance
and accommodation that were, perhaps, as subversive as other forms.
In the last analysis, the effectiveness of slave resistance could be
judged not in comparison with the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 (the only

222
 Forms of resistance to slavery

example of a complete and permanent overthrow of the socio-economic and

political system of slavery by the slaves themselves) or even by the relative
incidence of forms of open revolt, but rather by the degree to which those
enslaved were able to overcome the constraints of the masters' system to
'make a life of their own'. In this respect, they were at one with all
oppressed peoples, before, during and after the phase of formal enslave-
ment, struggling to modify to their own advantage what they could not
evade or destroy.3
Yet if slave resistance was a constant feature of slavery and a part of an
even more perennial and continuous dialectic, it was also, surely, part of an
historical process. Just as important as establishing a typology of forms of
slave resistance, therefore, is the need to vitalize that typology with an his-
torical dynamic. Striking a convincing balance between the synchronic and
diachronic dimensions, indeed, is one of the most common dilemmas faced
by all analysts of slave resistance.
Stanley Engerman, for example, has suggested that one possible way of
analysing types of slave resistance is to make a tripartite distinction between,
firstly, attempts to rebel against, destroy and replace the slave plantation
system; secondly, to reject the plantation-slavery systems without necessarily
destroying them; and, thirdly, recognizing the impossibility of counterproduc-
tivity of either of the foregoing, to attempt to sabotage, change, and perhaps
eventually destroy, the systems from within. 4
While this threefold division clearly retains analytical value, it is still an
essentially static formulation. A natural preference for a dynamic model, as
well as a reluctance to ascribe to the slaves a dependence on any extrinsic
motivation rather than their own ideology, led me to propose, in 1974, three
distinct, and broadly chronological phases of Afro-American slave resistance:
the Maroon; the African-dominated; and the Creole. 5 This most notably came
into conflict with the formulation of the Marxist historian Eugene Genovese,
put forward in From Rebellion to Revolution (1979). This too was a dynamic
explanation, but one, as befitted its provenance, that aimed to place the
actions of the Afro-American slaves firmly into the Marxist world overview.
Genovese divided Afro-American slave uprisings at the Age of Revolutions,
between mere 'restorationist' rebellions and authentically revolutionary man-
ifestations. 'By the end of the eighteenth century', he wrote, 'the historical
content of the slave revolts shifted decisively from attempts to secure
freedom from slavery to attempts to overthrow slavery as a social system,.6
My own early formulation, though already modified in Testing the
Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (1982), is by no means
rejected entirely here. But it has been even further refined, not just by the
need greatly to broaden the definition of slave resistance, but by a greater
awareness of the variations, overlaps and interrelationships in and between

223
 General History of the Caribbean

different slave systems, and between slave and non-slave labour systems in a
modernizing world, which comes from raising one's sights from a study of
British colonial slavery ending in 1838, to slavery in five different colonial
systems through the Caribbean that, in the case of Cuba, lasted until 1886.
On this broader canvas, the chief refinement, following the analyses by
Nigel Bolland and Eric Foner of the post-emancipation phase,7 is to see slave
resistance as part of a perennial double dialectic: not just the traditional
dialectic between masters and underclass, but of a continuing dialectic
between change and continuity. In simpler terms for the present purpose, it
was a dialectic of adjustments between masters and slaves that in respect of
all forms of resistance, open and covert, gradually verged from total rejection
on the part of the slaves toward forms of industrial action, as part of the
process of creolization and modernization, and in due course spilled over
into the post-emancipation period.
In some respects, Edward Long, writing in 1774, was not only per-
ceptive but also prophetic. History and his own experience told him to
expect that resistance and conflict were inevitable while slavery lasted. By
suggesting (and Significantly using the analogy of a simmering sugar caul-
dron) that a more rigid class stratification would supersede slavery in the
industrializing process, he was not far from the truth. Only in suggesting that
thereby those elements which, with typical crudity, he termed the faeces of
society, would 'remain peaceably at the bottom' was he, as an arrogant
member of the ruling class, unduly optimistic.
Slave resistance was not only perennial but multifaceted. Our first main
task will be to consider the full spectrum of forms of slave resistance and the
masters' responses to them, in a descending order from the most overt forms
of resistance to the most equivocal and problematic manifestations.

Forms of slave resistance and planter response

Of all possible forms of slave resistance the prospect of a general slave upris-
ing was the slave owners' ultimate nightmare, and the almost permanent
threat of its occurrence imparted to slave society a dangerous tension found
only in phases of special crises in most other societies. 'A colony of slaves is
a town menaced by assault', one Haitian soldier-planter wrote; 'one lives
always on the top of a powder magazine'.8 The slave-owning class was con-
sequently driven to deploy not only the timeless tactics of ensuring a class
superiority derived from Europe but also, to an unprecedented degree, all
the available instruments of power - in the process expending far from
illimitable resources of money and psychic energy.

224
 Forms of resistance to slavery

From Europe came the tradition that law and religion served the cause
of social order in a holy alliance - though in two distinct manifestations,
deriving from before and after the great divide of the Protestant Reformation
and the revolution of mercantile capitalism. Spain and Portugal, the pioneer
overseas imperialists and first colonial employers of African slaves, and to a
certain extent, their fellow Catholic imperialist nation, France, inherited
through civil and canon law alike, the old Roman law of slavery, especially
as it related to the definition of slaves as chattel, and to the control and pro-
tection of the slaves themselves. In the form of the Spanish Siete Partidas,
the Portuguese royal ordenar;oes, and the essential precepts of the French
Code Noir, the state decreed and the church endorsed a complete code of
relationships and behaviour that theoretically fixed slaves and free persons,
owner-employers and workers, in an integrated social system. 9
Though in some respects property slaves were not mere chattel in the
Catholic system, being ascribed souls, rational capabilities and vestigial rights.
Slaves and masters alike had certain rights and duties; the right of the slave
to reasonable treatment being conditional on his assimilation within the
moral order and dutiful obedience, while the slave owner's right to the
almost unlimited control of his slave theoretically depended on the obser-
vation of minimal standards of human treatment, including every encourage-
ment to become assimilated. Not least important in the Catholic slave-owning
countries was the assumption that the bozal (that is, heathen and uncivilized)
African slaves should be converted to Christianity and encouraged in sound
Christian observance, as an essential part of their assimilation into what was
regarded as the civilized social order.
Catholic slave owners in the early West Indies were particularly fond of
the New Testament text in which the good Roman citizen, the Apostle Paul,
on the one hand enjoined the Christian slave, Onesimus (who had com-
mitted a crime and run away), to return dutifully to his master, while on the
other hand (though with considerably less emphasis) encouraged the
Christian slave owner Philemon to be dutifully humane in the exercise of his
mastery.lO The numerous Catholic missionaries in the Spanish and French
West Indies, regarded as agents of socialization by some masters but as
dangerous impediments to absolute control by others, certainly took their
civilizing mission seriously. They chastised sadistic and ungodly masters, but
returned slave runaways to their owners, were reluctant to listen to slave
complaints, preached obedience, and even (as in the case of Pere Labat and
his fellow Dominicans in Martinique) owned slaves and ran slave plantations
themselves. 11
The Protestant and capitalist imperialists, chiefly Holland and England,
but also Denmark and Sweden, were far more direct and pragmatic in their
ideology. No formal pre-existing slave codes influenced the consolidated

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colonial slave laws that treated the slaves crudely as chattels, to be bought,
sold, bequeathed and inherited like any other property. The problem of
whether to treat slaves as chattels with souls was generally fudged. 12 A
nominal encouragement to Christianize the slaves was accompanied by an
explicit statement that conversion did not make them free, or any less slaves.
More commonly, nothing was done in practice to incorporate them into the
Christian community - a distinction, indeed, being commonly made not only
between free men and blacks, but between Christians and slaves. Similarly,
the illogicality of having to pass laws to prevent slaves from performing
actions that would be impossible for inanimate objects (such as owning
property for themselves or even committing crimes) was either ignored by
passing such laws none the less, or, with slightly more logic, by delegating
the responsibility for such actions largely to the slave owners by means of
fines. 13
Variations in the European master culture and the methods of social
control, however, were overridden by the common features of Afro-American
slave resistance. Differences in legal and ecclesiastical systems were
insignificant in the face of the practical realities of socio-economic confronta-
tion. In practice, therefore, all West Indian planters relied mainly on naked
power, with a common informal code of customary practice overwhelming
any theoretical variations, and sharing ideas and methods even more readily
than they borrowed and lent military forces for police purposes in times of
peace. Bryan Edwards spoke not just for the British West Indies but for all
European slave planters when he wrote in 1793 that: 'In countries where
slavery is established, the leading principle on which the government is sup-
ported is fear; or a sense of that absolute coercive necessity, which leaving
no choice of action, supersedes all questions of right.'14
In all European slave colonies, naval flotillas and army garrisons were
sought, and all local whites (and occasionally free coloureds) enrolled in a
militia, as much against internal as external enemies. The very structure of
colonial militias was a function of the socio-economic system, with regiments
organized within local administrative units, such as the parishes in the British
colonies. The officer class was provided by the planters according to their
land holdings and local standing, and the other ranks were filled by other
free men in their various degrees.
The style and pretensions of colonial militias were often ridiculed by
visiting professional soldiers, and their performance in wartime was rarely
impressive. But they did keep arms in instant readiness for emergency
mobilization, paraded regularly at local armouries and strong points and
once a year assembled all together for a review and military exercises before
the Governor, who was himself usually the Commander-in-Chief. These
annual displays included parade ground drill by infantry and cavalry, warlike

226
 Forms of resistance to slavery

manoeuvres and, above all, the firing of musketry volleys and artillery which
were as much to overawe the slaves as to gratify and reassure the whites. As
Richard Ligon wrote of the Barbadian slaves in 1657, ' '" and seeing the
mustering of our men, and hearing their gun-shot (than which nothing is
more terrible to them) their spirits are subjugated to so low a condition, as
they dare not look up to any bold attempt.'IS
In order to keep the rural militia units up to strength, as well as to
police the individual plantations, 'deficiency laws' were passed throughout
the British Caribbean to compel planters to maintain a certain ratio of whites
- usually one for every dozen slaves - through fines for non-compliance.
Be~ides their regular militia obligations, all free men were given permanent
vigilante duties. It was the accepted responsibility of all whites to police all
blacks, to question all black strangers over their status, to demand from all
stray slaves their authorization to roam, to arrest all slaves thought to be
guilty of misdemeanours, and to enrol in a posse to search slave quarters and
pursue runaways. Free men were given wide powers by law, and even
greater licence in custom, to administer corporal punishment to refractory
slaves. Even more crucial was the fact that the local legislators not only
passed laws entirely in their own interest, but were also the administrators of
justice as local Justices of the Peace. But in European colonies the slave laws
essentially reflected the interest of the planter class even if promulgated by
metropolitan authorities, and the local judges identified fully with planto-
cratic interests even if they were not always drawn from local families. In any
case, the slaves, given little or no protection in the written laws, had in
practice virtually no recourse to the courts in redress - in the British, Dutch
and Danish systems of jurisprudence, indeed, having no legal standing
before the courts at all, being technically no more than chattels themselves.
In all colonies, the most important and obvious functions of the slave
laws were to police and punish the slaves. Common features were the
forbidding and suppression of the unauthorized movement of slaves, large
slave gatherings, the possession of guns and other weapons, the sounding of
horns and the practice of secret rituals. The punishment for actual or threat-
ened violence against whites was savage. In extreme cases, the legal systems
allowed for punishments in any form, however barbarous - ostensibly a
reaction to the 'African' savagery of rebel behaviour (leading, for example, to
the almost ritualistic common decapitations and display of enemy heads
which were a feature of many slave rebellions). In fact, though, they were a
reflection not only of the savagery of contemporary class relations and the
continuing barbarity of European penal customs, but also of the colonial
masters' paranoid fears.I6
Such fears naturally increased at times of plantocratic weakness, for the
opportunities for slave uprisings were the rtatural converse of the planters'

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 General History of the Caribbean

ability to exercise their power. Slave rebellions tended to be more frequent

where slaves notably outnumbered the whites, but were most likely in the
years before the instruments of power were fully installed, when the colonial
forces were weakened by distractions or the depletion of garrisons during
times of war, or when the planters' numbers or powers were depleted by
absenteeism, epidemic, economic decline, or the loss of the wholehearted
support of the imperial authorities.
The most obvious case of planter weakness was the most dramatic: the
Haitian rebellion of 1791-1804. This occurred at a time of rapid economic
expansion when new African slaves greatly outnumbered Creoles, and blacks
outnumbered whites by 12 : 1 overall and by up to 50 : 1 on plantations. But
it was also fomented during the distraction of the great revolution in France,
encouraged by the victory of the Jacobins over the Royalists, facilitated by
the war between France and the rest of Europe, and virtually clinched by the
ravages of yellow fever among Napoleon's troops.I7
Yet the Jamaican case exemplified the prinCiple over a far longer
period, and with even more variations. The earliest uprisings occurred before
the machinery of local government was fully in place, while the English set-
tlers were greatly outnumbered by newly-imported Africans and were as
much preoccupied with taming the interior as in controlling their slaves. The
islandwide rebellion of 1760, the Hanover slave plot of 1776, and the Second
Maroon War of 1795 all occurred during wartime, in precise conjunction with
the withdrawal of garrison troops to fight elsewhere. The Governors' corre-
spondence and plantocratic writings leave us little doubt that the local whites
at least attributed the escalating slave unrest that climaxed in the great rebel-
lion of 1831-2 to planter absenteeism, the weakening of the military garrison
and militia and, above all, to the withdrawal of support for the local plantoc-
racy by an imperial government increasingly influenced by abolitionist
ideas. IS
In the shorter term, the ecological anthropologist Robert Dirks has
observed that slave rebellions most commonly occurred around the official
slave holidays of Christmas, Easter or 'crop-over', or after the weekly Sunday
rest day, pointing up the danger of temporary imbalances of power.
However, this was a hazard of which the planters were fully aware, though it
is doubtful that they understood the physiological and psychological implica-
tions - if Dirks' analysis is correct - of combining an unusually rich diet with
licence to perform dances, plays and games that could easily turn into con-
frontation. I9 At the individual plantation level, planters were accustomed to
special vigilance during slaves' holidays, and at the colonial level, militias
were traditionally on standby during the Christmas season.
To a degree, the relative infrequency of slave rebellions can be seen as
an index of the planters'power, though the planters themselves sometimes

228
 Forms of resistance to slavery

deluded themselves as to the necessity of continuing to wield naked force.

The Barbadian planters, for instance, lulled by the non-occurrence of any
form of overt slave resistance for over a century, and ignoring the fact that
they engaged a higher ratio of free whites to black slaves than any other
sugar plantation colony, attributed their immunity both to their own mild and
judicious regime and to the pacific nature and general satisfaction of the
Barbadian slaves - this on the very eve of the major slave uprising of 1816. 20
The whites of other colonies, including those like Bermuda and Antigua that
never experienced a major slave uprising, were far more circumspect. For the
threat of insurrection always existed; and plots - only one stage removed
from the perennial slave dream of freedom - were surely far more common
than actual outbreaks of rebellion. This was certainly true of Bermuda, where
plots and rumours of plots kept the settlers on their toes throughout the
eighteenth century; and of Antigua, which endured the most Widespread and
harrowing as well as the best documented slave plot ever discovered in the
British West Indies in 1736. 21
What gave slave plots added force was the secrecy with which they
were enshrouded. Picturesque slave rituals, such as the ikem dances per-
formed by the Antiguan slaves in 1736 and complacently watched by many
Antiguan whites, took on an altogether more sinister face when they were
found to be associated with a bonding to rebel oaths of secrecy. Such all-
encompassing secrets, of course, could not be kept for long, even without
the existence of slave informers - persons whose actions the slave owners
defined as fidelity, but who were as likely to be those calculating few who
feared the bloody consequences of rebellion. Once teased out through
systematic interrogation, torture and savage exemplary punishments, such
plots usually terrified the whites by their extent and aims. Like a guinea
worm in the body politic, they called for drastic remedies. In the 1736
Antigua case, the rebel hunt went on for months, revealing a plot affecting
every parish, if not every single estate. Eighty-eight slaves were put to death
- broken on the wheel, starved to death in gibbets, or burned alive - and 47
transported from Antigua. Nearly all these were elite slaves chosen to make
an example. One almost has a sense that the plantocracy, having decided
that virtually all Antiguan slaves were implicated, and after having made their
counterattack in the most forthright terms, then simply decided to close up
the gaping wound, determining thereafter, though, to be ever more strict and
vigilant. From 1736, then, Antiguan slave society was in an uneasy social
balance close to Bryan Edwards's later definition of slavery's natural state of
coercion, fear and tension. Similar watersheds can be traced in the early
histories of most slave colonies. 22
Mass running away - called grand marronage by the French - was
almost as much a threat to the planter regime as rebellions and plots, and,

229
 General History of the Caribbean

indeed, was often associated with them. Would-be rebels were encouraged
by the existence of successful Maroon communities - palenques to the
Spanish - or, having risen up, rebel slaves fled into nearby woods or moun-
tains to escape, concentrate their forces and regroup. Naturally, the largest
and longest-lived palenques were found on tropical mainlands - the areas
most like West Africa - and nothing quite as extensive as the Palma res
qUilombo in Brazil or the Bush Negro communities of Suriname were found
in the Antilles. But all islands had their Maroon communities, especially in
the earlier phase of colonization, with those of Santo Domingo, Haiti, Cuba,
Jamaica and Dominica including thousands of Maroons and outlasting slavery
itself. Smaller and shorter-lived groupings were found even in small islands
that became virtual sugar monocultures: in tiny Barbados in the 1650s,
Antigua, Martinique and Guadeloupe up to the 1730s, and St Croix as late as
the 1770s. Perhaps most freakish of all was the small group of Maroons led
by one Jem Matthews discovered in minuscule, albeit underdeveloped, New
Providence in the Bahamas as late as 1823. 23
Even more common and insidious to the plantocratic regime was the
multiform phenomenon of short-term, short-distance running away by indi-
viduals and very small groups - petit marronage. Despite the severe penal-
ties, including mutilation, of persistent runaways or harbourers, perhaps
2 per cent of slaves were absent at anyone time, and up to 10 per cent went
absent at some time in their lives. Some were new Africans unable or un-
willing to adapt, some were what might be styled 'natural misfits', and some
what one might even call criminals. But far more were protesting intolerable
material conditions or special grievances. Still others were seeking an outlet
for grievous psychological repression, seeking an alternative life not neces-
sarily outside the system (as craftsmen rather than labouring slaves, as sailors
on naval vessels, or as labourers on other islands, for example). Often they
were not, strictly, even running away, but rather running to a lover, spouse
or other family member. 24
Most petits marrons stayed within their own familiar localities, but in
small islands and island chains the 'running away' involved escape by sea-
leading the island regimes to take elaborate precautions to prevent the steal-
ing of boats. This was particularly necessary to curtail the intermittent traffic
of fugitive slaves between British Barbados and the 'neutral' islands of St
Vincent and Grenada, between the Dutch and British Virgin Islands, between
the Dutch Leeward Islands and the nearby Spanish Main, between the many
islands of the Bahamas, and between the Bahamas and the Spanish and
French colonies of Cuba and St Domingue. 25
In all respects, however, runaway slaves were merely expressing
variations of forms of protest and resistance that were continuously found

230
 Forms of resistance to slavery

among the slaves who stayed behind on the plantations - some of which
were more obviously harmful and worrisome to the planters and their
regime. For a slave to offer physical violence to a white was drastically
counterproductive where the slave laws allowed great latitude in what pun-
ishments could be arbitrarily administered in the course of 'legitimate correc-
tion', with custom decreeing even greater licence. But poisoning was a safer,
and to the masters a more sinister, alternative. So expert were the slaves
thought to be in the use of poisons and spells (and in any case intestinal dis-
orders were so common through over-indulgence), that plantation whites, it
seems, went in constant fear of being poisoned by their cooks. 26
Though not frequently punished for it, slaves were also universally
suspected of industrial sabotage. This could include arson, especially in the
sugar-cane pieces, where fires were not only spectacularly fearsome but also
made cane cutting easier for the slaves, or the covert killing of stock, which
had the bonus effect of providing meat for the slaves. More direct attacks on
the industrial system, such as the breaking of carts, mill machinery or
utensils, also served to reduce the tempo of work. Even more subtly the
slaves feigned stupidity to explain industrial accidents or low productivity,
and became experts at malingering. Gordon Lewis has even suggested that
the Caribbean slaves' notorious loquacity was a tactic of procrastination. 27
The slaves' lack of incentives made slavery generally inefficient, as
Adam Smith argued. But what the planters at least intuitively recognized was
that even achieving the maximum efficiency possible was dependent on
attaining a subtle balance between force and reward, so that the slaves as
much as the masters were the determinants of the level of production and
profit. In all respects, the role of the black slave driver became critical. He
was an intermediate functionary rewarded with relative power and material
benefits, but chosen as much for qualities that could command the respect of
subordinate slaves, as for mere strength, skills and apparent fidelity.
Planters prided themselves on their skill in dividing their slaves in order
to rule them; splitting up the Africans in respect of their ethnic groups, sep-
arating Africans from Creoles, sundering coloured domestics from black field
slaves, and drivers and craftsmen from ordinary labourers. What the whites
were less willing to acknowledge was that the slaves were at least as adept
in similar skills, performing in real life many of the subterfuges attributed to
their chief folk hero, Anansi, the spider-trickster. These stratagems involved
exaggerated deference and disguised satire as well as outright cunning,
duplicity and mendacity. They could also involve the subtle insertion of divi-
sions between white bookkeepers and overseers, and between overseers and
owners. This is, somewhat surprisingly, best conveyed by the planter Edward
Long, who is more famous, or notorious, for his crude negrophobia:

231
 General History of the Caribbean

Their principal address is shown in finding out their master's temper,

and playing upon it so artfully as to bend it with most convenience to
their own purposes. They are not less studious in sifting their master's
representative, the overseer; if he is not too cunning for them, which
they soon discover after one or two experiments, they will easily find
means to over-reach him on every occasion, and make his indolence,
his weakness, or sottishness, a sure prognostic of some comfortable
term of idleness to them: but if they find him too intelligent, wary, and
active, they leave no expedient untried, by thwarting his plans, mis-
understanding his orders, and reiterating complaints against him, to
ferret him out of his post; if this will not succeed, they perplex and
worry him, especially if he is of an impatient, fretful turn, till he grows
heartily sick of his charge, and voluntarily resigns it. An overseer, there-
fore, like a premier minister, must always expect to meet with a faction,
ready to oppose his administration, right or wrong; unless he will give
the reins out of his hands, and suffer the mobility [mob} to have things
their own way; which if he complies with, they will extol him to his
face, contemn him in their hearts, and very soon bring his government
into disgrace.28

Such were the internal politics of the slave plantation. On the indi-
vidual internal plane, the slaves also resisted the whites' mastery, if at a high
psychological cost. More positively, though, the attempts to achieve cultural
hegemony by the master class were resisted through the preservation and
development of a separate culture in the slave quarters and provision
grounds.
Acts of internalized rejection included abortion, suicide, violence
turned inwards within the slave community, even forms of madness (fittingly
termed 'alienation' until modern times). Acting out what some commentators,
taking the lead from the Jamaican whites' contemptuous name for all
Negroes, have termed the 'Quashee' syndrome of craven obedience, childlike
behaviour and stupidity, slaves unwittingly ran the risk that their true person-
ality would gradually become distorted. It is worth bearing in mind,
however, that the actual name Quashee was held by a disproportionate
number of elite slaves, who by their achievement within the system could be
said to have played the masters' game to their own advantage. As the Akan
'day name' for 'Sunday's child', the name Quashee was chosen by parents for
children thought to possess outstanding qualities or destined for achieve-
ment, and voluntarily retained or even adopted by slaves achieving elite
positions. It could therefore, paradOXically, have been an expression of black
ethnic pride as well as a later label of white contempt. 29

232
 Forms of resistance to slavery

Slave resistance through African culture

At the same time that the masters were vigorously attempting to acculturate
their slaves as part of the process of subordination, the slaves themselves
resisted the dislocation of the Middle Passage by the retention of African
languages, beliefs, folklore, music, customs and crafts, and adapted and
reshaped to their own advantage, and in their own idiom, many of the social
and cultural features they were bound, sooner or later, to adopt, as part of
the creolizing process. Many retentions and adaptations escaped through the
masters' very denial of the slaves' personality, and by the masters' relative
indifference to those activities that went on in the narrow ambit of the slaves'
private lives, or were thought not to be dangerous to the dominant socio-
economic structure.
For example, though new slaves were jumbled for security reasons,
some groups continued to speak and pass on African languages into the
second or even third slave generation. Investigations into slave plots revealed
that some slaves were even literate in African languages, especially those
from Islamic areas. Some wrote letters to other slaves and often wrote and
kept sections of the Koran for at least talismanic purposes. More generally,
slave masters were aware of the fact that Afro-Caribbean slaves retained
African skills in basketweaving, thatching, pottery and woodwork, and in the
production, preparation and cooking of foodstuffs, and were not dismissive
of such accomplishments where they had economic value. 30
As for Afro-Caribbean music, whites were divided between those who
saw it as tuneless and barbaric, and those who recognized its genuine
rhythmic and musical skills and were impressed with its adaptability to
European modes. From the earliest days, West Indian whites danced to black
slave musicians playing European and African instruments with a distinctive
local beat, while slaves themselves danced to adapted European dances,
such as the quadrille. However, toward those forms of music that had the
power to excite or incite the slaves, drumming that could be used for com-
munication between rebels, or dances like the stick-fighting dance of the
Lesser Antilles that were probably ritualized military exercises, the white
regime was naturally far more cautious. 31
Within their own ecological niche - that is in the slave quarters and
grounds 'between sundown and sun-up' and at weekends - the slaves
resisted depersonalization and the masters' lack of concern for family ties
through a vigorous customary family life, the reconstitution of kinship
networks, and the development of those canons of 'reputation' which Peter J.
Wilson has characterized as one of the most important features of traditional
Afro-Caribbean life. 32 Above all, the slaves were able to mock their legal

233
 General History of tbe Caribbean

status as non-persons unable to own property for themselves, by the way

that they not only grew much of their own food in family groups with tradi-
tional farming methods, but also sold their surpluses in a widespread
informal market network. With the slaves indirectly feeding their masters as
well as themselves, and in some colonies possessing a majority of the coin in
circulation, this 'proto-peasant' activity had become an essential component
of the local economies long before slavery ended - to the degree that one
Brazilian Marxist historian has termed it 'the peasant breach in the slave
mode of production'. 33
Yet if it was in proto-peasant activities that the slaves made their most
significant informal resistance to the dominant economic system, it was prob-
ably in language and religion that they most significantly challenged the
dominance of the master culture. Even today the common parlance of the
ordinary people in every Caribbean territory is a Creole language, in which
African words are grafted on to, and African inflexions and grammatical con-
structions transform, basic European structures, be they Spanish, French,
English or Dutch - or even a mixture of several, as in the Papamiento of
Cura~ao, Aruba and Bonaire. It is in these Creole languages that is also
preserved a vital wealth of wit and wisdom - almost a corpus of popular
philosophy - in the form of 'Negro proverbs'. These not only demonstrate
universal popular values and common African roots, but, more specifically,
the common legacies of slavery and similar systems of oppression, and of
resistance to them. Consider merely the following English-Creole proverbs -
all of which have equivalents both in other West Indian Creole languages
and in the original languages of West Africa: the subversive recognition of
the contradictions inherent in concepts of property under a system of chattel
slavery of 'Massa horse, Massa grass'; the canny observation of the divisions
found in plantation slave society of 'Negar tief lilly ting, buckra tief all', or
'Obisha drink, bookkeeper drunk'; or the profound philosophy of endurance
enshrined in 'Time longer dan rope'. 34
As for religion too, the slaves reshaped what they received from the
Europeans, largely thwarting its purposes and even using it as a medium of
resistance. The Catholic powers, as we have argued, saw the Roman Catholic
religion as an important socializing and civilizing factor. But it was accepted
by African slaves with enthusiasm to the degree that it accorded with African
structures of belief and offered opportunities for solace, separation from the
harsh realities of plantation life, forms of self-expression, upward, and even
outward, mobility. To an extent, the Roman Catholic church recognized these
attractions, allowing (if not encouraging) fervent forms of worship, including
the cults of black Madonnas, promoting black membership in confraternities,
as well as the normal institutions of Catholic family life, providing a Catholic
context for most of the slaves' rites of passage, and even standing bond for

234
 Forms of resistance to slavery

those good Catholic black and coloured slaves who had achieved the means
of manumission through coartaci6n or self-purchase. The explosive dangers
of Roman Catholicism's syncretic potential was demonstrated, however, by
the ease with which it was grafted on to African systems of belief and ritual
to form vodun, the black folk religion of the French West Indies which
provided much of the impetus for the Haitian slave upheaval of 1791, and
remains today the semi-official religion of the Haitian Republic. 35
The equivalent to vodun in the Protestant colonies of the West Indies
was the Afro-Caribbean system of sorcery magic called 6bia, though it was
never directly syncretized with any Christian forms of worship and has not
been freed from legal proscription in any modem Caribbean state. Since 6bia
was an essential feature of popular slave beliefs and was held by the whites
to be the means by which all slaves conspired to cast spells on and poison
them, its practice was not only outlawed and savagely punished but in due
course used as one argument for reversing the decision not to evangelize the
slaves. Unlike the Catholic church, though, the established churches of the
Protestant colonies made no concessions to Afro-Caribbean religious
predilections, requiring rigid adherence to standard forms of worship, placing
the slaves in a separate and subordinate part of the church, and allowing
them no significant participation in the services. In this, of course, they were
simply moving towards the metropolitan mode of compulsory church attend-
ance, with the pattern of seating reflecting the social order at large and
reinforcing it with a Godly mandate.
The equivocal benefits of respectability and the thin spiritual gruel
of the Protestant liturgies did attract a fair number of slaves, notably in
Barbados. But the clear socializing intentions and the sheer dullness of the
established churches explain both why their planter supporters resisted the
inroads of evangelical non-conformists eager to convert the slaves, and why
the slaves themselves were attracted to the less SOcially and liturgically rigid
non-conformist missions, once they had managed to gain a foothold in the
West Indies. Most successful of all white missionaries were the Baptists and
Congregationalists, who followed no set order of service, encouraged fervent
participation by the congregation, and allowed slaves to aspire, through care-
fully controlled stages, to full church membership and even to the rank of
deacon. Needless to say, these churches had few if any local white members,
and the seating arrangements were made according to the internal spiritual
ranking rather than to the external social hierarchy.36
However, no white Baptist or Congregationalist missionaries were
accepted anywhere in the West Indies until the 1820s, when they were seen
as a possible antidote to an infection even more dangerous to the regime -
the wildfire success of certain unlicensed black Baptist preachers who,
ignited by the flying sparks of the Great Awakening on the North American

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 General History of the Caribbean

mainland and carried to the West Indies by their loyalist owners after the
American War of Independence, founded the most informal and successful
churches of all. Giving substance to the planters' fears, their adherents were
to be prominently involved in the late slave rebellions in the British West
Indies. 37
For most of the slave period and in nearly all territories, the slaves had
to work more subtly to shape and gain what benefit they could from
churches that were far more rigidly controlled. No slave preachers were ever
licensed and it was an invariable condition for all non-conformist mission-
aries allowed in on licences to promise on oath to uphold the social order
and 'to say nothing that would encourage the slaves to deviate from their
proper duty to their masters'. Not surprisingly, it was those non-conformist
missionaries who were least likely to upset the social order who were first
allowed into the West Indies, the Moravian Brethren, who founded their first
mission in the Danish West Indies in 1767 and had spread to nearly all the
colonies of the Protestant powers by the end of the century.38
The Moravians had no quarrel with the terrestrial social order, con-
centrating on spiritual salvation and the afterlife. They owned slaves and
plantations and rarely freed even their most faithful adherents - making,
indeed, comparatively few converts outside their own almost enclosed com-
munities. But they did offer the benefits of a total lifestyle almost completely
distinct from the usual run of slave plantations. Those converts who per-
formed faithfully in the fields and the church, married within the fold and
lived a Godly family life, were treated with ever-increasing respect. Suitable
slaves were given positions of temporal authority, education, and gUided
through the ranks in the church until they were full brethren, entrusted with
the teaching of others. Exceptional black Moravians enjoyed considerable
mobility between Moravian communities in different territories, some of the
aged faithful from the West Indies living out their last years at Bethlehem in
Pennsylvania, or even in the Moravian 'Mecca' of Herrenhut in distant
Europe, where they shared conversation and worship with the egalitarian
founder of the order, Count Zinzendorf.39 Such a remarkable outcome, albeit
extremely rare, was clearly a symbolic defeat for the West Indian system of
chattel slavery, though whether one can characterize it as a triumph for a
type of slave resistance rather than the ultimate victory of a policy of cultural
assimilation is, at the very least, open to debate.

Amerindian influence on slave resistance

In crucial respects, Afro-American slave resistance was rooted in the
response of the Amerindians to their enslavement by the Spaniards. Besides

236
 Fonns of resistance to slavery

structural similarities in the modes of resistance, there were actual links in

the way that many blacks collaborated, before becoming dominant in the
earliest palenques. 4o
Broadly speaking, the Spanish invented a Manichean polarity of
Amerindian types: the 'good Indians' who were initially subjugated with
ease; and those 'bad Indians' who resisted subjugation from the beginning -
and thus were legally enslaveable once overcome because of their 'unnatural'
resistance. Not that the initial subjugation of the 'good' Arawaks and others
was irreversible, or not soon qualified by those generic types of covert and
subtle resistance already mentioned. The Antillean Taino, for example,
resisted by non-cooperation, even by dying, but also by running away when
they could, and by turning to desperate rebellion, even collaborating with
their traditional enemies, the fearsome Caribs. 41 It was these Caribs who were
the prototypically obdurate resisters, setting up what Troy S. Floyd has
cogently termed a 'Poisoned Arrow Curtain' in the Lesser Antilles and parts of
coastal South and Central America that retarded European colonization for
many years. 42
The structural link with later slave resistance was forged by the way
that black African slaves (imported to replace the 'unsuitable' Amerindians as
labourers in plantations and mines) ran away to Amerindian-dominated
mainland areas and islands and collaborated in some of the earliest
palenques. Here they were usually allied subjects at first, but they soon
miscegenated and in due course in most cases became demographically and
culturally dominant. Such a process can be traced, for example, in the per-
manent palenque of Bahuruco-Le Maniel in Santo Domingo, in the windward
Maroon communities of Jamaica, and among the partially miscegenated
Indians termed Seminoles and Miskito on the American mainland. But the
classic case was that of the so-called Black Caribs on the island of
St Vincent. 43
These Black Caribs traced their origins to a cargo of African slaves
wrecked on the adjacent island of Bequia around 1690 who were harboured
by the 'Yellow Caribs' there who were in control of St Vincent. Within a few
decades - and not, it seems, without some internal disruption - the black
refugees, reinforced by runaway slaves from nearby islands, especially
Barbados, had become the dominant element in an increasingly mis-
cegenated warrior community that fearsomely combined African and
Amerindian weapons and tactics of resistance.
The Black Caribs resisted the European incursion as best they could,
on occasion allying with the French against the British, and then fighting two
fierce defensive wars against the invading British planters in the 1770s and
1790s. This phase of r~sistance came to an end with the deportation of 5000
of the Black Caribs to Roatan in 1797. Once firmly established in the Bay

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 General History of the Caribbean

Islands and on the nearby coast of Honduras, however, the Black Caribs
(who call themselves the Garifuna) were comparatively free from imperialist
forces for another century. Accordingly, they flourished, multiplied and
spread, proudly retaining their distinctive Afro-Amerindian culture and sense
of independence in vigorous enclaves scattered through most of the coun-
tries of Central America. In these respects - at least until the political and
ethnic crises of recent years - they have offered a notable contrast to the sad
remnant of Carib left behind in St Vincent and Oominica. 44
The African forbears of the Black Caribs were slaves whom the British
called 'Coromantees' and the other Europeans 'Minas' (alias 'Elminas',
'Oelminas' or 'Aminas') after their chief African port of shipment, who were
drawn from the warlike Akan-speaking tribes of modern Ghana, such as the
Ashanti. These proud and obdurate people, as warriors and slave owners
themselves made captive through the fortunes of war, were less willing to
accept enslavement than those Africans who were slaves already - at least
until it was discovered that slavery in the Americas was altogether different
and harsher than the normal African kind. A high proportion of the early
slave revolts were led, and the consequent Maroon communities dominated,
by Akan-speaking slaves, though the fact that the influence of the Akan
language and culture was pervasive and out of proportion to the numbers of
'Coromantees' and 'Minas' involved argues in general for the normative
influences of the most resistant African cultures. 45

Instances of slave rebellion

African resistance to American enslavement began with the uncounted

number of shipboard revolts on the Middle Passage that occurred throughout
the 300-year history of the Atlantic slave trade. Nearly all accounts of the
African trade disclose how real was the threat of a shipboard uprising, par-
ticularly on the African coast. Accordingly, slavers were constantly vigilant,
keeping the slaves in irons at least until the ships set sail, maintaining as
large a force of armed white sailors as possible, and also employing friendly
Africans from different ethnic groups - notably Kru - to calm and help
control the slaves. Even then, slaves frequently plotted to rise up, shOWing
great ingenuity in concealing weapons, breaking their bonds, and acting in
concert - with the women and children often the willing accomplices of the
men. On the African coast the aim was simply to jump ship (though this
involved evading their original African captors as well as all nearby
Europeans); but once on the high seas it was necessary to take over the ship
altogether, to kill the white sailors, and to make sail to freedom as best they
could. All shipboard 'mutinies' were desperate affairs, often with horrific

238
 Forms of resistance to slavery

bloodshed, and the epic of the Amistad in 1839 is one of the few tales of
even qualified success once the slave ships were clear of the African coast. 46
Once in the American slave plantations, the African slaves had a rather
better chance to rise up and run away, though little better chance of perma-
nent independence. Revolts of African slaves occurred in many colonies, but
especially in the early years of development and in frontier conditions -
where there was a dangerous disproportion between the number of whites
and slaves, large nearby areas of undeveloped forest, mountain or riverways,
and Maroon communities already established in the wilds. These African-
dominated slave rebellions were similar in many respects to native African
wars - with the rebels demonstrating incredible obduracy and hardihood,
expertise of a guerrilla kind in the use of terrain, great skill in the use of
muskets (developed in West Africa soon after the Atlantic slave trade got
under way), the ability to travel at great speeds over rough country and to
communicate almost instantly over long distances with African drums. The
aims of such rebels were essentially separatist (Genovese calls them 'restora-
tionist') - to do what damage they could to their white oppressors and to
fight them as long as was necessary, but wherever possible to establish their
own separate transplanted African regime, even if it required making
compromising treaties with the whitesY
One example of an heroic doomed cause was the 'Amina' slave up-
rising of 1733-4 on the small island of St John in the Danish Virgin
Islands. 48 This was truly a frontier island, hilly and densely wooded, and
only recently opened up to sugar production. The number of plantations
had trebled and the population of slaves quadrupled in the previous 15
years. A majority of the 1100 slaves were Africans, and nearly all these
newly imported from the Akan warrior kingdoms of the Gold Coast. The
whites on the island were outnumbered 6 : 1 and the men capable of
bearing arms by nearly 20 : 1. Moreover, many of the estate owners chose
to live in the rather more developed neighbouring island of St Thomas, and
their managers (mesterknegtes) were of a particularly hard-driving and
insensitive type. Not only were the slaves cruelly overworked, but there had
been a succession of natural disasters in recent months - drought, hurricane
and a plague of insects - that had destroyed provision grounds and left the
slaves drastically underfed.
Aware of the dangers of insurrection, the Danish Governor, Philip
Gardelin - himself a former bookkeeper and merchant factor for the
exploitative Danish West India Company - passed an extremely harsh slave
ordinance in September 1733, decreeing, for example, that Negroes guilty of
conspiracy, or runaways at large for more than six months, would lose a leg,
and leaders of runaways would be 'pinched thrice with a hot iron' before
being hanged. This seems to have been the last straw - or ultimate challenge

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 General History of the Caribbean

- and on 23 November, 1733 a carefully planned conspiracy suddenly

erupted. Gaining the small fort overlooking Coral Bay by a subterfuge and
killing its small garrison, a vanguard of rebels fired cannon shots as a signal
for a general uprising. All the African slaves responded to the call, killed all
the whites who failed to escape to nearby islands, set fire to the canes and
burned a third of the buildings and set up their own encampments in the
woods.
The panicked government in St Thomas declared martial law and
obtained help from two British naval vessels, but their first counter-attacks
were repelled in disorder. Only the arrival of hundreds of troops from French
Martinique, a bitter month-long campaign in the woods, the slaves' shortage
of powder and arms, and starvation conditions, turned the tide against the
rebels. Dozens of them preferred suicide to capture - though far fewer than
the 30 men, women and children said to have committed mass suicide at
'Brim's Bay' in a much retold legend. That suicide was a rational decision,
however, was borne out by the fate of the last rebel group of 15 - starving,
in rags and reduced to fighting with bows and arrows - tricked into surren-
der in September 1734. Despite promises of leniency, their leader, Prince,
was decapitated by his captor and his head displayed in triumph. Four
captives died in prison under torture, four were condemned to be worked to
death on the fortifications in St Croix, and the remainder were publicly
executed in an ingenious variety of horrific ways. As Waldemar Westergaard
said of the normal forms of punishment for slave insurrection in the Danish
West Indies, 'Gibbet, stake, wheel, noose, glowing tong - all were employed
to impress upon the community the sinfulness of rebellion.'49
Far more successful, but at a high political cost, were the Jamaican
Maroons who fought a 50-year war with the British before achieving a
qualified degree of independence in 1738-40. 50 Jamaica, for a start, was an
island a hundred times the size of St John, with an even more formidable
topography - providing two incomparable refuges, on the 60 degree slopes
of the Blue Mountain range in the east, and in the almost impenetrable lime-
stone 'cockpits' of the centre and west. Almost continuous fighting occurred
on the fringes of the expanding plantations after 1690, when a 'Coromantee'
slave called Cudjoe led a revolt on Sutton's Estate and a mass running away.
Among the Maroon fighters was the almost legendary Nanny, leader of the
windward (that is, eastern) Maroons, whose role seems to have combined
those of the Queen Mother of the warlike Ashanti and the fierce commander
of the warriors of Dahomey.51 But the fighting climaxed under Cudjoe's son
and namesake and another Akan-speaking leader called Quao in the later
1730s, when the colonial regime was virtually forced to come to terms.
Separate treaties were signed with Cudjoe and Quao, providing the
Maroons with a fair degree of political and juridical autonomy, tracts of land,

240
 Forms of resistance to slavery

and hunting and trading rights. These, though, were in exchange for
agreeing to return slave runaways, even to track them down for bounties, to
provide military aid for the white regime in times of war, and to accept white
superintendents in the chief Maroon settlements. The Jamaican Maroons first
paid their new treaty dues at the time of the last great Coromantee uprising
of 1760, when they stood more or less neutral while pretending to aid the
plantocracy, rather than throwing in their lot with their fellow Africans. 52
As Barbara Kopytoff has shown, the Jamaican Maroons represented a
distinct cultural enclave (or rather, several subtly different enclaves only
loosely interconnected), and their descendants have retained vestigial rights
and fragments of a separate culture until the present day. But theirs was an
equivocal and uncomfortable co-existence with the dominant Jamaican
society from the beginning. The small formal grants of land proved in-
adequate for an expanding population, which in any case shared the African
puzzlement over European concepts of freehold tenure. The inexorable
spread of plantations not only invaded informal Maroon provision grounds
but seriously curbed the Maroons' ability to roam and hunt freely. Maroon
activities in Jamaican towns and plantations were viewed askance by colonial
authorities, and the less tactful township superintendents acted more like
colonial justices than as mere liaison officers. 53
Edward Long testified to the popularity of the picturesque spectacle of
the Maroons' annual appearance before the Jamaican Governor to demon-
strate their guerrilla skills.54 But the Maroons' military performance during
wartime was slighted and Maroons were commonly felt by white planters to
be sympathetic to all slave plots, if not actively involved in them. In more
general terms, the very existence of the Maroon communities was held to
compromise white political and cultural hegemony. Consequently, it required
little evidence in 1795 to convince the whites that the most troublesome
Jamaican Maroons, the leeward Maroon descendants of Cudjoe'S forces, were
in league with the Haitian slave rebels and the French Jacobins, and to lead
the regime to provoke the final Maroons 'War' - an heroic struggle in which
the hugely outnumbered Maroons gave a very good account of themselves,
before most of them were shipped off to Nova Scotia and, subsequently,
Sierra Leone. 55
The even larger and equally mountainous islands of Cuba and Santo
Domingo, and the uniquely forested and mountainous small island of
Dominica provided continuous refuges for Maroons throughout the slave era.
But the greatest and most permanent success was achieved by those African
runaways who formed the many Bush Negro communities along the tropical
forested riverways of inland Suriname from the earliest days of Dutch
colonization. Though some political and economic linkages were retained
with the white coastal regime - with tacit agreements not to harbour

241
 General History of tbe Caribbean

runaways in return for trading rights - the Bush Negroes were able to retain
their independence and predominantly African culture with or without formal
treaties, competing almost as much against each other and against rival
Amerindians as against the whites, much as they might have done against
rival polities had they remained in West Africa. 56
Though, as we shall see, there were vital African elements in the
Haitian Revolution, the classic case of a true African slave rebellion in the
Americas - which almost achieved complete success - also occurred in
the Dutch colony of Berbice in 1763. Here a revolt of the 'Delmina' slaves
(the fifth since 1733), led by a privileged slave called Cuffee, seized Upper
Berbice and threatened to take over the entire colony. Faced by the fidelity
to the whites of most of the Creole, coloured and company-owned slaves,
and by the arrival of Dutch and other European reinforcements, Cuffee
modified his demands to a division of the colony into reciprocal halves;
Upper Berbice becoming an independent black federation of different
African ethnic groups (in diplomatic association with the Suriname Bush
Negroes), while Lower Berbice remained a white plantation colony. Cuffee,
however, still couched his missive to the Dutch Governor in terms befitting
an African king or princely diplomat:

If Your Excellency makes war, the Negroes are ready too .... The
Governor Cuffee requests that your Excellence come and speak with
me, and Your Excellency must not be afraid, but if Your Excellency
does not come, fighting shall last as long as their [sic] is a Christian in
Berbice. The Governor Cuffee will give Your Excellency half of Berbice
and his hope will all go upriver but you must not think that the
Negroes will be slaves againY

Cuffee's proud vision was destroyed not so much by plantocratic power as

by divisions among the slaves themselves. Cuffee's chief rival, Atta, preferred
absolute Akan hegemony to a diplomatic solution, with all Creole slaves and
even Angolan Africans placed under subjection. After a civil war and their
leader's suicide, Cuffee's two chief lieutenants defeated Atta and restored the
land they controlled. 58
Though it was a difference in aims and methods between two types of
African rebels which proved fatal to the Berbice rebellion, an even more fun-
damental division among the slaves was already apparent; that between
slaves born in Africa who conceived of resistance as all-out war in African
style to destroy the alien plantations or separate entirely from them, and the
locally-born Creoles who preferred to undermine or modify from within a
system with which they had been familiar all their lives. Such a critical water-
shed, with slave would-be rebels divided in outlook and aims as in strategies

242
 Forms of resistance to slavery

and tactics of resistance, and leaders of different sections often bitterly

competing for overall command, was inevitable in every colony at a particu-
lar stage of this development; that is, once the locally-born began to out-
number those born in Africa.
Naturally, this transitional phase occurred earliest in those colonies
founded first, or first developed as slave plantation colonies. Lack of co-
ordination or actual conflict between African and Creole slaves can help to
explain the failure of the Barbados slave plot of 1683. Divisions between
Africans and Creole leaders, if not the greater willingness of Creole slaves to
inform against the remainder hindered the Antiguan plot of 1736, and con-
tributed to the failure of the Hanover plot in Jamaica in 1776. 59 Similar
patterns are traceable in the abortive slave plot in Danish St Croix in 1759
and in mid-century slave unrest in French Martinique and Guadeloupe. Only
in the exceptional case of St Domingue, where the African and Creole com-
ponents of the slave population were almost exactly balanced but extrinsic
factors greatly facilitated a slave uprising, were the disparate slave elements
capable of fusion, and then only in the initial stages of rebellion. Difference
in aims and ideologies between African-born or African-oriented and Creole
(and culturally creolized) leaders remained inherent, provoked much conflict,
and were never completely resolved. 60
Distinctively Creole forms of slave resistance we would define as those
attempts to achieve freedom that did not necessarily involve the destruction
of, or even separation from, the predominant economic system in favour of
a reconstituted African lifestyle. The perennial constants were, of course, the
will to be free from the bonds of chattel slavery, and the wish for more
power, and a majority of slaves, once so freed, would doubtless have
chosen to reject plantation labour in favour of the life of a creolized
peasantry. But many Creole slaves had rather less radical and more rational
aims; simply to widen the ambit of freedom already won within the planta-
tion system, by becoming resident free wage labourers or, best of all,
predominantly peasants with the opportunity to work for fair wages when it
suited them.
Besides becoming more sophisticated in taking advantage of the
temporary and longer-term weaknesses of the plantocratic regime and of
political discord between white colonists and imperial authorities, the
creolized Afro-American slaves were increasingly adept at profiting from the
rising tide of anti-slavery sentiments in the metropole - whether these
stemmed from libertarian, philanthropic or religious principles, or from new
'liberal' economic theories. Perhaps most remarkably of all, many slaves even
became adept at standing on their legal rights, as liberal reforms began to
filter into colonial slave codes. None of these factors, however, fundamen-
tally reshaped the slaves' own aims and ideology.

243
 General History of the Caribbean

Not that the external impact of the so-called Age of Revolutions

between 1775 and 1825 failed to influence and reinforce, as well as com-
plicate, the increasingly creolized slaves' quest for freedom. Literate slaves
read radical pamphlets and newspaper reports of debates, and domestic
slaves overheard with interest the political conversation of Creole whites,
condemning imperial oppression upon principles of 'the Rights of Man' and
talking of seizing freedom through armed rebellion. 61 The American and
Latin American wars of independence had their marginal black heroes (given
prominence only in modern times), though the mass of slaves merely took
advantage of the opportunities offered, borrowing the slogans but not the
intrinsic ideology. Such an essential disjunction was particularly apparent
once the North Americans and Latin American criollos alike, in one of
history'S most discreditable feats of logical legerdemain, demonstrated that a
political independence rooted in libertarian rhetoric did not necessarily
encompass slave emancipation. 62

THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION 1792-1804

The connection between the Western World's 'Age of Revolutions' and the
Haitian Revolution of 1792-1804 was much more significant. History'S only
slave revolt leading to permanent political change was more than condi-
tioned by the tremendous upheavals associated with the French and
Napoleonic Revolutions; it could not have succeeded without them. The
slave eruption of 1791 was facilitated by the distractions caused by the
conflicting visions of events in France held by colonial grands blancs, petits
blancs, and gens de couleur. French revolutionary ideology provided slogans
and symbols for the disparate leaders of the slave revolt, and the victory of
the Jacobins gave legal freedom to the slaves and legitimacy to their leaders.
Despite Napoleon's volte face over slavery and an American empire, yellow
fever and the international war against Bonapartism ensured that the Haitian
Revolution was irreversible.
Yet these causal factors and subsequent contingencies were secondary,
accidentals. The primary force and essential ideology of the Haitian
Revolution, as Fouchard and Manigat argue, were proVided by the cumula-
tive and catalytic effect of a form of grand marronage heavily infused with
vodun elements, combined with the volcanic will of the mass of the slaves to
throw off their bonds, whatever the cost. 63 Such an interpretation is easily
sustained through unprecedentedly rich accounts of the complex sequence
of events in St Domingue-Haiti detailed in the recent works of David Geggus,
David Nicholls and Robin Blackburn - despite the intention of the third of
these at least to argue almost the opposite. 64

244
 Forms of resistance to slavery

In the decades before the French Revolution, St Domingue rapidly

expanded to become the most valuable and productive plantation colony in
the world. Between 1770 and 1789 the slave population rose by 50 per cent
through the import of new Africans, until almost half a million slaves out-
numbered the local whites by 16: 1 overall- with the whites feeling almost
as threatened by a minority of free persons of colour (affrancbis) as numer-
ous as themselves./Tensions between slaves and their masters were height-
ened as a result of the economic and political conditions which followed the
American War of Independence. In the perennial quest for profit, a relative
decline in the price of sugar and increase in the price of new African slaves
meant that the slaves were being worked especially hard. At the same time,
the elite slaves and more radical free blacks (some of them veterans of the
Legion de Sf Domingue who had fought with distinction on the rebel side in
the American War) were well aware of the activities in France of the Amis
des Noirs and the debates and disturbances which culminated in the events
of 1789.6S
As Fouchard fulsomely documents, grand marronage was a perennial
feature of the life of St Domingue, and it became, perhaps, the crucial factor
in the events of 1791-1804. Throughout the eighteenth century, Maroon
bands of different sizes and differing degrees of aggression towards the
regime, were found in the mountainous backwoods of every region of the
colony, under leaders who were regarded as mere brigands by the regime
but tended to become legendary heroes to the slaves. The culture of the
Maroon communities was essentially African, being continually reinforced by
new African runaways, but the inevitable process of Afro-Caribbean melding
and of the continuous clandestine links between plantation slaves and
pa/enque Maroons was more than symbolically represented by the develop-
ment in all black communities of the syncretic religion of vodun - a unique
amalgam of native African and Catholic Christian beliefs, rituals, iconography
and pantheon of saint-like gods. Significantly, Macandal, the most charismatic
of all Maroon chieftains, who was active around Jacmel between 1740 and
1758, was a vodun priest as well as guerrilla leader. However the most
remarkable of the Maroon communities remained Bahoruco-Le Maniel in the
Beate Mountains, the long history of which was described in detail by
Moreau de Saint-Mery after the most serious of its periodic eruptions against
the regime in 1785.66
Authorities differ as to whether marronage was actually on the increase
in the later 178Os, but the events of 1789-91 certainly loosened the bonds
holding the slaves on their plantations and all the traditional Maroon refuges
became crowded with new recruits once the major slave uprisings occurred.
At the same time that the revolution in France had depleted the local

245
 General History of the Caribbean

garrison forces (almost certainly at their strongest in the wake of the

American War), the disaffection of the affranchis during and after the
mulatto Oge's abortive revolt in 1790 weakened the militia and the slave-
hunting force called the marechaussee. The actual explosion occurred in
August 1791, after the sugar crop was finished and many plantation whites
were off celebrating in the towns.
Clearly conditions were ripe, a plot was widely laid, and the mass of
the slaves merely awaited a signal and orders from their chosen leaders.
According to most accounts, the final preparations were made by a group of
elite plantation slaves presided over by Boukman Dutty, a coachman, who
met in the Cayman Wood near Cap Fran~ois - the colonial capital and centre
of the recent political strife between royalists and republicans, whites and
affranchis. The rebel leaders bound themselves not with the slogans of the
Enlightenment or the French Revolution, but with a vodun oath, backing it
up with a plea in Creole patois that might have been echoed by slave
resisters anywhere: 'Coute la liberte dan coeur a nous' - 'Listen to the spirit
of Liberty deep in our hearts'.67
The initial outburst, centred on the regions of Limbe and Acul, was said
to involve 180 sugar plantations and 900 smaller coffee and indigo estates,
containing in all some 100000 slaves. As in Stjohn in 1733, though on a far
larger scale, plantation bUildings were destroyed and all whites who stood in
the rebels' way were killed. Yet, in an echo of Cuffee's original ultimatum in
1763, one black leader told the whites in Cap Fran~ois that their lives would
be spared if they left the colony. 'They may take with them their gold and
jewels', he stated, 'We only pursue that precious object, Liberty.'68
Intermittent slave uprisings occurred throughout the colony but the first
counterattack by the regime pushed the northern rebels back into the moun-
tains, took back most of the affected plantations and achieved a symbolic
victory with the death of Boukman in a skirmish in November 1791. The
majority of slaves, indeed, did not immediately fight or leave their home
plantations, preferring to use the political and economic disruption to pursue
their own local advantage. Those most satisfied were the slaves left to
develop their own grounds for subsistence through the flight of their owners
from the plantations. Elsewhere, slaves were seemingly satisfied with the
increased bargaining power they gained because of the general disorder,
which persuaded their masters to work them less hard and give them at least
an extra day each week to work their grounds.
That the St Domingue slaves were able to move from this intermediate
stage to ~ecome free peasant cultivateurs, and that St Domingue itself
progressed to become in time an independent black republic, was due not
just to external political developments but to two internal factors: the insu-
perable resistance of guerrilla bands based on traditional Maroon strongholds

246
 Forms of resistance to slavery

and methods, and the opportunistic leadership of elite creolized slaves and
radical free blacks such as Biassou, Jean Fran~ois, Dessalines, Christophe
and, above all, Fran~ois Dominique Toussaint Breda, significantly renamed
Toussaint Louverture. 69 None of these decisive factors, needless to say, was
dependent upon doctrinaire subscription to European concepts of revolution
or the abstract Rights of Man, any more than the process as a whole can be
fitted comfortably into a universal framework.
With their ultimate aims submerged, or perhaps inchoate, most black
leaders first proclaimed themselves subjects of the Catholic King against the
Godless republic, and willingly enrolled with their rebel followers under the
banner of Bourbon Spain once that country declared against the French
Revolution in 1792. For ordinary slaves, the ultimate goal of personal
freedom persuaded them to follow whoever promised it to them. Those who
fought on the Spanish side from bases across the border of Santo Domingo,
or for the English who occupied parts of St Domingue from 1793 to 1798,
were treated as men already free. But many slaves fought (if with qualified
enthusiasm) for their former masters on similar promises of manumission. On
the republican side, the French Commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel
declared general emancipation in the limited area under their control late in
1793, but it was not until the Jacobin supremacy in France was followed by a
general declaration freeing all French colonial slaves early in 1794 that the
tide of revolt flowed towards the French republican cause.7°
Toussaint Louverture forsook the Spaniards in May 1794, made
alliances with the chief guerrilla bands under Dieudonne and Pierrot, and
forged a large and effective fighting force based on uniformed and well-
drilled mobile demi-brigades and less formal guerrilla auxiliaries. Officially
appointed Governor of St Domingue by the French Republic, Toussaint's true
commitment was to the creation of a united and independent black nation.
He first contributed to the British decision to withdraw in 1798 by his
combined operations with Andre Rigaud, and in 1800 he SWiftly took over
former Spanish Santo Domingo (which had been formally ceded to the
French in 1795) and unilaterally declared the emancipation of its 15 000
remaining slaves. It was at this time that Toussaint Louverture addressed an
unanswered missive to Napoleon Bonaparte, the rising First Consul of the
French Republic, 'To the First of the Whites from the First of the Blacks'.71
In 1802, however, Napoleon sent a huge army under General Leclerc
with secret orders to defeat or disarm all black forces, to send the black com-
manders to France, and as soon as possible to restore the plantations and the
slavery system. Leclerc rapidly took over all the chief towns throughout the
island and tricked Toussaint Louverture into capture. But the virtual destruc-
tion of the socio-economic system over the previous decade and the un-
willingness of the blacks to return to slave labour on the plantations, the

247
 General History of the Caribbean

fanatical resolve of Toussaint's demi-brigades (now fighting under a flag that

was the tricolore with the white band ripped out, and with the war cry
'Liberty or Death') and the obduracy and skill of the guerrillas in the interior
- as well as the depredations of disease - led to the French withdrawal of
November 1803 and the declaration of Haitian independence on 1 January,
1804.72

THE INFLUENCE OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

The Haitian Revolution had a direct influence in several colonies, provided

even more widespread and long-lasting inspiration to the slaves, and served
to raise all slave owners' fears to the level of paranoia. But it had no replicas,
and its effects were CUriously transmuted in non-francophone colonies.
In Martinique, where the 90000 slaves outnumbered the whites by
only 6 : 1 and the affrancbis were less than a quarter as numerous as the
whites, the slaves, though restless, were unable to rise up against the royalist
planters, especially after the British took over the colony on the planters'
invitation in 1793. Guadeloupe, where the 83 000 slaves had a rather greater
preponderance and the affranchis were more numerous than in Martinique,
was much more disturbed by slave unrest. The British took Guadeloupe in
1793, but the plantation slaves were rebellious even before the Jacobin expe-
dition led by Victor Hugues in 1794 declared them free and armed them in
his bloody recapture of the island?3
From Guadeloupe, where the freed slaves who were not mobilized as
soldiers were persuaded to continue work in the plantations by greatly
relaxed working conditions and more land for themselves, Victor Hugues
carried on an active ideological campaign directed to the slaves and free
blacks throughout the Lesser Antilles. In underdeveloped French St Lucia,
which had been republican from the beginning, this campaign (along with
arms and armed recruits) helped to strengthen the local blacks against British
invasion attempts. But in largely francophone St Vincent and Grenada
(acquired by the British in 1763) the campaign was even more effeCtive, in
the former encouraging the Black Caribs in their second war against the
British, and in the latter persuading the French-speaking slaves to take part
in the heroic revolt led by the mulatto small planter Julien Fedon.74
According to plantocratic sources, the example of Haiti and French revolu-
tionary slogans were instrumental in stirring up the Jamaican leeward
Maroons in the Second Maroon War, as well as slave conspiracies in several
other colonies - with fading echoes being heard at least as late as Barbados
in 1816. 75
Yet it must be pointed out that far more 'British' slaves remained
quiescent in the last French wars than seized the chance of overt rebellion,

248
 Fonns of resistance to slavery

and that tens of thousands volunteered to take arms on the British side
against the French - either as uniformed regular soldiers or as auxiliary
rangers. 76 In so doing, they were surely making an essentially Creole
response, whether this amounted to authentic resistance or not: choosing
quiescence for fear of losing what they had already gained in return for a
dubious outcome; volunteering to wear a uniform and carry a gun in pref-
erence to toiling with a hoe, and in the hope, if not promise, of the reward
of freedom; defending what was by now almost their native homeland
against foreign enemies, including blacks. In these respects, there was little
to choose between the motivation of the majority of 'French' and 'British'
slaves - most of the French and francophone slaves who did not fight to
achieve or defend their freedom seeing their best interests served by standing
on the sidelines of the conflict and hoping for a favourable outcome.
The results of such tactical calculations were almost universally dis-
appointing, and this certainly affected slave behaviour, especially in the
British. colonies in the last decades of formal slavery. In all colonies -
Spanish, Dutch and Danish as well as French and British - the slave planta-
tion system emerged from the wars weakened but superficially intact. In the
French Antilles, where slavery was not preserved by British occupation from
the beginning it was reintroduced either by Napoleonic decree or by the
invading British forces in 1807, and re-entrenched by the Treaty of Paris in
1814 - in a plantation system remarkably undamaged from two decades of
war. Meanwhile, in the British colonies the planters made resolute attempts
to recover from wartime stagnation, and actually to extend the plantations,
despite the ending of the British slave trade in 1808 and the special restric-
tions imposed - at the behest of the anti-slavery lobby - on the new Crown
Colonies of St Lucia, Trinidad and Guyana (acquired from the French,
Spanish and Dutch respectively).
Under these conditions, slave resistance soon revived and became
more general; in the British colonies at least increasingly taking on the
features of industrial action. In every British colony, including those in which
plantations had decayed or never been successfully established, slaves
proved harder to expel and impossible to move from their established
houses and grounds. They were more aware of their allies in the metropole,
and of their rights and bargaining power, and were more adept at negotiat-
ing the terms of their employment.
In the marginal colony of the Bahamas, for example, where the slaves
were no longer producing plantation profits and spent most of their time
working for their own subsistence, they agitated whenever they were threat-
ened with removal or felt that their statutory food and clothing allowances
were being withheld. A study of the later slave runaway advertisements in
the Bahamian newspapers shows that a large number of fugitives were in

249
 General History of the Caribbean

fact running away from intolerable working conditions, running towards a

more agreeable form of employment, or merely making a protest against the
upsetting of a customary type and level of work. This situation was reflected
in the frequent willingness of slave owners to pardon the slave if he or she
returned, to renegotiate conditions of work, or even, in one case, to allow
the returned runaway to change his master. 77 Likewise, the most notable
Bahamian slave revolt, that of 45 Creole slaves and their families led by
Pompey of Exuma in 1830, was in protest at an attempt to remove them from
their home island, extended family and familiar grounds. After an initial flight
into the bush, the revolt took the form of a delegation by boat to present a
petition to a Governor exaggeratedly regarded as a liberaP8
Similarly, in Antigua, as Barry Gaspar has shown, the slaves resisting
the abolition of the Sunday markets by rioting and demonstrating in 1831
(including a march on Government House) actually stood on the legalistic
point that the plantocracy had no right to remove a general statutory provi-
sion rooted in ancient custom, in favour of a vague promise of a half-day
Saturday market which was voluntary to the masters. 79 This stance was
especially remarkable considering that the banning of Sunday markets was
enacted so that slaves would be free to go to church, and constituted one of
the 'reforms' proposed by the evangelical section of the slaves' alleged allies
in England.
Even more shocking to those imperialists who believed that fully cre-
olized slaves would not resort to armed revolt was the fact that the period
also saw the three largest of all British colonial slave rebellions: in Barbados
in 1816, Demerara (British Guiana) in 1823, and, climactically, in Jamaica
over the Christmas and New Year of 1831-2. The Jamaica revolt spread over
750 square miles and involved 60 000 slaves. These late rebellions were truly
Creole manifestations. They were led by the elite of 'confidential' slaves,
many of whom were literate, and nearly all Christians. The millenarian
aspects of the slaves' own version of Christianity ran counter to the 'civiliz-
ing' message of the white missionaries, but the slave leaders (who in
Demerara and Jamaica included sectarian deacons) were quite capable of
manipulating the missionaries - whom they rightly saw as the forward edge
of a rising tide of anti-slavery sentiment in Britain. Cleverest of all the black
leaders' tactics, though, was the almost universal dissemination of rumours:
that freedom was already decreed by the King and was being illegally
withheld by the colonial planters, the slaves' direct aggressors. 80
The aims and demands of the slaves in all three cases were far from
revolutionary. Chief, of course, was the removal of slavery's formal bonds.
But the form of freedom envisaged generally extended no further than more
days in the week to work their own lands, with wages paid for the remaining

250
 Forms of resistance to slavery

days of plantation labour. By calculated policy, the rebels wreaked little

material damage and tried to abstain from bloodshed. 81
The plantocracies, however, were savage in their repression and
reprisals. In the three rebellions, the 100 000 slaves involved killed less than
20 persons; yet at least 350 of them were slaughtered in the field and 700
judicially murdered, with an equal number flogged, imprisoned or deported.
This level of overkill raised a sympathetic storm among British philan-
thropists, at the same time that the parliamentary debate over slavery was
reaching a climax in a general climate of liberal reform. The full revelations
about the Jamaica Christmas Rebellion, disclosed in a parliamentary inquiry,
were followed within months by the Emancipation Act of 1 August, 1833.82

Emancipation
Though the claims of Richard Hart and Eric Williams that the British slaves
virtually emancipated themselves by their late rebellions are exaggerated, it is
almost certainly true to say that the concurrence of major outbreaks and a
general slave malaise finally convinced those legislators inclined to believe
that slavery was an uneconomic system compared with 'free wage labour',
and pushed them into the same voting lobby with those who thought that
emancipation was politically timely and the minority of truly philanthropic
emancipators. 83
Three-quarters of a million British slaves were emancipated on
1 August, 1834. The slave owners were compensated with £20 million and
the ex-slaves were constrained to work for their former masters during a
transitional 'apprenticeship' period. Nominal 'full freedom' was decreed for
British slaves on 1 August, 1838. Elsewhere, however, slavery and the slave
trade continued wherever, and as long as, economic imperatives and the
power of the plantocracies dictated - with British capital heavily, if quietly,
involved.
ProgreSSively less vital as the demographic performance of the
Caribbean slaves steadily improved and alternative sources of labour were
tapped, the Atlantic slave trade to the Caribbean petered out in the 1850s,
and slavery itself was abolished successively in the French and Danish
colonies in 1848, the Dutch colonies in 1863, in Puerto Rico in 1873, and,
finally, in Cuba in 1886. Though more detailed comparative studies are called
for, this gradual process can be viewed not only as a general pattern of
labour reorganization during plantation industrialization, but as a series of
tableaux largely replicating the process originating in the British imperial
system: slave resistance escalating to a climax in the crucial phases to ensure

251
 General History of the Caribbean

and condition an emancipation sponsored by metropolit~n humanitarians,

liberal economic reformers and political realists alike.
In the French Antilles, where those enslaved still constituted 65 per
cent of the population at the beginning of 1848, the slaves resisted as best
they could, mainly by doing as little work as they could get away with,
agitating for two full days to themselves each week, and running away when
they could - especially to nearby British islands after the British slaves were
freed. In Guadeloupe there was no violence to match the desperate resist-
ance to re-enslavement led by Louis Delgres in 1802, but in Martinique there
were serious plots and disturbances in 1822, 1824, 1831 and 1834.84
The creolized French slaves Conly 14 per cent of whom were African-
born by 1848) were increasingly well attuned to the activities of British and
French abolitionists, and to liberal political activity in France in general. As
Dale Tomich has shown, the Martiniquais rebels of 1831 were encouraged
both by the Jamaican Christmas Rebellion and the reaction to it in England,
and by the liberal republican revolution in France in the previous year -
sporting republican regalia and shouting revolutionary slogans, some of them
dating back to the French and Haitian Revolutions. 85 Their aims, though,
went beyond those of most metropolitan liberals, and their potential for
violence was as shocking to some abolitionists as that of the British slaves
was to William Wilberforce and Thomas Buxton. Alphonse de Lamartine,
who in the 1840s was to be President of the French Society for the Abolition
of Slavery, told his fellow Deputies as late as 1836,

We must not forget that each inflammable word pronounced here

touches not simply on the conscience of our colleagues or the anxiety
of the colons, but also reaches the ears of three hundred thousand
slaves; that which we discuss calmly and without danger from this
tribune, concerns the property, the fortune and the life of our com-
patriots in the colonies. 86

The idea of most French liberals was that slave emancipation was a
necessity to a civilized empire, but they also assumed that it would produce
a thoroughly civilized as well as efficient wage labour force under modern-
ized methods of production. Even Victor Schoelcher, the French Wilberforce
- himself the son of an Alsatian industrialist - was a bourgeois type of social-
ist, in favour of the industrial modernization of the Caribbean sugar industry
for the way that it would facilitate the association of wage-earning workers,
and resolutely opposed to the type of peasant proprietorship which was the
ideal of most Caribbean slaves. 87
The modernization of the French Antillean sugar industry was firmly
underway by the 1840s, with the introduction of new technology in field and

252
 Forms oj resistance to slavery

factory, the setting up of central factories, and the clearer division of the
workforce into field and factory labourers. But the heke planters remained
dedicated to the slavery system, and it was political events in France and the
action of their slaves which precipitated emancipation in 1848. The liberal
revolutionaries who overthrew the July Monarchy almost immediately pub-
lished a notice of intention to abolish slavery as soon as possible. But during
the delay occasioned by debates over the compensation of slave owners and
alternative methods of enforced labour, along with disorder and confusion in
Paris and the colonies, the slaves of Martinique and Guadeloupe seized the
initiative. Work on the plantations ceased and armed mobs of slaves
descended on the towns. In one angry confrontation with the authorities, 35
slaves were killed. In order to prevent further bloodshed and a possible
general insurrection, the municipal councils of Martinique and Guadeloupe,
on the advice of the Governors, declared the abolition of slavery inde-
pendently before the arrival of the definitive decree from Paris. Only in
French Guiana (and Reunion in the Indian Ocean), where the blacks were
less politicized and the planters less likely to stage a counter-revolution to
retain slavery, were the slaves content to await the arrival of the official
decree, and to observe the two-month delay in implementation for which it
called. 88
Even more forthright and effective than that of the French Antillean
slaves was the action of the slaves of the nearby Danish Virgin Islands in the
months immediately following French emancipation. Signs that the days of
Danish slavery were numbered were plentiful - including the decline of old-
style plantations, the emergence of active abolitionism in Denmark, and the
disapproval of slavery by the Moravian church in 1842. But the Danish
government, despite having pioneered the abolition of the Atlantic slave
trade in 1804, had gone no further than to pass a 'free womb' law with a
12-year apprenticeship provision when news of the liberal revolutions in
Europe and of the events in Martinique and Guadeloupe reached the Virgin
Island slaves.
A carefully concerted slave uprising led by slaves called Martin King
and Buddoe suddenly erupted in St Croix on the evening of Sunday, 2 July,
1848. The next morning a general refusal to work was followed by a mass
descent on Frederickstad, the colonial capital, and the sacking of the police
station and the houses of unpopular slave owners. Governor Peter von
Scholten, outdoing the governors and municipal councils of the French
Antilles, on his own authority issued a decree of immediate emancipation the
same day. This remarkable document defused the immediate crisis as the
slaves celebrated what appeared to be the first bloodless achievement of
emancipation by the slaves themselves. But the following weeks saw consid-
erable violence as the subsidiary clause of von Scholten's decree that the

253
 General History of the Caribbean

ex-slaves would retain the free possession of their houses and grounds for
only three months sank in, and a detachment of Spanish troops from Puerto
Rico requested by von Scholten helped to impose 'law and order' in the
interior. The Governor left the Virgin Islands on 14 July, 1848, and persuaded
the Danish King to endorse his emancipation decree on 22 September. But
the leaders of the rebellion were imprisoned and Buddoe deported, and a
Danish decree of 1849 imposed harsh labour contracts on all ex-slaves who
wished to keep their houses and grounds. The ex-slave owners were also
generously compensated, though not until 1853.89
The successive freeing of the British, French and Danish slaves was a
cumulative reproach to Dutch abolitionists and a rising incitement to Dutch-
owned slaves, who had a long history of resistance of one form or another -
especially running away. Slavery in the Dutch Antilles no longer had any
economic justification, but the planters of Suriname, and Amsterdam mer-
cantile houses with West Indian investments, were concerned by the poten-
tial economic and social effects of freeing the slaves and managed to
persuade the Dutch legislators to delay emancipation until an alternative
labour system and social order could be guaranteed. 90
There was no major slave rebellion in Suriname after the revolt of the
'Cottica Negroes' of 1773-8 described in J. G. Stedman's famous account.91
But it remained a rough frontier territory, ruled by force and fear, in which
the memories of the Bush Negro wars and the Berbice rebellion of 1763
remained potent on both sides. The slaves, who outnumbered the whites by
15: 1 as late as 1823, were always troublesome and kept their owners in per-
petual fear of a mass uprising. The presence of a sizeable garrison, the
setting up of a defensive inland cordon, and the recruitment of Bush Negroes
as slavecatchers, did not prevent repeated epidemics of running away, some-
times preceded by the murder of white owners or overseers.
To a certain extent, the possibilities of successful running away (greatly
increased once slavery was abolished in the adjacent British and French
colonies) may have acted as a kind of safety valve. But the existence of puni-
tive laws right up to the time of emancipation against the free movement of
slaves, slave assemblies, traditional dances (particularly the quaSi-religious
Water Mama dance), the singing of subversive songs, the dissemination of
dangerous rumours, and the practice of sorcery and poisoning, demonstrated
other forms of slave resistance on the plantations and the fears that the slaves
inspired in the regime.92
The Surinamese slaves were especially restless during the periods
leading up to British and French emancipation. In 1832 a group of town
slaves led by one Cudjoe (alias Cojo) was implicated in the arson that
resulted in the destruction of two-thirds of the capital city of Paramaribo. In
1833 the planters called for substantial reinforcements to the garrison in the

254
 Forms of resistance to slavery

wake of disturbances among the slaves of Nieuw Nickerie on the border of

British Berbice - an area that had already seen the uncovering of a serious
slave plot in 1821.
The later 1830s and early 1840s passed without a general explosion in
Suriname, though the planters' determination to retain their slaves as long as
they could and work them as hard as possible was countered by increasingly
subtle forms of slave resistance, as well as by running away whenever poss-
ible. Though not under serious internal or external abolitionist pressure
before the 1850s, the Dutch government was in a serious dilemma. The
viability of Suriname as a plantation colony was dependent upon a continu-
ing supply of cheap, coerced labour. The slaves, however, resisted coercion
and made it clear that they would not willingly continue as plantation labour-
ers after they were freed. Most Dutchmen also concurred with the planters in
their racist prejudices against the blacks, fearing the social and political con-
sequences of freeing the slaves before they were fully assimilated. At the
same time, the Dutch government considered that it could afford neither to
subsidize the immigration of alternative labourers nor to compensate the
slave owners for emancipated slaves. The government therefore dragged its
feet on the question of emancipation, willingly responded to the pleas of the
Governor and planters for garrison reinforcements in 1848, the Year of
Revolutions and French emancipation, and made only token efforts to tap
alternative labour forces by bringing in indentured workers from China and
Madeira in 1853, 1854 and 1858.93
Dutch commissions on the state of slavery and the colonial economies
in Suriname and Cura~ao in 1853 and 1855-6 raised slaves' expectations then
dangerously dashed them as the reports concluded that some form of forced
labour would be necessary for the continuation of the plantations, and that
the rural slaves were not yet sufficiently 'civilized' to be trusted with
freedom. Tensions heightened as four successive emancipation bills were
defeated between 1856 and 1862, while the government and missionary
societies made last minute attempts to educate the slaves in their forthcoming
responsibilities. Even the final Emancipation Act of 1 July, 1863 was received
with qualified enthusiasm since it called for a 10-year period of enforced
labour contracts under state supervision. Significantly, it was noticed that
many of the ex-slaves celebrated their new freedom with the banned Afro-
Caribbean dances, and there were riots against the contract provisions of the
Emancipation Act as early as 6 July, 1863. In the longer run, the planters
despaired of compelling their ex-slaves to continue plantation labour, and all
Christian pastors noted a decided decline in Christian observance after 1863.
The large-scale importation of indentured labourers from India after 1873 and
Indonesia after 1891 was as much an indication of the ex-slaves' resistance to
plantation labour and preference for either town life or an Afro-Caribbean

255
 General History of tbe Caribbean

peasant lifestyle, as of the planters' failure to create an effective wage-labour

force from their ex-slaves. 94
In the Spanish colonies, especially Cuba, slave resistance likewise con-
ditioned the transition from slavery to alternative labour systems, including
the importation of indentured labourers from Mexico, China and other
regions of the Antilles. Uniquely, though, a large portion of the white Creoles
of both Cuba and Puerto Rico favoured slave emancipation - mainly on
economic grounds - against the will of the conservative sugar planters and
the Imperial authorities. So the struggle of Cuban and Puerto Rican slaves for
freedom became associated with the liberal fight for political independence,
especially in the two decades after the short-lived liberal revolution in
Spain with its emancipation proclamation of 17 September, 1868 - though, as
everywhere else, the slaves' essential aims remained peculiar to themselves.
Slavery, and thus slave resistance, had not in fact been prominent fea-
tures of the history of Puerto Rico until the development of sugar plantations
in the fertile lowlands from the 1820s, and even in the early 1870s slaves
constituted no more than 14 per cent of the total Puerto Rican population.
Thus, the normal resistance of an expanding sugar plantation system
(expanding, indeed, at a time when most sugar plantations were declining
elsewhere, with a slave population largely imported after much of the African
trade had been cut oft), ran parallel to the disgruntlement of free peasant
smallholders forced off the lowlands into the hills, and that of townsfolk and
non-sugar plantation owners who resented the preference given by the
Imperial authorities to sugar plantations and their owners.95
As Luis Diaz Soler shows, slave revolts in Puerto Rico punctuated the
first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. These were often of the familiar
localized plantation type, but they also occurred in conjunction with planned
or rumoured republican invasions, or in response to harsh government
proclamations such as General Juan Prim's notorious Banda contra la raza
africana of 1848, which was itself a response to the events in St Croix and
the French Antilles. 96
Liberal elements in Spain were in favour both of colonial independence
and slave emancipation. In the debates in the short-lived liberal Cortes of
1868, some white Creole delegates from the Caribbean, using arguments that
were practical as well as idealistic, promoted slave emancipation as well as
their own independentist aims. The ideal of Antillean independence was
buried in the defeat of the liberals in Spain, and general emancipation in
Cuba was postponed. Puerto Rican emancipationism survived. Even a fair
number of the Puerto Rican sugar planters were confident that they could
replace their troublesome slave labour force with an alternative force made
up of local free blacks and imported labourers in competition with one
another - citing the example of the Dominican Republic, where sugar planta-

256
 Fonns of resistance to slavery

tions had been developed despite the final freeing of the Dominican slaves
by Jean Pierre Boyer in 1822. Consequently, the Moret Law of 1870 that freed
all new-born Spanish slaves, was followed three years later by the formal
emancipation of all Puerto Rican slaves. 97
As Rebecca Scott has shown, the history of Cuban slavery, and of
the struggle of the slaves against it, was the most complex of all, as well as
the most protracted. As in Puerto Rico, slavery became intensified with the
expansion of the sugar industry. That Cuban slavery before about 1790 was
easier to practise than elsewhere is, perhaps, attested by the fact that Cuba
was a favoured destination for slave runaways from the Bahamas - itself not
the harshest of slave regimes. Even at the peak of Cuban slavery around
1860, slaves were outnumbered three-to-two by the free population overall,
with free blacks actually outnumbering slaves by the end of slavery. Such
factors, though, must be viewed in the light of that peculiar 'Cuban counter-
point' of which Fernando Ortiz wrote; the clear-cut distinction throughout
the nineteenth century between the labour-intensive slave sugar plantations
and the town and tobacco smallholding sectors dominated by Creole whites
and coloured freedman. 98
Slave resistance on a small and localized scale, especially involving
marronage, can be traced throughout Cuban history; but it dramatically
increased during the nineteenth century in tandem with the spread of sugar
plantations, under the influence of the Haitian and Latin American revo-
lutions, ahd the early phases of Cuban independentism that climaxed in the
Ten Years' War of 1868--78.
The Haitian Revolution boosted the Cuban sugar industry, as hundreds
of planters from St Domingue fled to underdeveloped Cuba with their slaves
and, in conjunction with local and foreign entrepreneurs, sought to fill the
gap in world sugar production caused by the destruction of the Haitian
plantations. This not only imported a form of pre-packaged conflict - with
slaves inspired by the Haitian revolution already in conflict with masters who
were certain they knew how to control their slaves and determined to do so
- but also added a new Afro-Cuban dimension to the fear of social upheaval
felt by conservative Cuban Creoles in the face of the first stirrings of Latin
American liberal republicanism. This phase was epitomized by the abortive
rising led by the African-born free black Jose Antonio Aponte in 1812 - with
its strong African and millenarian undertones, its links with the Haiti of Jean
Fran~ois and Henri Christophe, and its widespread support among the Cuban
slaves. 99
The availability of undeveloped fertile flat land, new technology and
capital, in conjunction with the decline of traditional sugar colonies and the
abolition of slavery elsewhere, led to a steady and continuous expansion of
Cuban sugar plantations and the consequent expansion and entrenchment of

257
 General History of the Caribbean

Cuban slavery. This was aided - indeed, made possible - by a vigorous trade
in African slaves, which reached a peak of more than 10 000 a year despite
the signing of abolition treaties with Britain in 1817 and 1821. 100 As in Puerto
Rico, though on a far larger scale, the spread of plantations worked mainly
by new African slaves led to an escalation of slave resistance in Cuba.
Most of this resistance remained localized and opportunistic on traditional
lines.
As Robert Paquette has demonstrated, a critical peak of slave resistance
and general unrest occurred in 1843-4 with the complex and controversial
episode called La Escalera.101 Localized slave plots and uprisings had been a
feature of the Cuban sugar plantation areas since the 1790s, increasing
throughout the 1820s and 1830s and becoming particularly frequent and
troublesome in western Cuba in the early 1840s. At the same time, many of
the relatively large and well-educated minority of Cuban free pardos and
morenos were identifying with the cause of the slaves, in response not only
to Spanish repression in general, but to the way that Cuban racism was
veering towards the United States polar model, in which all persons of colour
were homogenously identified. Such an intellectual vanguard (joined by a
few idealistic independentist whites) sought to mobilize and lead the slaves
in the formation of an independent Cuban republic which some suggested
should be called Hatuey (after the heroic Amerindian resistance leader of the
early sixteenth century). Two contrapuntal external influences added to the
internal unrest, compounding the paranoid fears of the regime. Cuban slaves
and their would-be leaders were positively encouraged by the activities of
British abolitionists, as represented by the Consul-General in Havana, David
Turnbull, and his less discreet assistant, Francis Ross Cocking. In more negat-
ive terms, some would-be rebels were inspired by the fear of the annexation
of Cuba by the United States, which was being proposed by southern
planters and their allies in order to preserve slavery and forestall Cuba's
'africanization' .
The scattered embers of the revolt of La Escalera was doused by
savage repression authorized by the Captain General Leopoldo O'Donnell
and carried out by military tribunals - in which hundreds of slaves and
free coloureds were tortured, executed, whipped or forced into exile. So
thorough and bloody an exercise in overkill has mistakenly led some histor-
ians to characterize the uprising as a figment of the disordered fears of a
corrupt regime. But there seems to be no doubt of the reality of the threat.
La Escalera failed as much because of its very complexity and lack of
cohesion as of the power and savagery of the regime. The true situation was
perhaps best summed up by the gentle mulatto poet Placido (Gabriel de la
Concepcion Valdes), the most famous of the many martyrs of La Escalera, in
the confession he wrote shortly before he was shot:

258
 Forms of resistance to slavery

From what has been said one can deduce that six [five] plans existed,
namely, the abolitionist, which is more of a religious sect than a hostile
party; the independents; the pardos deceived by them; the free blacks
who have formed themselves from information gathered without any
other support other than their strong desire to destroy everyone; and
the slaves who want to be free.102

The suppression of the planned revolt of La Escalera was followed by

a period of uneasy quiet as the Cuban sugar industry, fed by a vigorously
continuing slave trade, reached its peak of expansion and profitability. But
the special relationship between the Cuban sugar oligarchy and imperialistic
Spain on which this was based was diminished after mid-century.
The Cuban liberal independentists, traditionally drawn from the ranks
of the townsfolk, tobacco farmers and other smallholders, including free
blacks, were increaSingly joined by those sugar planters, their capital drawn
from either local or non-Spanish foreign sources, who began to doubt the
value of the imperial connection. As the clandestine African trade dried up
and alternative sources of labour were tapped (including dispossessed white
smallholder and 'part-peasant, part-proletarian' free blacks, as well as migrant
Caribbean workers, indentured gallegos, and Chinese 'coolies'), some
planters even began to doubt the value of retaining an unwilling and
unproductive slave labour force. This point of view gained ground as the
industrialization of the Cuban sugar industry increased the periodicity of
labour demand, though generally outweighed by the continuing need for at
least a nucleus of slaves or permanently constrained unpaid workers on
each estate. The slaves themselves naturally identified with any sector
that favoured their emancipation, or seized whatever opportunities arose to
better their conditions as the result of civil strife. This was the situation in
Cuba when the Ten Years' War broke out in 1868 in response to events in
Spain. 103
The metropolitan Spanish emancipation decree (short-lived in any
case) had no general effect in Cuba. But the Cuban revolutionary junta
declared slave emancipation, and a large number of blacks joined in the
fighting to achieve their liberty. These libertos, however, were rarely treated
as equals even into the fighting ranks, and when the Treaty of Zanj6n was
signed in February 1878 it no more guaranteed full emancipation than it
made Cuba independent. A general amnesty was proclaimed and slaves
'within the insurrectionary lines' were recognized as free, but for the remain-
ing slaves the limits of imperial abolitionism were fixed by the gradualist
Moret Law of 1870. Outright abolitionists, such as the mulatto revolutionary
general Antonio Maceo, were as disappointed as the slave majority, and the
slaves' struggle continued and actually intensified.

259
 General History of the Caribbean

For a short while, the conservative Cuban planters felt that the system
of slavery remained indispensable, though to impose it required the continu-
ous presence of imperial troops. For their part, the slaves rioted, ran away in
droves, and did as little work as they could get away with. The Governor-
General reported to Madrid in 1879 that many masters had felt compelled to
offer their slaves wages and the promise of freedom, while others com-
plained that fires had been set in the canefields by slaves who vowed:
'Libertad no viene, cafia no hay; 'If Liberty does not come, there will be no
cane'.l04
This last wave of overt resistance, as much as the planters' change of
heart and alternative labour arrangements, contributed significantly to the
passing of the transitional patronato law in 1880, which anticipated final
emancipation in Cuba in 1888. During this ultimate phase the resistance of
the Cuban slaves took the form not only of doing as little work as possible,
but in purchasing their freedom out of the patronato system. So successful
were they in this that when full freedom came in October 1886 - two
years before it was originally scheduled - there were only some 2S 000
patrocinados left to be freed, one-quarter of the original total of 1880, and
one-fifteenth of the number of slaves in 1868.105

Conclusion
If the foregoing analysis and historical account - which could, perhaps
should, have extended over the whole of plantation America, to include, in
particular, the United States and Brazil - is at all convincing, slave resistance
was, indeed, not only a perennial feature of chattel slave systems but part of
the sempiternal struggle of oppressed peoples against their oppressors. Yet it
was not merely a tale of simple or cyclical repetition, but of distinct if
overlapping phases - made all the clearer when viewed in regional or hemi-
spherical perspective. On the local level - whether in different plantations,
colonies or imperial systems - one vital shift was that between Amerindian
and African and Creole forms of slave response. In the grand synoptic
sweep, slave resistance responded to the change in scale and nature of
Atlantic plantation production at large. Resistance to slavery increased with
the transfer of slave plantations into the Caribbean Basin and Brazil following
the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic offshore islands in the immediate
post-Columbian era. Slave revolts continued through the 'golden age' of com-
petitive European mercantile capitalism, into the early years of industrial 'free
trade' capital, which in the sugar industry was characterized by steam-
powered centralized factories, new methods of refining, packaging and
distribution, and, above all, by the manipulation of the world-wide market. 106

260
 Fonns of resistance to slavery

In the light of such fundamental changes, the importance of slave

resistance must be recognized, and slave resistance can be honestly por-
trayed as an heroic struggle. But its influence and success must not be ex-
aggerated. As suggested at the beginning of this chapter and developed later,
slave resistance slowed the spread of plantations, conditioned and compro-
mised their productivity, and helped to speed their demise. Yet plantation
slavery in the Americas did last for Virtually 400 years, continuing where it
was needed just, or almost, as long as it was needed (or was seen to be
needed). Moreover, we would suggest in conclusion that just as slaves in
their constant search for freedom - or at least for an ecological 'niche' or 'life
of their own' within the confines of slavery - had constantly to respond to
changing conditions and to the masters' own adjustments, so the struggle
was far from over once emancipation was decreed. If chattel slavery ended
formally in the Americas in the half century after 1838, and with it the crude
equation between slavery and race, the class struggle was actually exacer-
bated, with racism remaining an important variable within it.
At the same time that the new forces of international capital were in
the process of fixing plantation America in a stranglehold, the former slave-
holding class was easily able to reshuffle the cards it held, sustaining and
even entrenching its hegemony through the control of wages, land and
interterritorial migration, not to mention, in most cases, the system of govern-
ment, the franchise, the legal system and the police. Popular unrest and
explosions of resistance in the post-emancipation period in all Caribbean ter-
ritories thus showed many similarities with at least the later forms of slave
resistance and rebellion.

NOTES

1 Edward Long, History of Jamaica, 2 vols, (London, 1774): I, p. 25; II,

pp. 390-3; Bryan Edwards, History of the West Indies, 3 vols, (London, 1793):
II, p. 174; III, p. 13; Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery, Description ... de la partie
franfaise de I'isle Saint-Domingue, 2 vols, (Philadelphia, 1797-98): I,
pp. 25-62; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution,
1776-1823 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), pp. 185-95.
2 'I agree that the slaves' resistance record was very impressive, but the bitter
central fact about Caribbean slavery is that the planter class kept this vicious
system going for nearly 200 years even though the slaves outnumbered them
by ten to one.' Richard S. Dunn, review of Michael Craton, Testing the Chains:
Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1982), Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XV, (Summer 1984), pp. 173-5.
3 Herbert Aptheker, 'Resistance and Afro-American History', in Gary Y. Okihiro
(ed.), In Resistance: Studies in African, Caribbean and Afro-American History
(Amherit: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), pp. 10-20.
4 Stanley 1. Engerman, private communication, June 1988.

261
 General History of the Caribbean

5 Michael Craton, Sinews of Empire: A Short History of British Slavery (New York:
Doubleday, and London: Temple Smith, 1974), pp. 226-37.
6 Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave
Revolts in the Making of the Modern World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1979), p. 3.
7 O. Nigel Bolland, 'Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land
and Labor in the West Indies after 1838', Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 23, 4, (1981), pp. 591-619; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's
Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper, 1988).
8 Laurent-Fran~ois Le Noir, Marquis de Rouvray (1783), quoted in). H. Parry and
P. M. Sherlock, A Short History of the West Indies (London: Macmillan, 1960),
p. 161; from M. Mcintosh and B. Weber (eds), Une correspondencefranfaise
au temps de troubles de Saint-Domingue (Paris: 1959), p. 25.
9 S. P. Scott, C. S. Lockyer and). Vance (eds) , Las Siete Partidas, (New York,
1931); L. Peytraud, L'Esclavage aux Antilles Franfaises avant 1789 (Paris,
1897), pp. 158-66; E. N. Van Kleffens, Hispanic Law Until the End of the
Middle Ages (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968); Alan A. Watson,
Slave Law in the Americas (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1989).
10 Philemon, 10-19. Other favourite Biblical texts were Ephesians, 6; I
Corinthians 7 : 20-22; I Peter 2 : 17-18.
11 Jean-Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles d'Amerlque, 8 vols, (Paris, 1742);
Gabriel Debien, Les esc/aves aux Antilles franfaises (Basseterre, Guadeloupe
and Fort-de-France, Martinique, 1974), pp. 174-80,214-22,356-8.
12 Edward Long, however, did make a useful summary of Jamaican slave laws as
early as 1774, calling it the Jamaican Code Noir; History of jamaica, II, v,
pp. 85-505. See also, John Reeves, 'A statement of the laws that at present
subsist in the West India Islands respecting Negro Slaves', Britisq Sessional
Papers, Commons, Accounts and Papers, 1789, Vol. XXVI, 646a, Part III. For the
Dutch colonial slave laws, see R. A. ). Van Lier, Frontier Society; A Social
Analysis of the History of Surinam (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971). For the Danish
colonial slave laws, see Karen Fog Olwig, Cultural Adaptation and Resistance
on Saint john; Three Centuries ofAfro-Caribbean Life (Gainesville: University of
Florida Press, 1985), pp. 29-33; Poul Erik Olsen, 'Dansk Lov pa de vestindiske
oer', in Danske og Norske Lov i 300 ar ['Danish Law for the West Indian
Islands'l, in Danish and Norwegian Law over 300 Years (Copenhagen: Jurist og
Oknomforbundets Forlag, 1983), pp. 289-321. For New World slave law cases
in general, see H. T. Catterall, judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and
the Negro, 5 vols, (Washington, D. c.: Carnegie Institute) pp. 1926-36.
13 Elsa Goveia, The West Indian Slave Laws of the 18th Century (Barbados:
Caribbean Universities Press, 1979), pp. 7-53. See also, Craton, Sinews of
Empire, pp. 169-87; Michael Craton, James Walvin and David Wright, Slavery,
Abolition and Emancipation: Black Slaves and the British Empire; A Thematic
Documentary (New York: Longman, 1976), pp. 159-92.
14 Edwards, West Indies, III, p. 36.
15 Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados (London,
1657), p. 46.
16 Elsa Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the end of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), pp. 152-202;
Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 31-43.

262
 Forms of resistance to slavery

17 C. L. R. James, Black jacobins; Toussaint L 'Ouverture and the San Domingo

Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1938); Jose Luciano Franco, Revoluciones y
conflictos internationa/es en el Caribe, 1 789-1854 (Havana: Ciencias Sociales,
1965); David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution,
176~1823 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975); Thomas B. Ott, The
Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1971). For other sources on the Haitian Revolution, see below, fn. 66.
18 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 67-96, 125-39, 172-9,211-23, 291-32l.
19 Robert Dirks, The Black Saturnalia: Conflict and its Ritual Expression on
British West Indian Slave Plantations (Gainesville: University Presses of
Florida, 1987).
20 Cyril Outerbridge Packwood, Chained on the Rock: Slavery in Bermuda (New
York: Torres; and Bermuda: Baxter's, 1975).
21 David Barty Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels: A Study ofMaster-Slave Relations in
Antigua with Implications for Colonial British America (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press, 1985).
22 Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels, pp. 255-8; Craton, Testing the Chains,
pp. 105-24, 172-85.
23 Bahamas, Royal Gazette, 21 May, 1823, August 38, p. 124; Richard Price,
Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 2nd ed.,
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). But see also Yvan
Debbasch, 'Le marronage: essai sur la desertion de l'esclave antillais', L'Annee
Sociologique, (1961), pp. 1-112, (1962), pp. 117-95; Roger Bastide, 'Negres
marrons et negres libres, Annales: Economies-Societes-Civilisations, XX,
(January 1965), pp. 169-74; Jean Fouchard, Les Marrons de la liberte, (Paris,
1972), translated as The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death (New York: Blyden,
1981).
24 Debien, Les esclaves aux Antilles Fran~aises, pp. 411-69.
25 Neville A. T. Hall 'Maritime Maroons: Grand Marronage from the Danish West
Indies', William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XLII, No.4, (October 1985),
pp. 476-98; Michael Craton and Gail Saunders, 'Seeking a Life of their Own:
Aspects of Slave Resistance in the Bahamas', Journal of Caribbean History.
26 Yvan Debbasch, 'Le Crime d'empoisonnement aux lles pendant la periode
esclavagiste', Revue Fran~aise d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 50, (1963), pp. 137-88;
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A
Comparison of St Domingue and Cuba (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1971), pp. 40-1, 68-74; James, Black jacobins, pp. 20-2; Gaspar,
Bondmen and Rebels, pp. 195-6; Packwood, Chained on the Rock, pp. 76-7,
135-6, 146-50; Van Lier, Frontier Society.
27 Gordon K. Lewis, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical
Evolution of Caribbean Society in its Ideological Aspects, 1492-1900 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1983), p. 178.
28 Long, jamaica, Vol. II, Book III, Chapter iii, p. 405, quoted in edited form in
Lewis, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought, p. 179.
29 H. Orlando Patterson, The SOCiology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins,
Development and Structure of Negro Slave Society in jamaica (London:
McGibbon and Kee, 1967), pp. 174-81; Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 52-7.
30 Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-
American Past: A Caribbean Perspective, ISHI. Occasional Papers in Social

263
 General History of the Caribbean

Change, No.2, (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1976; New Edition, Boston: Beacon Press,
1992); Monica Schuler, 'Afro-American Slave Culture', in Michael Craton (ed.),
Roots and Branches: Curreni Directions in Slave Studies (Toronto: Pergamon,
1979), pp. 121-37; Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil: Towards a
Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins,
1978 (1960); Alfred Metraux, Voodoo in Haiti (London: Deutsch, 1972 11959));
Edward K. Brathwaite, 'The Folk Culture of the Slaves', Chapter XV of The
Development of Creole Society in jamaica 1770-1820 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971), pp. 212-39; H. Orlando Patterson, 'Social Institutions of the
Slaves', Chapter VII of The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins,
Development and Structure of Negro Slave Society in jamaica (London:
McGibbon and Kee, 1967), pp. 182, 259; Margaret E. Cra,han and Franklin W.
Knight (eds), Africa and the Caribbean: The legaCies of a Link (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979).
31 Patterson, Sociology of Slavery, pp. 231-59; Brathwaite, Creole Society,
pp.220-32.
32 For the concept of e<;ological niches applied to slave society, see Dirks, Black
Saturnalia, passim. For the concept of Respectability vs. Reputation in
Caribbean slavery and after, see Peter J. Wilson, Crab Antics: The Social
Anthropology of English-Speaking Negro Societies of the Caribbean (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).
33 Ciro Flamarion S. Cardoso, Esc/avo ou campones? 0 Protocampesinato Negro
nas Americas {Slave or Peasant? Negro Proto-Peasantry in the Americas} (Sao
Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1986).
34 Douglas M. Taylor, Languages of the West Indies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1977); Frederick G. Cassidy, jamaica Talk: Three Hundred
Years of the English Language in jamaica (London: Macmillan, Institute of
Jamaica, 1961); Izett Anderson and Frank Cundall, jamaican Proverbs and
Sayings (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972 [1910, 1927)); Martha W.
Beckwith, jamaican Proverbs (New York: Negro University Press, 1970 (1925));
Leonard E. Barrett, The Sword and the Drum: African Roots in jamaican Folk
Tradition (Kingston: Sangster's, 1979); Colville N. Young, Creole Proverbs of
Belize (Belize City: 1980); Frank A. Collymore, Barbl:ldian Dialect, 5th ed.,
(Bridgetown: Barbados National Trust, 1975 [1955]).
35 Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York:
Knopf, 1947); Melville J. Herskovits, The New World Negro: Selected Papers in
Afro-american Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966); Hall,
Social Control, pp. 35-52; Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A
Comparative Study of Virginia and Cuba (New York: Oxford University Press,
1967), pp. 86-126.
36 For obeah, see, Patterson, SOCiology of Slavery, pp. 185-95; Brathwaite, Creole
Society, pp. 158-63; Goveia, Leeward Islands, pp. 245-8; Schuler, 'Afro-
American Slave Culture', pp. 130-7. For Protestant religion, Klein, Slavery in
the Americas, pp. 105-26; Goveia, Leeward Islands, Chapter 5, 'The Christian
Missions', pp. 263-310; A. Caldecott, The Church in the West Indies (London:
SPCK, 1898); H. P. Thompson, Into All Lands: The History of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London, SPCK, 1951); Thomas
Coke, A History of the West Indies, 3 vols., (Liverpool, 1808-1811); F. A. Cox,
History of the Baptist Missionary Society from 1792 to 1842 (London, 1842);

264
 Forms of resistance to slavery

G. W. Hervey, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands (St Louis, 1884);
Michael Craton, 'Christianity and Slavery in the British West Indies, 1750-1865',
Historical ReflectionslReflexions historiques, S (Winter, 1978), pp. 141-60.
37 Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of jamaican Slave
Society, 1787-.1834 (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1982); Brathwaite, Creole
Society, pp. 25~0; Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 241-32l.
38 ]. E. Hutton, A History ofMoravian Missions (London: Moravian Publications
Office, 1892).
39 Christian G. A. Oldendorp, A Caribbean Mission: History of the Mission of the
Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St Thomas, St Croix and
St john, translation by Arnold R. Highfield and Vladimir Barac, (Ann Arbor:
Karoma, 1987 (1770)); Lorenz Bergmann, Grev Zinzendoif og Hans Indsats i
Kirkens og Missionens Historie, 2 vols., (Copenhagen: Haase, 1957, 1%1).
40 This argument is developed in Michael Craton, 'From Caribs to Black Caribs:
The Amerindian Roots of Servile Resistance in the Caribbean', in Okihiro, In
Resistance, pp. 96-116.
41 Craton, 'Stock Caribs', pp. 96-100; Craton, Testing the Chains, p. 2l.
42 Troy S. Floyd, The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973), pp. 95--105.
43 Floyd, Columbus Dynasty, pp. 62-3, n. 6; Price, Maroon Societies, pp. 1-30.
44 Nancie L. Gonzales, Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenesis and Ethnohistory
of the Garifuna (Urbana: Illinois, 1988); Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 145--53.
45 Monica Schuler, 'Akan Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean', Savacou, 1,
(970), pp. 8-31; 'Ethnic Slave Rebellions in the Caribbean and the Guianas',
journal of Social History, 3, (970), pp. 374-85. But compare the same author's
'Afro-American Slave Culture', Roots and Branches, pp. 121-37.
46 Elizabeth Donnan (ed.), Documents Illustrative of the History oftbe Slave Trade
to America, 4 vols., (Washington, D. C.: Carnegie Institute, 1930-1); Lorenzo].
Greene, 'Mutiny on the Slave Ships', Phylon, S, (1944), pp. 346-55; Howard
Jones, Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and its Impact on
American Abolition, Law and Diplomacy (New York: Oxford University Press,
1987).
47 Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution, p. 3; Craton, Testing the Chains,
pp.62-6.
48 Pierre]. Pannet, Report on the Execrable Conspiracy Carried Out by the Amina
Negroes on the Danish Island of St jan in America, 1733, trans. Aimery Caron
and Arnold Highfield, (St Croix: Antilles Press, 1984); John L. Anderson, Night
of the Silent Drums: A Narrative of Slave Rebellion in the Virgin Islands (New
York: SCribners, 1975); Waldemar Westergaard, The Danish West Indies under
Company rule, 1671-1754 ... with a supplementary chapter, 175~ 1917 (New
York: MaCmillan, 1917); Oldendorp, Caribbean Mission, pp. 235--7; Olwig,
Cultural Adaptation and Resistance, pp. 2~.
49 Westergaard, Danish West Indies, pp. 166-78.
50 H. Orlando Patterson, 'Slavery and Slave Revolts: A Socio-Historical Analysis of
the First Maroon War, Jamaica, 1655--1740', Social'and Economic Studies, 19
(970), pp. 289-335, anthologized in Price, Maroon Societies, 2nd ed.,
pp. 246-92; Barbara Klamon Kopytoff, 'The Maroons of Jamaica: An
Ethnohistorical Study of Incomplete Polities, 1655--1905', Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Pennsylvania, 1973; Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 67-%.

265
 General History of the Caribbean

51 Edward K. Brathwaite, Wars of Respect. Nanny, Sam Sharpe and the Struggle
for People's Liberation (Kingston, API, 1977); Craton, Testing the Chains,
pp.81-9l.
52 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 125-39.
53 Kopytoff, 'Jamaican Maroon Political Organization: The Effects of the Treaties',
Social and Economic Studies, XXV, (June 1976), pp. 87-105; 'Early Political
Development of Jamaican Maroon Societies', William and Mary Quarterly,
3rd ser., XXXV, (April 1978), pp. 287-307; Craton, Testing the Chains,
pp. 87-95, 211-15.
54 Long, History ofjamaica, II, xiii, pp. 348-9.
55 C. R. Dallas, The History of the Maroons, from their Origins to the
Establishment of their Chief Tribe at Sierra Leone, 2 vols., (London, 1803);
Bryan Edwards, A Historical Suroey of the Island of Santo Domingo, together
with an account of the Maroon Negroes in the Island of jamaica (London,
1801); James W. St. G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised
Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870 (New York: Africana,
Dalhousie University Press, 1976), pp. 229-373; Christopher Fyfe, A History of
Sierra Leone, (London, 1%2).
56 Richard Price, The Guiana Maroons: A Historical and Bibliographical
Introduction (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
57 J. J. Hartsinck, 'The Story of the Slave Rebellion in Berbice', journal of the
British Guiana Museum and Zoo, 20, (958), III, pp. 7--8, quoted in Lewis,
Main Currents in Caribbean Thought, p. 226. For the best scholarly treatment
of Cuffee's Rebellion, see Alvin O. Thompson, Colonialism and
Underdevelopment in Guyana, 1580-1803 (Barbados: Carib Research and
Publications, Inc., 1987).
58 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 270-2; Chris de Beet, 'De Eerste Boni-oorlog,
1765-1778', Bronnen voor de Studie van Bosnegersamenlevingen, deel 9,
(Utrecht: Centre for Caribbean Studies, 1984); Silvia W. De Groot, 'The Boni
Maroon War, 1765-1793, Surinam and French Guyana', Boletin de Estudios
Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 18, (975), pp. 30-48; Wim S. M. Hoogbergen,
'Marronage en Marrons, 1760-1863. De nietgepacificeerde Marrons van
Suriname', in Glenn Willemsen (ed.), Suriname, de schele onajbankellijkheid
(Amsterdam, De Arbeiderspers, 1983), pp. 75-110; 'De Boni's in Frans-Guyana
en de Teede Boni-oorlog, 1776-1793', Bronnen voor de Studie van
Bosnegersamenlevingen, deell0, (Utrecht: Centre for Caribbean Studies, 1984);
M. Muller, 'Ten Years of Guerrilla-Warfare and Slave Rebellions in Surinam,
1750-1759', Acta Historial Neerlandicae, vm, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1975), pp. 85-102.
59 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 115-24, 172-9.
60 Waldemar Westergaard, 'Account of the Negro Rebellion on St Croix, Danish
West Indies, 1759', journal of Negro History, 11 (1926) pp. 50-61; Gaston
Martin, Histoir¥! de I'esclavage dans Ies colonies franfaises (Paris, 1949),
pp. 220-30; Peytraud, L'esclavage avant 1789.
61 Richard B. Sheridan, 'The Jamaican Slave Insurrection Scare of 1776 and the
American Revolution', journal of Negro History, 3, (1975), pp. 290-308; Craton,
Testing the Chains, pp. 172-4.
62 Leslie B. Rout, Jr., The African Experience in South America (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976).

266
 Forms of resistance to slavery

63 Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons, Leslie F. Manigat, 'The Relationship

Between Marronage and Slave Revolts and Revolution in St Domingue-Haiti',
in Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in
New World Plantation Societies (New York: New York Academy of Sciences,
1977), pp. 420-38.
64 James, Blackjacobins, Ott, Haitian Revolution; Jose Luciano Franco, Historia
de la Revoluci6n de Haiti (Havana, 1966); David Nicholls, From Dessalines to
Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti (London:
Macmillan, 1995, 3rd Edition); David Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution: The
British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-8 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1982); Anne Perotin-Dumon, Etre patriote sous les tropiques: La
Guadeloupe, la colonisation et la Revolution (Basseterre: Societe d'histoire de
la Guadeloupe, 1985); Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery,
1776-1848 (London and New York: Verso, 1988).
65 Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, pp. 163-77.
66 Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death (New York: Blyden,
1981 (1972), pp. 330-4; Moreau de Saint-Mery, Saint-Domingue, II,
pp. 1131-6; Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, p. 208, n. 13.
67 Fouchard, Haitian Maroons, pp. 340-1; Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial
Slavery, pp. 190-1.
68 Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, de l'esclavage au pouvoir (Paris, 1979),
p. 26, cited by Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, pp. 191-3.
69 James, Black jacobins, passim; Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery,
pp. 193, 205.
70 Blackburn, Colonial Slavery, pp. 193-222.
71 Ibid., pp. 21~22, 223-40.
72 Ibid., pp. 240-51.
73 Ibid., pp. 226-9.
74 Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the
West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France (London: Oxford
University Press, 1987); Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 180-210.
75 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 211-38, 261; David Geggus, 'The Enigma of
Jamaica in the 1790s: New Light on the Causes of Slave Rebellions', William
and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XUV, 2, (April 1987), pp. 274-99.
76 Roger Norman Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments,
1795-1815 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).
77 Michael Craton and Gail Saunders, 'Seeking a Life of their Own: Aspects of
Slave Resistance in the Bahamas', journal of Caribbean History (forthcoming).
78 Michael Craton, 'We Shall Not be Moved: Pompey's Slave Revolt in Exuma
Island, 1830', Nieuwe West-Indische Gills, 57, 1-2, (1983), pp. 19-35.
79 David Barry Gaspar, 'Amelioration or Oppression? The Abolition of the Slaves'
Sunday Markets in Antigua (1931)', paper given at Twentieth Annual
Conference of Caribbean Historians, St Thomas, 1988.
80 Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 241-321; Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries:
The Disintegration of jamaican Slave Society, 1787-1834 (Urbana, Illinois:
Illinois University Press, 1982).
81 Michael Craton, 'Proto-Peasant Revolts? The Late Slave Rebellions in the British
West Indies, 1816-1832', Past and Present, 85, (November 1979), pp. 99-125;
'The Passion to Exist; Slave Rebellions in the British West Indies, 1650-1832',

267
 General History of the Caribbean

Journal of Caribbean History, 13, (Summer 1980), pp. 1-20; Testing the Chains,
pp. 241-321.
82 Mary Turner, 'The Baptist War and Abolition', Jamaican Historical Review,
XDI, (1982), pp. 31-41; Michael Craton, 'Emancipation from Below? The Role
of the British West Indian Slaves in the Emancipation Movement, 1816-1834',
in Jack Hayward (ed.), Abolition and After (London: Frank Cass, 1985),
pp. 110--31; Craton, 'What and Who to Whom and What: The Significance of
Slave Resistance', in Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engerman (eds), British
Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery; The Legacy of Eric Williams (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 259-82; Blackburn, Overthrow of
Colonial Slavery, pp. 447-59.
83 Richard Hart, Slaves Who Abolished Slavery (London: Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1978),
republished as Esclavos que abolieron esclavitud (Havana: Casa de las
Americas, 1980); Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London: Deutsch, 1964
(1941), pp. 197-208.
84 Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean,
1492-1970 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1970); Henri Bangou, La Guadeloupe
1492-1848 (Paris, 1962).
85 Dale Tomich, 'Prelude to Emancipation: Sugar and Slavery in Martinique,
1830--1848', Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1978, pp. 49-88, l37-75.
86 Quoted in Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, p. 493, citing Janine
Alexandre-Debray, Schoelcher(Paris, 1983), p. 68.
87 Janine Alexander-Debray, Schoelcher (Paris, 1983), p. 68, quoted by Blackburn,
Colonial Slavery, pp. 492-8, 501-6.
88 Blackburn, Colonial Slavery, pp. 496-8.
89 H. Lawaetz, Peter von Scholten, Dansk-Vestindiens sidste Generalguvernor
[Peter von Scholten, Danish West Indian Governor-General} (Copenhagen:
Gyldendal, 1940), pp. 174-91; Jens Vibaek, Von' Gamle Tropekolonier, 2 vols.,
(Copenhagen: Fremad, 1966), II, pp. 286-96; Neville A. T. Hall, 'The Post-
Emancipation Court Martial in Fredericksted, St Croix, July-August 1948; An
Account and Analysis', paper presented at the Thirteenth Conference of
Caribbean Historians, Guadeloupe, 1981; Isaac Dookhan, A History of the
Virgin Islands of the United States (St Thomas, 1974), pp. 173-5, 190--8;
Blackburn, Colonial Slavery, pp. 507-8.
90 Blackburn, Colonial Slavery, p. 509; R. A. J. Van Lier, Frontier Society: A Social
Analysis of the History of Surinam (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971). I am also
indebted to Dr Josef P. Siwpersad for information on Suriname and materials
available only in Dutch, though his own interpretation of the role of the slaves
in the emancipation process differs from mine.
91 John Gabriel Stedman, Nan-ative of a Five- Year's Expedition against the
Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America,
from the Year 1771 to 1777 (London: Johnson and Edwards, 1796); Beet, Eerste
Boni-oorlog, 176~ 1778; De Groot, The Boni-Maroon War, 176~ 1793; Van
Lier, Frontier Society, pp. 57-60.
92 Van Lier, Frontier Society, pp. 60--84, 129-60; A. Th. Van Duersen, 'De
Surinamse Negerslaaf in de 1ge eeuw', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 88,
(1975), pp. 201-23; J. A. Schiltkamp and J. Th. De Smidt, West-Indisch
Plakaatboek: Plakaten, ordonnantien en anden' wetten, uitgevaardigd in
Suriname II, 1761-1816 (Amsterdam: Emmering, 1973).

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 Forms of resistance to slavery

93 Van Lier, Frontier Society, pp. 147-51; Josef P. Siwpersad, 'De Nederlandse
regering en de afschaffing van de Surinaamse slavernij, 1833-1863', Ph.D.
dissertation, Groningen, 1979; 'Emancipation in British Guyana and its Influence
on Dutch Policy Regarding Surinam', in David Richardson (ed.), Abolition and its
Aftermath,. The Historical Context, 1790-1960 (London: Cass, 1985), pp. 168--80.
94 Van Lier, Frontier Society, pp. 177--88.
95 Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation
Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1984), pp. 3-34.
96 Luis M. Diaz Soler, Historla de la esclavitud negra en Puerto Rico, 3rd ed., (RIo
Piedras: Editora Universitaria, 1970); Guillermo A. Baralt, Esclavos rebeldes:
conspiraciones y sublevaciones de esclavos en Puerto Rico, 179~ 1873 (RIo
Piedras: Ediciones Huracan, 1982); Benjamin Nistal-Moret, Esclavos profugos y
cimmarones en Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico, 1982);
Arturo Morales Carri6n et al., Auge y decadencia de al trata negrera en Puerto
Rico, 1820-1860 (San Juan: Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, 1978).
97 Diaz Soler, Historia de la esclavitud, pp. 289-348.
98 Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor,
1869-1899 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); 'Explaining Abolition:
Contradiction, Adaptation, and Challenge in Cuba Slave Society, 1860-1886', in
Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Frank Moya Pons and Stanley L. Engerman (eds),
Between Slavery and Free Wage Labor: The Spanish Speaking Caribbean in the
Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985),
pp. 24-53; Fernando Ortiz, La hampa afro-cubana: los negroes esclavos
(Havana: Ruiz, 1916); Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio: complejo
econ6mico social cubano de azucar, 3 vols, (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias
Sociales, 1978); Franklin Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth
Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970).
99 Jose Luciano Franco, 'La conspiraci6n de Aponte, 1812', in Esayos hist6ricos
(Havana: Ciencias sociales, 1974), pp. 127-80; Blackburn, Overthrow of
Colonial Slavery, pp. 389-91.
100 David R. Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the
Cuban Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); David Eltis,
Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
101 Robert L. Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera
and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown,
Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1988). Paquette particularly mentions
risings in western Cuba in 1825, 1826, 1828, 1830, 1831, 1833, 1835, 1838 and
1839 as well as the spring and summer of 1843, and quotes the modem Cuban
historian, Saul Vento, as turning up 'no fewer than 399 reported cases of slave
violence from 1825 to 1850 in Matanzas province alone'. For a brilliant survey
of the historiography of Escalera see Paquette's Introduction, entitled 'La
Escalera and the Historians.'
102 Quoted by Paquette from the 'Anexo' in Daisy Cue Fernandez, 'Placido y la
conspiraci6n de la Escalera', Santiago, No. 42, (June 1981), pp. 145-206.
103 Scott, 'Explaining Abolition', pp. 26-30; Slave Emancipation, pp. 38-(j2,
114-24; Raul Cepero Bonilla, Azucar y abolici6n (Havana: Editorial Cenit,
1948); Knight, Slave Society, pp. 154-78.

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 General History of the Caribbean

104 Scott, Slave Emancipation, pp. 45-62; Knight, Slave Society, pp. 176-8.
105 Scott, 'Explaining Abolition', pp. 39-44; Knight, Slave Emancipation,
pp.127-7l.
106 Manuel Moreno Fraginals, 'Plantations in the Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Dominican Republic in the Late Nineteenth Century', in Moreno
Fraginals, Moya Pons and Engerman, Between Slavery and Free Labor,
pp.3-21.

270
 8

PLURALISM, CREOLIZATION
AND CULTURE

Franklin W Knight

E slave trade and the sugar revolutions produced profound transfor-

~mations in the societies, economies and cultures of the Caribbean. The
indigenous local societies and polities were rapidly overwhelmed by
strange immigrants, at first from Europe and Africa, with later supplements
from Asia. The indigenous economies of virtually self-sufficient exchange
gave way to a complex, integrated, export-oriented trading system linking
the region with the entire circum-Atlantic littoral as well as across the Pacific
and Indian Oceans. And the local cultures were savagely destroyed or radi-
cally transformed. The relentless intrusion of diverse foreigners into the
Caribbean region resulted in fundamental changes both among the indigen-
ous inhabitants as well as among the arriving immigrants. Both groups not
only had to make pragmatic adjustments to the other, but they also had to
make adjustments to the altered habitat. Within a century after conquest the
development of the Caribbean slave systems with their concomitant plan-
tation structures resulted in plural societies and economies as well as a novel,
dynamic, hybrid culture of indigenous American, African, European and
Asian elements.
This process of change, transmutation and adaptation to the local envir-
onment remains an inescapable, universal characteristic of all immigrant
peoples, and reflects concretely the process of creolization. The Creole is the
unavoidable product of local conditions, and in this chapter there are no a
priori assumptions of specific connotations of race and ethnicity.

The definition of creole

Since the sixteenth century the word creole has undergone a number of
semantic changes. The word was most probably first commonly used in
Iberia. The early Spanish settlers initially used the word to describe the local
derivatives of plants and animals in order to distinguish them from the

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 General History of the Caribbean

original arrivals from the metropolis. Only much later was the term applied
to people. After a long period of time it came to be the general description
for all products and people created or born in the Americas. It did not,
however, have any specialized reference to race and colour. By the early
seventeenth century the Spanish freely employed the term to describe their
white offspring born in the New World. Eventually this designation extended
to the American-born descendants of people of African descent who were
brought to the New World as servants and slaves, distinguishing them from
the African-born, or bozales.
Creoles, therefore, represented anyone born in the Caribbean (and
neighbouring mainland) region of whatever descent, regardless of status or
condition. In other words, Creoles described both enslaved and free in-
habitants, and that is the most common usage in the Spanish Caribbean until
the end of the nineteenth century. This general usage is not Significantly dif-
ferent from the way that the historian, Edward Brathwaite, conceives the
term in The Development of Creole Society in jamaica, 1770-1820, although
he confines its usage somewhat by restricting it to a 'colonial situation' and
excluding the indigenous inhabitants from the process of creolization. 1
The term creole, nevertheless, has a considerable variety of meanings
and an equal variety of local usages throughout the contemporary Americas.
Sometimes the term creole has specific regional, political and social connota-
tions in distinct places. For example, in the state of Louisiana in the United
States of America it once referred to the people and culture that accompa-
nied or descended from the white French immigrants who settled along the
lower Mississippi river delta, or immigrated later from Acadia or St Domingue
in the eighteenth century. It has had a long and confusing historical develop-
ment. 2 In Peten, Guatemala, the term creole is used as a contradistinction
from ladino, and has distinct ethnic connotations. 3 There the term creole
refers to Spanish ancestry while that of ladino refers to a Hispanized Indian.
Along the Caribbean coastal zones of Nicaragua the term refers to those com-
munities of English-speaking Caribbean groups, mostly descendants of black
seventeenth century enslaved farm labourers. 4 In the French Caribbean the
term is usually further refined to denote colour such as blanc creole (white
Creole) or creole noir (black Creole). The general usage throughout the
contemporary Commonwealth Caribbean territories, especially in Trinidad,
reflects cultural variations from the European or mainland American norm
and indicates reference to the black population. 5
Creole therefore refers both to individuals as well as to cultures. The
significant component of its identity derives from the characteristics of local
genesis: people born in the region, or cultures produced under local exigen-
cies. Wherever it is now found and however it is now used, the term creole
definitely resulted from the inescapable consequences of the process of

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 Pluralism, creolization and culture

European expansion into the Americas after the sixteenth century. As such
the term has constantly undergone changes in usage reflecting the changes
in culture and society through the ages.

The process of creolization

Throughout the Caribbean this process of creolization represents the evolu-
tion of a distinctive, though highly variegated, Caribbean cultural milieu, and
cultural forms - sometimes in conflict with metropolitan standards, norms
and expectations - by the pragmatic and sometimes random amalgamation
of African, Asian, East Indian, European and indigenous American cultures.
This makes the creole essentially plural, the pragmatic merging of multiple
cultural ingredients.
The process of creolization began the moment the first Europeans and
the first Africans entered the New World as settlers in 1493 on the second
voyage of Christopher Columbus. This does not exclude the remote possibil-
ity that isolated Africans inadvertently entered the Americas before the arrival
of Christopher Columbus. 6 If so, their cultural impact was, at best, uncertain.
On his first voyage to the Caribbean Columbus had at least one person
described as un negro [a black], and strong circumstantial evidence points to
several more. 7 Other non-white Europeans followed in later voyages, partici-
pating valiantly in the dynamic expansion of Spanish authority throughout
the Americas during the early sixteenth century. In any case, the first
'Africans' to arrive in the Americas were probably Spanish-speaking descen-
dants of earlier arrivals who had lived. in southern Iberia or the Canaries and
who were, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable culturally from the
other early Spanish colonists. But all these newcomers to the Americas
survived by adapting as best they could, often with the help of the local
inhabitants who gave the strangers new foods, taught them how to prepare
it, and provided houses and hammocks that were unfamiliar but immensely
practical. 8
Then in 1518 a new development took place that was to change the
character of the Spanish American colonies and the characterization of the
future Spanish American colonists. 9 It would also greatly accentuate the rapid
pluralization and creolization of the Spanish American colonial society. The
Spanish monarch authorized the direct importation of Africans without the
previous mediating influence of Catholic religiOUS conversion and prior
residence in Iberia. He sanctioned a direct slave trade between Africa and the
Americas. These new African arrivals would be non-Hispanic acculturated
Africans, imported directly from Africa to the New World. Begun as a modest
and inauspicious licencia, or permit, to import 4000 slaves over eight years

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 General History of the Caribbean

to the Indies (as the Americas were then called) it qUickly became an enor-
mously lucrative business. That royal permission initiated the sustained
importation and absorption of diverse African influences from sub-Saharan
Africa into the fledgling Spanish colonies of the New World. Within ten years
the demand for Africans had grown to such an extent that the modest licen-
cia was replaced by an asiento, a sort of monopoly, issued to a company or
a group of individuals to conduct the supply trade to the entire Spanish
Americas. The first asiento went to the Portuguese who had established
trading posts along the African coast.
Within the Spanish American settlement enclaves the Spanish
colonists borrowed freely from both their African and indigenous co-
residents. With the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade and the rise
of the plantation societies throughout the region, Africans and their
descendants became increasingly Significant proportions of the local
populations, as Colin Palmer has examined in Chapter 1 and Stanley
Engerman and B. W. Higman have analysed fully in Chapter 2. The precise
acquisitions and their mode of incorporation have not been examined
methodically by scholars but there exists a good idea of the consequences
of African importations. lO
The transatlantic slave trade was fundamentally a movement of peoples
designed to promote trade and productive efficiency in the Americas. It was
only COincidentally, for the Africans involved, a transfer of cultures. African
societies represented various cultures in a constantly changing environment
and the Africans who left did so under peculiar conditions that were not
designed to facilitate the maintenance of any sort of cultural cohesiveness.
For example, they did not come as family units, and their numbers were
predominantly male and overwhelmingly adolescent. Moreover, the newly-
emerging American colonial societies into which these Africans were intro-
duced reflected a kaleidoscope of fragmented societies and cultures that
were, in many cases, far from exemplary individual models of cohesive
European communities and societies.
The core areas of the slave plantation complex amply illustrated the
lack of a critical mass of managerial whites capable of forming the type of
society and community that incoming Africans could perceive and under-
stand as culturally cohesive. In short, the arriving Africans would have found
it difficult to ascertain any clearly articulated models of a coherent European
ideal. There were seldom enough whites around to demonstrate what truly
constituted mainstream European culture. With few, scattered examples,
Africans and persons of African descent constituted the majority - in many
cases the overwhelming majority - of the local populations, and new arrivals
were often socialized by other Africans. Any representative sample from the

274
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

region reflected the ongoing demographic reality. In the early nineteenth

century the local white population comprised less than 5 per cent of the total
population of Berbice, Essequibo, Grenada, Jamaica, Nevis, St Vincent,
Suriname and Tobago. Europeans constituted less than 20 per cent of the
total populations of Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadeloupe,
and only exceeded that proportion in the Bahamas (23 per cenO, Cuba and
Puerto Rico. 11 An uncertain number of these whites were themselves Creoles,
and not fully conversant with the latest ideal standards of the metropolis and,
moreover, were often socialized by African slaves. As these aggregations of
diverse peoples moved from random collections of colonists to functioning
communities and, eventually, fully-fledged societies the role of the African
assumed specially increasing importance.
The political, social and economic subordination of the African element
ought not, then, to be interpreted as irrelevant in establishing the basic
evolVing structure of Caribbean societies and cultures. In every sense, from
the very beginning of European domination, the Caribbean was truly an
intimately interrelated world of masters and slaves in which each group
depended extenSively on the other. With the passage of time this reciprocity
increased, conveying an impression that local whites were closer to local
non-whites than to their European relatives.
Indeed, this perception on the part of recently arrived metropolitan
whites that local whites had 'relapsed' was commonly held throughout the
Caribbean and Latin America. Lady Maria Nugent, herself a Creole from New
Jersey, and the wife of a governor of Jamaica in the early nineteenth century
displayed this stuffy attitude in her biting comments on the local upper-class
society. She wrote in her journal:

The creole language is not confined to the Negroes. Many of the ladies
who have not been educated in England, speak a sort of broken
English, with an indolent drawling out of their words, that is very tire-
some if not disgusting. I stood next to a lady one night, near a window,
and by way of saying something, remarked that the air was much
cooler than usual; to which she answered, 'Yes, ma'am, him rail-ly too
fra-ish' .12

What may be easily read between the lines of Lady Nugent's perceptive
journal is the reciprocal influence that the slave society had on all
who participated in it, masters as well as slaves. The plantation complex
during slavery produced an amalgamated culture from which the master
class could not insulate itself. What was this culture, and how did it
develop?

275
 General History of the Caribbean

The cultural influence of slave society

This variant colonial culture originated, of course, with the expansion of the
transatlantic slave trade. The trade was crucial for the transfer and eventual
development of distinctive Afro-American cultures in the Caribbean. Before
the development of the regular slave trade directly linking Africa and the
Americas, the possibilities of constructing a viable Afro-American commun-
ity or of significantly altering the emerging culture of the European
colonists were remote. Africans lacked both the critical mass, the status,
and the identifiable cultural cohesiveness. After about 1518, however, the
increasing importation of Africans inundated some European settler
communities and began the inexorable modification of the patterns of
European settlements in the New World. This was especially true after
about the middle of the seventeenth century when Europeans began to
establish and promote plantation colonies designed to produce tropical
staples for export. Both the newly-arriving Africans and the host population
of European colonists and indigenous people were forced to make drastic
readjustments to their culture and their traditions in order to accommodate
and coexist with the increasing number and proportion of Africans and
their descendants.
An essential part of the revolutions generated by the dramatically
increased volume of the transatlantic slave trade and the profound trans-
formation of local economies was the demographic metamorphosis of the
Caribbean. The trade converted formerly predominantly European popu-
lations in the European colonial entities such as Barbados, St Kitts,
Guadeloupe, Martinique and Jamaica into overwhelmingly African popu-
lations. Where the conversion was less dramatic, such as in Cuba, Puerto
Rico and the Bahamas, the societies nevertheless became fundamentally
transformed. In this metamorphosis, Africans - both slaves and free persons
- were instrumental in fashioning their new communities, their new societies
and their new cultures. 13 This definitely produced some fundamental changes
among the whites who controlled the basic economic, social, political and
cultural institutions.
The most notable change was the internalizing of race and colour in
the establishment of social status and social hierarchy.14 Race, colour and
legal condition became inescapable aspects of the local societies and deeply
internalized in the everyday values of the inhabitants. It was in this sense that
the Caribbean societies were considered to be caste societies. While not
nearly as rigid as the classic structure found in India, the caste divisions in
the plantation Caribbean of whites, free persons of colour and slaves proved
to be virtually inflexible, mutually reinforcing social cleavages. Nowhere was

276
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

this more evident than throughout the plantation zones of the Americas. But
the transformation of attitudes and reality was universal.
Alexander von Humboldt observed in his travels through Spanish
America at the beginning of the nineteenth century that,

In Spain it is a kind of nobility not to descend from Jews or Moors. In

America, the skin, more or less white, is what dictates the class that an
individual occupies in society. A white, even if he rides barefoot on
horseback, considers himself a member of the nobility of the country. IS

The Jamaican planter, Bryan Edwards, writing of the British West Indies in
1793, noted the changes that Africans and slavery made on the attitudes of
European whites in the colonies:

The poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level

with the richest, and, emboldened by this idea approached his
employer with extended hand, and a freedom, which in the countries
of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower orders of life
toward their superiors. It is not difficult to trace the origin of this princi-
ple. It arises, without doubt, from the preeminence and distinction
which is necessarily attached even to the complexion of a White Man,
in a country where the complexion, generally speaking, distinguishes
freedom from slavery.16

A similar observation was made by the historian of Guadeloupe, Auguste

Lacour, of French Antillean society during the nineteenth century. According
to Lacour, the social pretensions of the French colonists were affected by the
Significance attached to race and colour and he noted that in the French
Caribbean 'what constituted the nobility was not parchment, but colour.'17
Africans who arrived in the Caribbean before the end of the trans-
atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century suffered from many handicaps
that constrained their cultural development. These handicaps resulted from
their legal condition as slaves. Slavery established the parameters for social
and cultural action. Slave masters - as the various slave laws indicated -
were interested in self-protection, police control and productive efficiency.
They were not primarily interested in preserving, promoting or propagating
African culture. The Europeans structured the slave society to promote pro-
ductive efficiency. But they were powerless to prevent Africans from doing a
large number of things that the Africans considered important for their
mental and physical wellbeing. Such African cultural elements which did
survive, or were eclectically constructed, reflected the dogged determination
of the Africans to fashion a world of their own. But it also reflected either an

277
 General History of the Caribbean

inability on the part 'of the whites to eliminate non-sanctioned behaviour or

an unwitting concession that such conduct was innocuous, as well as periph-
eral to their own personal security and their material prosperity.
The African population during the long period of the slave society in
the Caribbean remained - especially among the potentially fertile age groups
- a predominantly male population. Although the majority population
generally throughout the region (though not in Cuba, Puerto Rico or the
Dominican Republic), Africans lacked the political power positions, economic
resources and relative homogeneity of the Europeans in the Caribbean. They
could not, therefore, directly establish or continue uninterrupted patterns of
social conduct with which they might have been familiar in their homelands.
Drawn randomly from vast geographical regions of Africa, they did not gener-
ally share a common culture as we understand the term, or a common lan-
guage although some of their languages might have been mutually intelligible.
Least of all, Africans did not have a national identity as did Europeans who
came from such newly-consolidated national states such as England, France,
Holland or Spain. The slave plantation society and the elite's nominal sub-
scription to an idealized European high culture constituted an altogether
hostile cultural environment for Africans introduced to the New World.
Yet, the lack of a hospitable milieu in which to propagate their values
and their self-worth did not mean that Africans were deculturated, or inflicted
with what the sociologist Orlando Patterson graphically refers to as 'social
death.'18 Nor is the eloquent observation of Manuel Moreno Fraginals empiri-
cally justified when he wrote on the excessive exploitation and coercion of
the slave regime:

Slaves lost their human significance. They were devoid of personality.

Although each had a name for identification purposes, they were all
machine men, specialized work equipment acquired in the market-
place. They were expected to have a certain productivity and durability,
as long as their productive efforts were controlled and they were
provided with adequate maintenance ... the slaves themselves were
transformed into machines. 19

A dehumanizing plantation ambience did not necessarily mean that

Africans could be, or were, entirely dehumanized. Edward Brathwaite has
persuasively argued for this African resilience and creativity in Jamaica, albeit
not without some notable qualifications. 2o Sidney Mintz and Richard Price
have also observed:

Slaves were defined as property; but being human, they were called
upon to act in sentient, articulate and human ways: the slaves were not

278
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

animals, even if the barbarities visited upon them were inhuman .... In
practice, however, it is abundantly clear that the masters did recognize
that they were dealing with fellow humans, even if they did not want
to concede as much. Animals cannot learn to speak a new language, to
employ tools and machinery in the manufacture of sugar, to direct
crews of their fellows in the completing of a task, nurse the sick, cook
elaborate dinners, compose dances and verse - or, for that matter, to
become adept in ridiculing with impunity the inanities of those who
abuse them. Nor do animals organize resistance, poison their oppres-
sors lead revolutions, or commit suicide to escape their agonies. A
literature produced over centuries, in a dozen European languages,
attests throughout to the implicit recognition by the masters of the
humanity of the slaves, even in instances where the authors seem most
bent upon proving the opposite. 21

Africans did not, at least in their own eyes, lose their 'human
significance'. Throughout the Caribbean, both enslaved and free Africans as
well as their descendants emphatically - and successfully - resisted the total
eradication of their personalities and their native cultures. They not only
survived they also proved themselves to be extraordinarily resourceful and
creative. Slaves effectively managed many plantations, manufactured sugar,
served in the military, and in many concrete ways comprised a viable com-
munity and inexorably created an eclectic culture that operated in symbiosis
with the non-African structure. The African contribution was absolutely in-
dispensable for the development of the Americas. Precisely those qualities of
creativity and resilience served the ex-slaves and their descendants well in
the aftermath of the slave society and permitted the enormous range of
impact on the local societies of the Caribbean. 22

Organic consequences of the slave trade

Patterns of creolization reflected three important organic consequences of the
slave trade: the volume and pace of introduction of the slaves; the age and
sex profile of the successive cohorts; and the social and economic structure
of the host communities into which Africans were progressively integrated.
For the first two centuries of the transatlantic slave trade, the regional
demand was relatively low throughout the Americas. The annual rate of
introduction seldom exceeded 1200 slaves per year. Still, some areas in the
Caribbean such as Hispaniola (after the dramatic decline of the indigenous
population), Barbados and Jamaica (after about 1650) relied on a steady, rel-
atively high importation rate to maintain the viability of the early societies.

279
 General History of the Caribbean

Low, steady demand meant that slave purchasers could influence the supply
side of the market by indicating specific preferences, presumably based on
established regional or ethnic types. Such preferences inadvertently con-
tributed to high concentrations of certain African groups among the early
colonies. Undoubtedly dense concentrations of ethnic and culturally cohesive
groups in the formative years unduly influenced the norms of the emergent
society in ways that later immigrants found difficult to erase. 23 But since the
societies were inherently dynamic, continued variations would remain an
integral feature of the societies.
The overall social impact that a modestly low importation rate of about
2000 Africans per year would have on any given society had to be consider-
ably different from that period when the annual importation rate jumped to
more than 13 000 as it did in 1700, or to the approximately 55000 accom-
plished in the last years of the English trade before 1808. For one thing, a
greater volume indicated a greater diversity in ethnic, linguistic and
geographical origins. Moreover, when Africans arrived too rapidly, or died
too rapidly, or were held in cohorts of immense sizes, the processes of
normal socialization tended to be severely disrupted. European masters could
no longer directly supervise the procedures and processes of introduction
and were forced to delegate the management to trusted Africans and Afro-
Americans already familiar with the structural requirements of the system.
Africans and their descendants, therefore, came to play an increasingly
important role in the construction of their communities and their cultures -
albeit within certain practical constraints imposed by their masters and
European social superiors.
The age and sex profile of the local community became important
aspects of any society that ultimately had an important impact on the process
of creolization, as Engerman and Higman have already demonstrated in
Chapter 2. Sexual imbalance was a characteristic of the African component of
most slave societies, but it was equally true of the white population as well.
Sexual imbalance contributed to greater and greater familiarity between
members of the opposite sex. White males were notorious for using their
positions of power to exploit their female slaves, as Thomas Thistlewood
recorded about his personal, indiscriminate sexual proclivities on his small
farm in western Jamaica during the second half of the eighteenth century.24
Thistlewood did not marry his long-standing slave housekeeper with whom
he had at least one child, but in his will he did emancipate her and
established a generous endowment for her old age. The degree to which
Thistlewood's informal interracial alliance was common throughout the histor-
ies of the Caribbean slave societies cannot be ascertained. But there is good
reason to assume that his conduct was far from exceptional.

280
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

Interracial relations, however, were not confined to white superordin-

ate males and black subordinate females. Verena Martinez Alier examined
the free non-white community in Cuba during the nineteenth century and
found considerable resistance within the non-whites to marriages to white
individuals whom they considered to be socially inferior. 25 Writing about
Jamaica, Edward Brathwaite observed that, 'In the parish of St Elizabeth
alone, in the period 1780-1815, there were no less than fourteen such [inter-
racial] marriages: white men to coloured women; white women to coloured
men.'26 But these sexual alliances could also span the rigid caste distinctions
of the slave community. Sidney Mintz and Richard Price cite the example
described by R. A. J. van Lier of sexual relationship between slave men and
free women.

In 1711, two cases of sexual contact between a Negro and a white

woman are reported, which prompted the promulgation by Governor
Johan de Hoyer of an edict stipulating that a single white woman who
had intercourse with a Negro was liable to a flogging and expulsion
from the colony, while a married woman would be branded as well.
Negroes were made liable to the death penalty for such an offence.
The immediate cause for the introduction of this legislation was a
petition for divorce by a man by the name of Barend Roelofs, who
stated 'that his wife, Maria Keijser, having [had] carnal intimacy with a
Negro and having become pregnant by him, had been delivered of a
mulatto girl a few months previous.' During the deliberations about this
case, the case of Judith de Castre, who had also had a child by a Negro
but had since married a certain Jean Milton, also came up for discus-
sion. The Hof [Court] resolved to have this Judith de Castre notified that
neither she nor her mother, or anyone else, no matter who, were ever
to bring her mulatto child or have it brought, to Paramaribo [the
capital], on penalty of arbitrary punishment. 27

Such inter-caste, inter-class, interracial activities eventually - and inevitably -

helped create the important intermediate free community (almost everywhere
legally defined as non-white) that realistically spanned the entire spectrum
from white to black. 28 This new population, deSignated by law and custom
as mulattoes and mestizos, represented - in biological as well as cultural
terms the quintessential creole community. No one could be more local than
they, and none internalized the ambiguous novelties of the plural community
more fully.
As the Caribbean societies stabilized demographically, and as the slave
societies entered the final phases of disintegration in the nineteenth century,

281
 General History of the Caribbean

the proportion of women and children steadily increased. By the second

decade of the nineteenth century the proportion of females delivered by the
trade had more than doubled to between 20 and 40 per cent of slaves sold. 29
An increase in the number of women resulted in an increase in the fertility
patterns and a consequent increase in the number of children. More
women and children provided far greater opportunities to socialize and
transmit screw-like patterns of conduct and values from one generation to
the other.
But the process of creolization also depended on the general social and
economic conditions of the specific host society and culture in which the
newly-introduced slaves or their offspring were eventually integrated. The
eventual critical mass that Africans achieved - as well as the age and sex
profile of that sector of the population - responded reciprocally to the local
conditions of the American societies. These local conditions filled a spectrum
from settler communities with a varying African and slave population such as
found in eastern Cuba or the Dominican Republic during the nineteenth
century to fully-fledged plantation societies with very few non-African, non-
slave individuals such as Jamaica, Barbados, most eastern Caribbean islands,
or the Guianas. 3o
Across-the Caribbean Africans found themselves in a wide variety of
day-ta-day circumstances. Sugar plantations represented the situations where
the Africans and other workers tended to be most highly regimented. On the
other hand, slaves in cities, in towns, on small farms, or in some enterprises
such as fishing, itinerant vending, or land or coastal transport found them-
selves with considerable personal liberty as well as opportunities for
unrestricted initiative.

Conclusion

The particular ways in which customs were retained, created, recreated or

sanctioned as permanent traditions bore as much to caprice as to conscious-
ness. But there is far too much in common among Afro-Caribbean popula-
tions across the variegated Caribbean landscape to deny that some powerful,
indelible general influences prevailed. Edward Brathwaite made the point
emphatically when he wrote:

The creolization of the slaves ... had a choice of forms, depending on

the attitude, aptitude and opportunities of the particular slave or group
of slaves, on the one hand; and on the degree of control and coercion
(both physical and psychological) exerted by the master or, more
effectively, by white society as a whole through its institutions. The

282
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

development of the slave within Creole society depended, to put it

another way, as much on the efficiency of the white establishment as
on its own socia-cultural equipment and adaptability.31

From his archaeological research at Drax Hall, Jamaica, Douglas

Armstrong has suggested that garbage from the Great House and the slave
quarters indicated that even when masters and slaves shared the same basic
diet, the ways they prepared and served their foods differed, suggesting vari-
ations in attitudes toward food preparation. 32 This pervasive differentiation
constituted an essential African aesthetics that permeated all aspects of
Caribbean (and Latin American) societies and undergirded that commonality
that made the region a unified culture area. Eventually this African dimension
became an integral part of the regional societies, regardless of the proportion
of Africans in their populations. Anything that may be regarded in the
Caribbean as 'vernacular' is Creole. The African contributions to religion,
language, literature, art, music, dance, public festivals and private mores
were further modified by extensive importations of people from China and
British India during the later nineteenth and early twentieth century.33 The
Caribbean that for long had been a creative amalgam of indigenous
American, European and African cultures demonstrated its continuing elastic-
ity during the nineteenth century with the absorption, adoption and
adaptation of more Indian and Asian cultural elements.
The prolonged, continuous process of creolization, pluralization and
cultural modification that took place in the Caribbean produced a population
that saw itself and its world a bit differently. While a great part of the reality
of the Caribbean world was rigidly constrained by geography, politics,
economics and the accidents of time, much of that world was the creative
construct of generations of people who incessantly tried to carve out a com-
fortable niche within the misery of their coerced daily lives. The abolition of
slavery released even more creative energies among the masses, and the
process has never ceased.

NOTES

1 Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in jamaica, 1770-1820

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. xv-xvi, 306-11. It is important to
bear in mind that Brathwaite's focus is on Jamaica, and therefore his conclusions
are valid for that case. The development of Jamaican colonial society reflected
very few influences from the indigenous or Spanish settlers.
2 For the complex development of the Creole tradition of Louisiana, see Virginia
R. Dominguez, White by Definition. Social Classification in Creole Louisiana
(New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986), pp. 12-16,
93-132.

283
 General History of the Caribbean

3 Nonnan B. Schwartz, Forest Society: A Social History of Peten, Guatemala

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).
4 See Edmund T. Gordon, 'History, Identity, Consciousness and Revolution: Mro-
Nicaraguans and the Nicaraguan Revolution', in CIDCAIDevelopment Study Unit
(ed.), Ethnic Groups and the Nation State, The Case of the Atlantic Coast in
Nicaragua (Stockholm: University of Stockholm, 1987), pp. 135-68.
5 See Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica,
1770-1820 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. xiv-xv.
6 See for example, Ivan van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus: The African
Presence in Ancient America (New York: Random House, 1976).
7 See Crist6bal Col6n, Los cuatro viajes. Testamento edited by Consuelo Varela
(Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1986), pp. 11-12. If Pedro Alonso Nino, the pilot of
the flagship Santa Maria was black, then it is possible that he might have been
related to Juan Nino the master and owner of the accompanying caravel, La
Nina.
8 The reciprocity of the early exchange may be followed in Alfred W. Crosby, Jr.
The Columbian Exchange. Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1972); and Carl O. Sauer, The Early
Spanish Main (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19(6).
9 Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God. Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 9.
10 Levi Marrero, Cuba: econom{a y sociedad, 15 volumes (Madrid: Playor,
1972-1988); Troy S. Floyd, The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973); Enriqueta Vila Vilar,
Historia de Puerto Rico, 1600-1650 (Seville: Consejo Superior, 1974); Blanca G.
Silvestrini and Maria Dolores Luque de Sanchez, Historia de Puerto Rico: trayec-
toria de un pueblo (San Juan: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1987); Jack P.
Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British
Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1988); Franklin W. Knight, 'Slavery and the Transformation
of Society in Cuba, 1511-1760', The 1988 Elsa Goveia MemorialLecture(Mona,
Jamaica: Department of History, 1988); Franklin W. Knight, 'Slavery and Lagging
Capitalism in the Spanish and Portuguese American Empires, 1492-1713', in
Barbara 1. Solow (ed.), Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 62-74.
11 See Chapter 2. Figures for the respective component units of the Caribbean may
be found in Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean. The Genesis of a Fragmented
Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 366-7. There are
no available figures for the Dominican Republic, but in 1791 the slaves
comprised only 12 per cent of the total population of the Spanish colony of
Santo Domingo, thereby placing its demographic profile somewhere between
that of Puerto Rico and Cuba.
12 Lady Maria Nugent, Lady Nugent'sJournal, edited by Philip Wright (Kingston:
Institute of Jamaica, 19(6), p. 132. Emphasis in the original.
13 See Chapter 9.
J4 See H. Hoetink, Slavery and Race Relations in the Americas. Comparative Notes
on their Nature and Nexus (New York, Harper & Row, 1973).
15 Quoted in Magnus M6rner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1%7), pp. 5~.

284
 Pluralism, creolization and culture

16 Quoted in Knight, The Caribbean, p. 152.

17 Cited in Knight, The Caribbean, p. 153.
18 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983).
19 Manuel Moreno Fraginals, 'Cultural Contributions and Deculturation', in Manuel
Moreno Fraginals (ed.), African in Latin America. Translated by Leonor Blum
(New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1984), p. 19. The emphasis is in the
original.
20 Brathwaite, Creole Society, pp. 306-11. See also Brathwaite, 'The African
Presence in Caribbean Literature', in Manuel Moreno Fraginals (ed.), Africa and
the Caribbean (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984), pp. 103-44; and
Brathwaite, The Folk Culture of the Slaves injamaica (London and Port of Spain:
New Beacon Books, 1970).
21 Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-
American Past: A Caribbean Perspective (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of
Human Issues, 1976), p. 13.
22 Bridget Brereton, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad, 1870-1900 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979); Patrick Bryan, The jamaican People,
1880-1902 (London: Macmillan, 1991); Franklin W. Knight and Colin A. Palmer
(eds), The Modern Caribbean (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1989).
23 See Harry Hoetink, 'The Cultural Links', in Margaret E. Crahan and Franklin W.
Knight (eds), Africa and the Caribbean: The Legacies of a Link (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 20-40.
24 Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery - Thomas Thistlewood in jamaica,
1750-1786 (London: Macmillan, 1989).
25 Verena Martinez Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth Century Cuba
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
26 Brathwaite, Creole Society, p. 188. All the marriages, however, were among free
persons - and all the non-whites were listed as 'reputed mestizo', 'reputed
quadroon', 'quadroon' or 'mestizo'.
27 Mintz and Price, The Afro-American Past, pp. 14-15.
28 Jerome Handler, The Unappropriated People: Freedmen in the Slave Society in
Barbados (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974); Mavis C. Campbell,
The Dynamics of Change in a Slave Society: a Socio-Political History of the Free
Coloreds of jamaica, 1800-1865 (Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairley Dickinson
University Press, 1976); Gad Heuman, Between Black and White: Race, Politics
and the Free Coloreds in jamaica, 1792-1833 (Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Publishers, 1981); Edward L. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave
Societies of St Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833 (Knoxville: The University of
Tennessee Press, 1984); and, D. W. Cohen and). P. Greene (eds), NeitherSlave
nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New
World, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972).
29 Manuel Moreno Fraginals, 'Africa in Cuba: A Quantitative Analysis of the African
Population in the Island of Cuba', in Vera Rubin and Arthur Tuden (eds),
Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies (New
York: Academy of Sciences, 1977), pp. 187-201; B. W. Higman, Slave
Population and Economy in jamaica, 1807-1834 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1976), p. 72.

285
 General History of the Caribbean

30 For a discussion on the differences between settler and exploitation societies see
Knight, The Caribbean, pp. 74-5 and pp. 163-4. For slave and white popula-
tions see David Watts, The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and
Environmental Change since 1492 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987); B.W. Higman, Slave Populations in the British Caribbean, 1807-1834
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).
31 Brathwaite, Creole Society, p. 244.
32 Douglas V. Armstrong, Old Village and the Great House: An Archeological and
Historical Examination of Drax Hall Plantation, St Ann's Bay, Jamaica (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1990). See also Jack Berthelot and Martine Guamt'!,
Kaz Antiye Jan Moun KaretelCaribbean Popular DwellingiL 'Habitat populaire
aux Antilles (Paris: Editions Caribeennes, 1982).
33 See Moreno Fraginals, Africa in Latin America; John Nunley and Judith
Bettelheim (eds), Caribbean Festival Arts (St Louis: University of Washington
Press, 1988).

286
 9

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Mary Turner

R ELIGIOUS beliefs illuminate mankind's eternal struggle to interpret the

external forces that control daily life. The universality of religious
thought demonstrates that all religions are species of the same class
and deal with problems fundamental to the human race: life and death,
health and sickness, the forces of destiny as they affect both the individual
and the collective. Viewed historically, these efforts to explain the contra-
dictory forces that determine human fate in terms of a universe filled with
spiritual forces, dominated both Europe and Africa until a few eighteenth-
century European philosophers attacked this method and sought to analyse
material life in secular terms.
Religious beliefs, however, whether embedded in oral or written tradi-
tion, interpreted the spiritual universe in terms that reflected the material
condition and the social and political structures of specific societies. Religion,
consequently, was instrumental to social and political change, social and
political control. These processes, richly documented for some periods in
European history can also be discerned in, for example, seventeenth-century
and twentieth-century Central Africa.
The religious beliefs defined by African slave workers and their des-
cendants throughout the Americas added a new chapter to the long history
of religious thought. It records how people living at the margins of sub-
sistence, stripped of kin folk and country, traumatized by transatlantic ship-
ment and condemned to forced labour, pitted their minds against their
circumstances to define a collectively recognized spiritual universe whose
powers pertained specifically to slave workers. They utilized, moreover,
elements derived both from Africa and Europe to create new forms of
popular religion that continue to develop in the present. This chapter
outlines the religious beliefs that characterized the Caribbean component of
this hemispheriC development. 1
The follOWing pages utilize studies of twentieth-century Caribbean reli-
gion by anthropologists as well as modem historical investigations and some
contemporary sources, which afford brief glimpses of religious practices
refracted through European perceptions. References to individual territories,

287
 General History of the Caribbean

however, are not all inclusive and reflect the limited sources available. Every
attempt has been made, though, to establish the historical validity of the
developments outlined below.

The ethnic origins of the slave workforce

The slave workers' most important single resource was the body of ideas
developed to serve the ethnic groups from which they were recruited. As the
tentacles of the slave trade spread throughout the Guinea coast and into
Central Africa, these represented half a continent and encompassed concepts
from expansive world religious systems, both Muslim and Christian. Muslims
were recruited from the upper Guinea coast and Catholic Christians from the
Kongo kingdom.
The ethnic origins of the slave workforce in any given Caribbean terri-
tory cannot readily or reliably be established. Research on the slave trade has
concentrated on the ports of departure which indicate primarily a catchment
area from which cargoes were recruited. It has proved most revealing in
relation to the nineteenth century when Cuba was the most important slave
market. Population analyses, while delineating the proportions of African and
Caribbean born, rarely provide country of origin profiles for any given
moment. Linguistic research, however, suggests that essential elements of
Caribbean Creole languages were defined by the first generation of slave
workers who 'seasoned' subsequent newcomers to the Caribbean way of life.
It is possible that the fundamentals of religious belief systems were defined
with equal rapidity; at the same time, the fact that in twentieth-century Haiti,
Grenada and neighbouring Carriacou people continue to identify themselves
in religious rituals by a multiplicity of African 'nations' suggests that belief
systems remained responsive to influxes of new Africans. Other factors,
discussed below, also proved significant. Work conditions, in particular, dic-
tated the scale and density of population units, influenced the generation of
Caribbean-born slave workers, the emergence of free black and coloured
strata and involved exposure to a new religious framework.
Religious traditions in Africa, as in Europe, manifested both sharp local
differences and underlying similarities. A broad distinction can be drawn,
firstly, between areas of cumulative growth and development that allowed
the emergence of distinctive cultures over large areas, and the Africa of small
chieftaincies identified with a diversity of ethnic groups. Four large-scale
organizations can be discerned in West Africa during the slave trading era
identified with the Mande of the upper Guinea coast, the Yoruba and Aja of
Oyo (western Nigeria) and Dahomey, and the Ibo and Ibibio of eastern
Nigeria. In Central Africa there was the Kongo kingdom (Zaire).

288
14 Dance
15 Religious worship
16 Sunday morning in town
17 Free market in Falmouth, Jamaica, c.1840
18 From Harper's WeekZY: Punishing slaves in Cuba, 1868

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tal. It u") tlr J~r/O. Ilfl a "llrur tI~ lorhll' IIi
rnfrrm~d(lJ~I. mol d~ l'tlrtl:..m. GOla .'Orol, df'S.
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por roen/a del comprad r, 1 tam..._11 Ja rs ".-
lura.
IIf11ro Sr. BuaNe d rmd. muchOi
lIo60,l/l 1 .Q~ J.L d
B. L. I. d I'md. . S. S.
18.,

19 Certificate for slave sale in Cuba, 1814

20 The Kalinda, or stick dance, Dominica (probably nineteenth century)
 r. _u._DQ.oda [t lIS0}

[. 1160]

21 Three scenes from Cuba: i) Semi-mechanized sugar manufacture, c.1850

ii) Cart for transporting canes, c.1860 iii) Slaves dancing, c.1865
22 BOiling house, c.lSOO

23 Cutting, cleaning and stacking sugar-canes, manually

 Religious beliefs

In these regions complex belief systems were intertwined with the

political structure and developed ranks of religious specialists, priests,
mediums, diviners and doctors. The conversion of the ruling clan in the
Kongo kingdom to Christianity in the late fifteenth century also introduced
Catholic priests. Outside these areas, however, religious beliefs and practices
tended to be localized, strongly associated with particular villages and kin
groups, a feature which remains characteristic of twentieth-century rural
Africa. 2
This diversity in scale and complexity of religious and political struc-
tures did not preclude, however, some fundamental similarities in per-
ceptions of the universe and the purposes served by the embodiments of
supernatural forces that peopled it. Gods who were the personifications of
the forces of nature and of destiny, intennediate ranks of lesser gods (no less
than 1700 in the elaborate Yoruba system) and the spirits of dead kin folk
constituted the most important elements. Beliefs relating to the ancestral
dead constituted the most powerful and pervasive component. In the Kongo
the Catholics found it necessary to acknowledge as Christian the cult of the
named dead, generated by the mani Kongo. 3
The spirit world was densely peopled and constantly served individuals
in the course of daily activities, by households, religious specialists, village
and SOCiety-wide celebrations with sacrifices, music, dance and feasting.
People sought in particular, good health and crops, large families and pro-
tection from misfortune. The power of the spirit world was manifested in
innumerable ways: through dreams and signs, through direct communication
by mediums, through messages interpreted by diviners. Its powers, also,
could be concealed in special objects, rituals and compounds known only to
religious specialists.
African religiOUS beliefs, in common with popular religiOns world wide,
stressed the utilization of supernatural power for material ends. Central to the
definition of these supernatural powers, however, was the comprehension
that they represented the contradictory nature of material life; the spirit world
was capable of promoting both life and death, prosperity and famine, social
cohesion and social conflict. The skills of the religiOUS specialists, mediators
for the spirit world, could therefore be used to promote every fonn of inter-
personal rivalry and vengeance. Such activities, utilizing procedures con-
sidered religious in other contexts, were sometimes designated witchcraft
and sorcery. 4
African religious beliefs, however, were constantly changing. National
rivalries, conquest, clan divisions, migrations, new trading patterns, recurrent
struggles to identify !1nd expel heretic 'witches' and 'sorcerers', all manifes-
tations of economic and political conflicts, induced reinterpretations and
change. The slave workers' religious baggage consequently varied not only

289
 General History of the Caribbean

in relation to ethnic grouping, but over time. During the mid-seventeenth

century, for example, in the region t\1at commanded the trade routes to the
north of the Zaire river, a major new religious cult called Lemba developed.
It became the governing order of an area with no centralized political institu-
tions and endured until early this century. Lemba cult concepts and practices
in due course were transferred to St Domingue and Brazil. Religious change
and innovation - which included the decline of Catholic influence in the
Kongo from the end of the seventeenth century - characterized the slave
trading areas; only the Yoruba, who constituted no part of slave cargoes until
the late eighteenth century, continued their internal religiOUS development
uninterrupted until the mid-nineteenth century.s
The processes of change, however, informed religious traditions with
practices conducive to adaptation. Beliefs and techniques originally specific
to particular ethnic groups proliferated by migration, conquest, inter-
marriage, or the pursuit of expert knowledge (from highly-reputed oracles
and diviners, for example) from one people to another. The command of
religious expertise, moreover, derived directly from the spirit world and was
not necessarily associated, as among the Yoruba, with intensive training.
Most importantly, however, the Significance attached to the spirits of the
ancestors made each family group, each kin connection the potential
framework for a new spiritual universe.

The African religious inheritance and slave working

conditions
The development of this Mrican religious inheritance in the Caribbean was
vitally affected, however, by work conditions and by the new religious
framework in which slave workers found themselves depOSited. The planta-
tion work routine, characteristic of Spanish, British, French and some Dutch
territories from the earliest decades of settlement, imposed fundamental
constraints. Labour demands were intense, particularly when they involved
forest clearing, or the construction of irrigation or drainage works. The fun-
damental problem, as Cuban slaves observed in the nineteenth century, was
to remain alive. The differentials between work routines in sugar, coffee,
cotton production, pen-keeping and mixed production, while Significant,
were not sufficient to prevent massive deculturation of the slave labour force
as a whole. Skills irrelevant to plantation and household production, tool and
weapon making, weaving and dyeing, for example, were destroyed. Aesthetic
and country customs, tattooing, teeth filing and circumcision were often
suppressed, or abandoned as irrelevant to Caribbean life. 6

290
 Religious beliefs

Labour demands were more variable in the mixed farm economy of the
early Spanish Caribbean, characterized before the nineteenth-century sugar
revolution by cattle ranching and small-scale tobacco and coffee production.
Urban slave workers, however, whose occupations ranged widely from
porter to goldsmith, experienced some limited personal freedom that allowed
significantly greater margins for cultural development within the formally
structured European colonial situation.
The new formal religious framework comprised, in part, the colonial
state churches: Catholic, Anglican and Dutch Reformed which all enjoyed to
differing degrees, government assistance in the form of land grants and free
passages for their clergy. In Catholic territories such assistance reflected a
clearly-defined policy that viewed religious conformity as essential to the
social control of all classes.

Colonial state churches and religious conformity

The Catholic church, with its celibate clergy and religious orders, was
structurally well adapted to extending its historic missionary role from
Europe to the Americas. Catholicism was most forcefully represented in the
Spanish islands where the church constituted one component of the Spanish
American establishment and throughout the period of slavery retained
significant ruling-class support. The church was well staffed; and before the
sugar revolutions of late eighteenth-century Cuba and nineteenth-century
Puerto Rico the slave populations grew slowly. In the mid-eighteenth century
Cuba had 29000 slaves and 117000 whites, Puerto Rico had 5000 slaves- and
17000 whites, and Santo Domingo had 9000 slaves and 31000 whites. Cuba
in 1774 had more than a thousand clergy for a population of 200000, or one
priest for every 168 inhabitants.
In the French islands the settlers themselves, later assisted by secular
priests and religious orders, instructed their slaves. They established a tradi-
tion which, according to du Tertre, characterized presque tout les habitations
aux iles du Vent in the late seventeenth century: slave workers were called to
morning and evening prayers conducted by the owner, or his attorney. This
tradition persisted, even in the predominantly secular society of eighteenth-
century St Domingue, among sugar planters in Leogane and well-established
coffee producers in the south.
The Catholic church in the French islands, however, reflected the com-
parative weakness of the metropolitan establishment; the Church in Spain,
purged by the counter-reformation and disciplined by the Inquisition, served
a global imperial government which was the self-proclaimed shield and

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sword of the Catholic faith. In France, by contrast, Catholic church and

monarchy barely sustained a prolonged seventeenth-century struggle with
French Protestants and in the eighteenth century became the target for attack
by outstanding secular theorists. These manifestations of the growing
economic power and political ambition of a mercantile bourgeoisie engaged
Catholic energies at home and made recruitment of priests for the colonies
difficult. At the same time, the development of plantation production con-
fronted a poorly staffed church with rapidly increasing slave populations
commanded by white parishioners who numbered barely one to five slaves
in Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana, and a scant one to 13 in
St Domingue.
The clergy in both Spanish and French territories, however, were
officially committed to converting slave workers. The French government
underlined this obligation in the Code Noir, first published in 1685, that
guaranteed the slaves free exercise of the Catholic religion, the right to
baptism, marriage, and holidays on Catholic feast days. Most significantly, it
also dictated that positions of authority on the plantations - headmen and
drivers - must be held only by baptized and instructed slave workers. Since
the Catholic church was an extensive landowner and slaveholder, instruction
by the clergy, like instruction by the planters, represented at one level an
extension of work discipline. French and Spanish policy, however, by
according religious practices significance, offered the slave population
opportunities for public worship and participation in rituals that served
recognizable purposes by proViding access to new supernatural powers and
to authority and privileges within the slave system. The slave workers' use of
Catholicism in relation to their own concepts will be discussed later.
Slaves deposited in Protestant territories found no equivalent cohesive
religious framework. The destruction of the Catholic church and the pro-
liferation of independent Protestant sects deprived England and Holland of
unifying ecclesiastical structures capable of coordinated missionary work
and, having fuelled a war of national liberation in the Netherlands and revo-
lution in England, reaffirmed the revolutionary potential of Christian teach-
ing. Christian beliefs, in short, had become expressions of intellectual and
class conflict rather than of class integration. The Anglican and Dutch
Reformed official state churches, established to recreate religious conformity
signally failed to quell dissent despite punitive legislation. These churches,
transposed to the colonies, were initially sensitive to competitors and reluc-
tant to extend religious instruction to the slave population. The settlers them-
selves were few in number. Figures for the mid-eighteenth century show
Barbados comparatively densely settled with one white to every four slaves;
but Suriname had merely 2000 among a slave population of 50000 and pro-
portions of one white to every ten slaves were characteristic. Demography

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 Religious beliefs

reinforced the planters' perception, clearly delineated in their slave codes, of

Africans primarily as commodities. They exposed their property to no more
than ritual baptism.
Slave workers in these territories were first touched by active
Christianity through informal contacts: with Catholic Irish indentured workers
in Barbados, for example, and with Quaker artisans and small traders.
Seventeenth-century Quakers established a scattering of meeting houses in
the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Nevis, Barbados and Jamaica. Slave worker
conversions by the Quakers revealed the Anglican planters' positive hostility
to dissent: Nevis (1661) closed its doors to Quakers, and Barbados (1676)
confiscated slaves found in Quaker meetings. The slaves had little access to
the whites' sources of supernatural power until eighteenth-century religiOUS
revivalism reached the Caribbean. 7
The frontiers of Catholic and Protestant jurisdiction, however, fluc-
tuated. The fortunes of war made St Christopher, for example, originally
divided between French and English settlers into Protestant St Kitts. Clerical
and missionary pressure opened doors apparently closed; the officially
Protestant Dutch Antilles remained nominally a Catholic jurisdiction (part of
the See of Caracas) and from 1704 Catholic priests were permitted to work in
Cura\;ao.
In Protestant colonies, particularly the English and the Dutch, Judaism
was tolerated. Synagogues were established in the most important trading
centres and in Suriname Jews comprised the largest single group of white
settlers. They established their own settlement at }oden Savane before
moving to Paramaribo where they constituted, in the mid-eighteenth century,
almost one-half the population and one of the largest jewish communities in
the New World. They generated a mulatto community that organized its own
brotherhoods and religiOUS practices. 8
The religious framework was further diversified when colonies opened
their doors to refugees - Huguenots driven from France, Jews and
Protestants from Brazil, deportees and convicts as well as indentured workers
- all conversant to some degree with both official and popular forms of
Christianity, including their own forms of witchcraft.
Most Significantly, however, in the Guianas, Belize and some of the
lesser Antilles, the slave workers were exposed to interaction with the indigen-
ous Indian population - a process most thoroughly documented in relation
to the Maroon communities. In St Domingue the servile population also
included Indians imported from Louisiana and Canada.
The centrally important feature of the slave workers' new religiOUS
setting, however, was consistent throughout the Caribbean: non-Christian
beliefs and practices were outlawed and practitioners punished with torture,
transportation and death. The laws were not consistently applied. Such

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punishments, however, sharply delineated the political significance of the

slave workers' religion. Their claim tq command supernatural forces specific
to the slave community potentially challenged white hegemony, and the
struggle to establish customary rights to public rituals, in particular funeral
rituals, was one element in the silent, subterranean guerrilla war that charac-
terized relations between masters and slaves.
The practical and legal constraints on religious developments were
counter-balanced, however, by the slave workers' overwhelming need to
combat the terrors generated by their circumstances and to re-order their
universe. Every imported slave worker in the Americas was robbed of family,
community, country, and traumatized to some extent by an ocean voyage
and incorporation into alien societies. This transition impacted most harshly
on the earliest waves of slave plantation workers. The beliefs and rituals they
formulated, utilizing concepts embedded in the consciousness formed in
their African homelands, established in the first generation of settlement the
foundations of traditional Caribbean religious beliefs. 9

The Saramakas and traditional Caribbean religious

beliefs

The creative processes involved in the generation of slave worker beliefs are
most fully recorded in the oral history of rebel slaves who presently consti-
tute the Saramakas in Suriname.lO Saramakan oral tradition provides a unique
insight into key moments of religious conceptualization among plantation
slave workers. It locates concretely one primary source of concepts that under-
pinned the development of distinctively Caribbean religious formations. Such
moments of religiOUS history are customarily obscured by elaborate mytholo-
gies, or embedded in oral traditions of such antiquity that the historic and the
supernatural cannot be unravelled. Saramakan history, however, reveals the
material circumstances which prompted recourse to supernatural power.
Saramakan tradition, in common with religious myth systems world-
wide, associates supernatural power with heroism. The experiences which
prompted heroic action, however, characterize slave work conditions. The
founder of the Matjaus group, Lanu, and his wife, for example, defied a work
rule that prohibited the drinking of sugar-cane juice. She offered it and he
accepted. Both were punished; she was flogged to death, he was flogged
unconscious. When Lanu recovered, his wife's spirit prompted him to run
away to the forest. In the wilderness he sought her guidance again, but his
invocations were answered instead by Wamba, the spirit of the forest itself,
which led him to an Indian settlement where he found refuge.

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 Religious belieft

Outright murder of a relative and grievous bodily harm sustained by

Lanu himself, prompted individual rebellion that was sanctioned by the dead
and supported by the forces of nature. The bestiality of plantation life forced
slave workers to invoke support and guidance from dead kin folk and nature
spirits. Most leaders were distinguished by their power to communicate with
these spirits and consequently enjoyed supernatural powers manifested in
different forms.
The leaders learnt from the spirits, or were enabled to devise in
moments of crisis (when the Saramakas, for example, were endangered by
troops in hot pursuit) specific ritual methods to deal with problems that
could only be resolved by acute judgement heightened by a tendency to
prophesy, and with the assistance of specialist knowledge. These inventions
reflect the determination, common to all pre-scientific societies to find
definite and practical ways to bridge dangerous gaps in every important
pursuit or critical situation. The original revelation takes place in 'those
passionate experiences which assail (man) in the impasses of his instinctive
life and of his practical pursuits'. The Saramakas called these special powers
(or 6bias) and they were manifested in different forms.
Some 6bias required the use of sacred objects and substances together
with ritual knowledge which was handed down from generation to genera-
tion of specialists. By the late twentieth century when Saramakan oral history
was recorded, some of this knowledge (such as a method of re-filling banana
skins, a recipe for survival in the wilderness) was declared lost, and some
deliberately destroyed by leaders to punish those who questioned their
power.
6bias, however, also consisted of objects compounded of substances
that themselves embodied supernatural power; they became the focus of cult
worship in the manner recorded of ngangas, (usually embodied in an iron
pot), in twentieth-century Central Africa. The Saramakas produced a complex
of important fighting and healing 6bias whose cults survived until the begin-
ning of the twentieth-century. The war 6bias told them when the whites
were coming and made them invisible in the forest; the healing 6bia, derived
from a Dahomean runaway who joined the rebels, mended broken bones
and cured gun-shot wounds. As recently as 1980 victims of tree felling
accidents preferred treatment by specialists in this 6bia to that of hospital
treatment.
Integral to the effectiveness of the 6bias was the power of prophesy, of
divination, the capacity to foresee and influence the fate of the individual or
the group. Saramakan history integrates supernatural and political power;
decisions crucial to successful escapes, successful forest journeys, good
choices for places of settlement, sound diplomatic decisions in relation to the
Dutch and, in the eighteenth century, to Moravian missionaries, were all

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taken with such guidance. Leaders with the greatest reputation for
supernatural power, were described as 'ripe' and attributed with the power
to fly, to make themselves invisible and to evade death. Ritual specialists,
some of whom learnt new skills from the forest Indians, shared these powers
and acted as special advisers to the political leaders, used their skills in
service of the community and organized cult worship.ll
Saramaka beliefs adumbrate the supernatural universe as first con-
ceived by slave workers. It comprised the spirits of dead kinsmen and spirits
representing the forces of nature and of human destiny personified by a
pantheon of gods. The spiritual world was served by the families of the dead
and by cult worship and its powers were used by religious experts for
practical ends.
The basic ingredients, the component parts of these religious beliefs,
derived from the slaves' African homelands. Twentieth-century forms of
Caribbean traditional religions, Haitian vodun, Cuban Santeria, Trinidadian
Shango, Jamaican Cumina, for example, embody residuals of African cos-
mologies, rituals and concepts. The extent of cosmological references alone
suggest that some of the gods from all the main slave trading areas survived.
The incorporation of Christian beliefs and practices into this structure, which
took place at different epochs and to differing degrees in Catholic and
Protestant, plantation and settlement colonies, will be discussed later in the
chapter.
For the majority of the first slave workers thrust into plantation pro-
duction, service to the gods became a motive force for cultural develop-
ments. It prompted, to the extent circumstances permitted, instrument and
artifact making - drums dedicated to the gods, statues, masks and objects to
represent them - the establishment of sacred places, rituals, objects, and the
panoply of dance and drama which, in its public, urban manifestations,
impressed visiting whites and roused amusement and fear in residents
throughout the plantation colonies. It was the core element in the accretion
of folk tales, proverbs, work songs, the popular culture that surfaced at the
end of the work week, a vessel for the creative imagination of people living
at the margins of subsistence. It also sanctioned the new patterns of social
relationships which were structured, in part, by the dictates of plantation pro-
duction, but modified by slave village value systems.

Ancestor worship
The most important single component of slave beliefs rested in the power of
ancestral spirits, an element found throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The slave
trade instigated new artificial kinship groups. Slaves confined together in the

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hell holes of the Middle Passage called each other, in a tenn used throughout
the Caribbean, shipmates. Shipmates, split into parcels at the dockside and
distributed to the plantations, became occupants of a new territory, the slave
village with its gardens and associated provision grounds. They were subjects
of a new master and some of the earliest groups recognized themselves as
members of a new tribe, or nation. They adopted their owners' name and in
some cases retained it when, as rebels, they themselves later founded free
villages. New households and families were established, regulated where
possible by sexual mating patterns which were recognized among the slaves
themselves.
Ancestor worship assisted these processes. It allowed each slave
worker to rationalize historic reality and acknowledge both their family in
Africa and their new kin relationships in the Caribbean. The African ancestral
connection was preserved over the generations and, embodied in the ritual
Big Drum dance, continued in the mid-twentieth century to identify the
national origins of community members in places such as Grenada and
Carriacou. The ancestors supplied each slave, household and kin group with
a source of spiritual power by nature exclusive to the slave community,
marked over time by burial places that served as family shrines. Regulating
relations with the spirits of the dead constituted a primary duty acknowl-
edged, as missionaries observed, even by Christian converts, to the end of
the slavery period. 12
Belief in the ancestral spirits, most importantly, supported the notion of
the slaves' invincibility in the face of death and secured them enough hold
on the future to ensure psychological survival. The conviction that each spirit
released by death returned to Africa to feast with the ancestors endured for
generations and substituted in the minds of Christian converts for the hope
of heaven. Slave belief in immortality was most forcefully expressed by indi-
vidual and group suicides. The public focus of ancestor worship, however,
especially in the Protestant territories were funerals. The slaves exploited the
Europeans' acute sense of their own mortality and the fact that corpses in a
tropical climate required rapid disposal, preferably without cost to the pro-
duction unit, and claimed the right to bury their own dead. They celebrated
their relatives' and their workmates' essential worth and accorded the dead
the respect denied slave life. Their customary right to public funerals, in the
face of European hostility to slave religiOUS practices, marked a significant
political gain.
Slave funeral rituals were elaborated over the generations to reflect
the standard of living accorded to different strata of the slave population.
Richard Ligon reported from Barbados in 1657 simply that, 'when any of
them die, they dig a grave, and at evening they bury him, clapping and
wringing their hands and making a doleful sound with their voices'. These

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procedures came to include drumming, dance and song; when resources

permitted, rum and victuals were th.rown into the grave, buried with the
corpse, or spilled over it, and, whenever possible, distributed at a funeral
feast. The most 'sumptuous' plantation food, chicken and pork as well as
cassava, was left in calabashes at the grave. The funeral itself was followed
by commemorative feasts, held in Jamaica on the ninth and fortieth nights
after the funeral, where the dead were treated as guests. Relatives wore signs
of mourning, cut their hair, or wore distinctive head scarves for a year.
Funeral rituals, however, reflected not only belief in immortality and
the role of the dead in the fortunes of the living, but also the belief that
death was related to the reality of social conflict. Funeral rituals consequently
incorporated divination techniques; the body directed the coffin bearers
along the road it chose, forced them to stop or to run, and pushed the coffin
from their shoulders to identify enemies.

Cults and cult leaders

The ancestral spirits presided over the household world. Nature spirits and
creatures representing the forces of nature controlled the universe. Recourse
to the power of natural forces was, in part, a response to critical circum-
stances (like Lanu calling on Wamba) and in part reflected knowledge of
specific African spirit hierarchies refreshed by contacts with newly-imported
slaves as long as the slave trade lasted. In Maroon communities, as in Africa,
priests capable of direct communication with the gods led cults in their
service and parallel developments among urban slaves, identified initially as
special 'dances' were noted by European observers. It has been argued that
plantation slave work, even in Catholic territories where Catholic feast days
were observed, left no margin for the development of religious cults.
Evidence from the United States, however, makes it clear that slaves who
worked under the eye of a comparatively dense white population and in
villages policed by patrollers, succeeded in maintaining group worship in
secret. Caribbean slaves operating in more favourable conditions no doubt
did the same.13
The cult leaders included African-born religious experts who may have
found opportunities to recruit young successors and promote a live tradition.
Religious power, however, derived directly from the spirit world, through
spirit possession or by finding a sacred object. It could be evoked by any
slave who, like Lanu, felt impelled to do so. Cult leaders as mediums for the
gods wielded great authority in the slave community; they compacted
functions as priests, mediums, diviners and doctors which in some African
societies ana in the Maroon communities generated ranks of specialists. Such

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 Religious beliefs

cult leaders may have emerged wherever conditions allowed among both
rural and urban workers and imprinted their group with distinctive features
reflecting traditional national practices as recalled in the Caribbean.
Cult worship certainly made its mark on local vocabulary: Myal, vodun,
Shango, Winti and Confu. These labels, particular to each geographic area,
embrace diverse ritual practices which invoked water, forest, air and earth
spirits. Water spirit cults occurred throughout the Caribbean; forest spirits
customarily enshrined, as in parts of West Africa, in the silk cotton tree are
recorded in Jamaica, British Guiana and St Vincent. These core elements
were surrounded by personifications, or totems, of the forces of destiny
together with deified African and, in due course, Caribbean-born ancestors.
All elements were combined, twentieth-century research suggests, in
what contemporary observers designated 'snake worship', and associated
with slaves from Dahomey. The Whydah people considered the earth was
held up by a pair of great snakes, so the snake symbolized the earth. The
snake also symbolized, however, a silent, uncontrollable, undulating life
force called Da. Da was in essence the changing fortunes of the individual, a
force that had to be cared for and protected in case it disappeared. At the
same time Da aido Wedo, the Rainbow serpent, was the mythical ancestor of
the Whydah people. A giant snake also featured prominently in the spirit
world of the Kongo and neighbouring regions. Serpents were commonly
used as a source of power in Suriname, Jamaica and St Domingue in
the slavery period and endured in nineteenth-century Jamaica as well as
twentieth-century Haiti. 14
These spirits communicated the strongest powers known to the slaves
and the sacred nature of the shrines established for their worship, in silk
cotton trees, and in particular springs (such as Grand Etang in Grenada and
Chester Castle in Jamaica) endured for generations after slavery was
abolished. The perception of natural features as sacred, and as the dwelling
place of spirits is of course common throughout Africa. The possibility that
shrines to these gods, village centres of cult worship, the equivalent of
hounfours in contemporary Haiti, existed on some plantations cannot be
overlooked. One such chapel was observed by the resident attorney of a
Jamaican plantation in 1829 among slaves who, despite his encouragement
and the efforts of the local clergyman, remained firmly dismissive of official
Christianity .
Cult worship evoked the spirit of the god with prolonged drumming
and dancing, ritual feasting and, when possible and considered appropriate,
animal sacrifices; during the ritual the cult leader became possessed by the
spirit, an experience his followers might share. Cult rituals served a number
of important purposes. In the first place, the ceremonies propitiated the spirit
world in general and affirmed the religiOUS convictions of the community. As

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a Danish West Indian slave told one investigator, 'That is what our ancestors
believed, that is what they practised'. The form of worship, drumming and
dancing and spirit possession, provided cathartic release from oppressive and
conflictive conditions. The gods were invoked, however, to resolve specific
crises which continued to prompt cult activities in the post-emancipation
period: drought, epidemics and reverses of political fortune.
The water spirit cult came to the slave owners' attention since drought
affected sugar-cane yield as well as slave food crop production. Mer
abolition, estate managers were known to supply an old ox for a Myal
sacrifice to 'the mistress of the river'. Rain-making, which remains an import-
ant function in some African societies, was supremely important to the slave
population. The Jamaican planter-historian Edward Long commented that
rain on the provision grounds was the only gift of the gods for which the
slaves were grateful. Epidemics also prompted cult ceremonies. The medici-
nal power of the gods, however, had observable limitations; priests in
St Thomas, for example, rationalized their helplessness in the epidemics that
struck with each rainy season by declaring the gods had gone away to the
court of the supreme deity. IS
Twentieth-century research reveals, more importantly, that some of the
names of gods from all the slave trading areas of Africa have survived. Given
tlie great diversity of traditional African religion (no less than 1000 forms
have been identified) the remnants currently identifiable in the Caribbean
cannot be regarded as extensive. The survival of these names, however,
is very suggestive. They may indicate that in the creation of new village
communities on the plantations, just as in the creation of the urban clubs
(discussed below) the Africans re-grouped themselves where possible by
nation. It is clear, however, that given the great diversity of the slaves'
origins, these national identities were to some extent convenient recon-
stitutions. Analysis of the national origins and mating patterns of the
Trinidadian slave population in 1813 reveals, for example, that the popu-
lation of 13980 was recruited continent-wide, from Senegambia to
Mozambique. While most of these Africans found African mates, only 32
per cent found partners from their own region. Cult groups, like household
membership patterns, necessarily adjusted to circumstances. The gods
worshipped, consequently, represented collective choices made at village
level, influenced, no doubt, in some cases by the presence of an expert
from a specific provenance. 16
The significance of the cult groups lies less in the specifics of African
cosmology which they preserved, than in their maintenance of customary
African methods of expressing collective problems and seeking collectively
solutions to them. The cults both preserved and developed collective
knowledge of the slaves' religion. Cult members were repositories of exper-

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tise in the significance of every drum, dance, mask, ritual, ritual object and
sacrifice. The members knew the best ways to serve their god. Anchored
firmly to collectively recognized methods of dealing with the spirit world and
the vicissitudes of life, cult leaders were also capable of elaborating the
world view they inherited.
Powerful religiOUS leaders, some of whom were deified in their own
right and became Caribbean gods, founded.new cults. One such example
was Dom Pedre, a slave reputedly of Spanish origin who established himself
in 1768 at Petit Goave, one of the smallest settlements (20 houses) in
St Domingue. He was a vodun leader, reputedly very 'ripe', a powerful
instrument of supernatural forces with a particular reputation as a prophet -
he could see everything with his own eyes. Dom Pedre devised new rituals
and laced brandy with finely ground gunpowder to produce a particularly
violent form of dance. Most significantly, however, his powers led him to
being deified in his own right. Twentieth-century oral tradition in the
Mirebelais valley identified Dom Pedre as the founder of the 'squad' of
vodun's Petro divinities, who in contrast to the African-based deities of other
vodun groups, consist of powerful native-born ancestors who have been
deified.
African deities feature prominently in the twentieth-century vodun pan-
theon, but deified ancestors, called 'loas' are equally important. In twentieth-
century jamaican Kumina this trend has developed further; the sky and earth
gods are themselves conceived as being jamaican based. The most powerful
sky gods have jamaican (Creole) names, the earth gods jamaican (Creole)
and English names. The ancestral 'zombies' that include the spirits of all the
religious specialists in the locality who danced Myal, have local family
names. J7
Cult leadership, however, was not a specialized activity. Cult leaders
were particularly powerful religious specialists whose local reputation, like
Dom Pedre's, was outstanding. In the daily life of the plantation villages they
fulfilled routine roles as prophets, diviners, mediums and doctors, variously
designated by contemporaries as wisimen, lukumen and 6bias. The pervas-
iveness of their presence was acknowledged by priests and planters who
categorized them as the equivalent of the witches, wizards and sorcerers of
their own societies. Planters in eighteenth-century St Domingue, surrounded
by a rising tide of African slave workers, considered that no less than 25 per
cent were condemned sorcerers. Their contemporaries in jamaica estimated
more conservative numbers: one or two for every large (200-600 slaves)
plantation, but Simultaneously acknowledged that it was difficult to distin-
guish 'the 6bia possessor' from other slaves. Under this rubric, however,
religious specialists preserved, developed and adapted their skills to the
needs of the slave population.

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 General History of the Caribbean

The skills of religious specialists

Work conditions, bare subsistence standards of living and epidemics, aggra-
vated by climatic hazards and food shortages put a premium on curative
techniques. Central to African medicine was the conviction, typical of
twentieth-century traditional medicine cultures, that the mystery of ill health
reflected the operation of supernatural power, most commonly represented
among slave workers as the displeasure of ancestral spirits, or the ill will of
relatives or neighbours. All forms of treatment involved supernatural power
invested in special food (such as the liver of a white fowl), special objects
and charms, rituals such as conjuring objects from the victim's body, and in
herbal and medicinal remedies which were available in contemporary West
and Central African societies. All these methods continue to be used in the
twentieth-century Caribbean.
The existence of hospitals on the estates, or attached to Catholic estab-
lishments attended by European doctors, allowed these specialists to emerge
publicly. In the British islands they were identified as doctors and
doctoresses. Their skills included herbal cures for skin diseases, digestive dis-
orders, ophthalmia, dysentery, worms, diabetes mellitus, bronchial asthma,
and (as among the Saramakas) a command of bone setting and some surgical
practices. These skills achieved what official plantation doctors considered
extraordinary cures of sores and ulcers and even of yaws, an extremely con-
tagious, long-lasting and disfiguring tropical disease. It is not surprising that
in the sophisticated urban society of Paramaribo free blacks who com-
manded these skills were in great demand among the white population and
competed with European-trained Christian and Jewish practitioners. The out-
standingly successful 'Lukuman' Quassy achieved fame by 'discovering' to
the Europeans the product known as quassy wood. When he died in 1787,
the rest of his secrets, however, died with him. IS
The skills of the doctors and doctoresses were, however, simply one of
the skills customary among African religiOUS specialists and constituted one
element of their power. The equipment associated with Jamaican 6bias for
instance, commonly regarded simply as sorcerers, included medicinal
ingredients still used in traditional African medicine: herbs, leaves, roots,
fruits, barks and grasses together with minerals, dead insects, bones, feathers,
powders, shells, eggs and smoke from different objects. These ingredients
were found when the 6bias' huts were raided, or their pouches confiscated
before being burnt since their power was recognized as residing in the
objects and the container. The power attributed to smoking, recorded in
Saramaka history (it was used, for example, to make safe crossings of alliga-
tor infested waters) remained an element in Jamaican beliefs encountered by
Special Magistrates in the Apprenticeship period. 19

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 Religious belirifs

The religious experts also afforded slave workers protection from the
hazards of the work place - in particular from flogging and demotion - and
from the theft of property, against the loss or for the gain of affection. They
supplied charms and amulets charged with supernatural power to protect
both their clients and their property. The charms hung about trees and
houses often replicated forms familiar in Africa. Trees hung with charms,
moreover, constituted in themselves sacred objects for the Kikongo. New
charms, like new rituals, were devised, however, to meet the specific needs
of plantation life and to reflect the supernatural power commanded, for
example, by heroic rebels. The St Domingue Maroon leader, Macandal,
whose reputation was securely based on a successful I8-year career harass-
ing the planters of Le Cap followed by a reputedly miraculous escape from
burning at the stake (the stake broke and he was said to fly to Africa) was
commemorated by charms called Macandals sold throughout the French
Antilles. His name survives in twentieth-century Haiti in the term 'makanda',
a specific kind of aggressive spiritual power. 20
At a more personal level, however, the specialists, like their African
counterparts, were consulted in relation to the particular fate and destiny of
individuals. They interpreted dreams and signs from the spirit world: they
conducted rituals to divine the future, to locate enemies and pursue
vengeance.
The religious specialists, in short, were consultants to the whole slave
population. No conflict among the slaves, no crisis in slave-master relations
relating to punishments, work loads, privileges, or sexual conflicts took place
without their knowledge and no action of any significance by individuals or
groups took place without their assistance. This knowledge of their clients'
ambitions, enmities and problems was essential to the effectiveness of their
rituals; equally important it made them, together with headmen and elders,
significant figures in village affairs. The most important single manifestation
of their political role in day-to-day affairs was the sanction they lent to
oath-taking.
Oaths were authoritative instruments. To take the oath constituted a
form of trial that threatened the guilty with death. The degree of autonomous
authority and the extent of the diplomatic skills exercised by the slave village
authorities (headmen and religiOUS specialists) is reflected in the fact that trial
by oath-taking could be used to investigate thefts, not only among the slaves,
but when requested by the overseer or the master of plantation property. On
one such an occasion the officiating slave, designated 'He who acts the
priest', assembled the slaves at the burial ground and opened a grave. He
took a little earth and put it in every person's mouth. 'They (the slaves) tell
that if anyone has been guilty, their belly swells and occasions their Death'.
One boy's belly did swell and he confessed the theft as he lay dying, a fact

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the visiting observer could conveniently dismiss ('a Thousand Accidents might
have occasioned it'); resident planters, however, respected these techniques. 21
The plantation-based religious specialists, however, seem to have com-
bined in themselves the role of priest and sorcerer; they used their powers
for beneficent and malevolent ends. Social conflict was endemic in the slave
villages: long hours of labour, harsh discipline, minimal subsistence and
recreation aggravated by gender imbalance and occupational stratification
necessarily generated frustration and aggression. To fight and murder
breached plantation discipline and prompted punishment; death and sick-
ness, however, could be induced. The religiOUS specialists, as sorcerers,
'could tie up the victim's spirit with string, stab it through the heart when it
appeared reflected in a bowl of water, or capture it to put in a miniature
coffin. Descriptions of these once secret rituals recorded by Europeans in the
nineteenth century as examples of pagan practices do not convey the power
with which they were invested. Churchmen of all denominations, as well as
slave owners and managers, were well aware, however, that 6bia signs set
near a door, or on a threshold, and glances from an 6bia man were con-
sidered to kill. The deaths so attributed demonstrated the deep-rooted
convictions among the slaves that gave these practices their power.
Slave religious beliefs peopled the universe with spirits whose powers
reflected the contradictory forces that determined mortal fate. This universe,
however, pertained specifically to the slave community. It was the spiritual
locale of slave worker power, a force to which the slave population had sole
access. The cults and the religious experts built a stockade of beliefs and
practices whose 6bias and ngangas, like the ark of the covenant, symbolized
the spiritual power particular to the slave population.
Saramakas' tradition records the story of Ayako, who saw his infant
nephew murdered by the overseer. He feared to witness the final destruction
of his family and said to himself, 'Now, when I was in Africa, I wasn't a
nobody. I will make a special effort, and see if since I left there what
(power) I had has been spoiled'. Then he prepared himself (ritually) until he
was completely set. And he escaped with his sister and her baby daughter.
ReligiOUS beliefs and practices sustained the slave workers' belief that they
were not 'nobodies', that they could eventually escape white oppression. 22

The political significance of slave religion

The Europeans acknowledged the political potential of slave religion and the
influence religious experts exerted. Cult dances were perceived as particu-
larly dangerous. An observer in Suriname remarked, 'Whatever the prophet-
ess orders to be done in this paroxysm, (the climax of the Water Mother

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 Religious beliefs

dance) is most sacredly performed by the surrounding multitude; which

renders these meetings extremely dangerous, as she frequently enjoins them
to murder their masters, or desert to the woods'. Repressive legislation aimed
specifically at the Water Mother dance was passed in Suriname and the
French West Indies and in Suriname persistent and unsuccessful efforts were
made to outlaw what were termed more generally baljaaren.23
Europeans also feared slave methods of inducing death, in particular,
death by poisons known only to the slaves. Such fears reflected the insecur-
ity of white minorities marooned among the black masses in rural isolation
from each other and stalked by disease. Habitual churchgoers succumbed to
these ideas; a Methodist woman planter dying from an infected wound in her
hand was convinced that two of her slaves 'had gotten poisonous herbs to
foment her hand with' and had them flogged in the bedroom in an effort to
transfer the sickness. Such cases make it easy to comprehend how the
Maroon leader Macandal could be held responsible for organizing outbreaks
of poisoning among Europeans throughout St Domingue. 24
The material and spiritual forces the slave population commanded
erupted periodically in massive uprisings. The rebel leaders' own command
of supernatural forces was complemented by attendant religious experts to
consult on timing and strategy, to swear the rebels to allegiance, to protect
them from bullets, to act as organizers and authorizers of the enterprise. The
outright success of the St Domingue revolution, two year victory in Grenada,
the prolonged struggle in Berbice, and the near success in Jamaica demon-
strated that the slaves' religion could become a force in itself, and constituted
an ideology capable of destroying slavery.
The slaves forced recognition of this fact on the barely victorious
Jamaican planters, who, shaken by near defeat at the hands of an inferior
race, found it necessary to assert their intellectual and scientific superiority to
the rebels' captured religious leaders. A magic lantern show was provided
and then some experiments were made with electrical machines. One pris-
oner, after 'some very severe shocks' was driven to comment, 'this master's
Obi exceeded his own'. His fellows, however, refused to acknowledge any
such thing, and one 6bia man, about to be hanged, told the executioner: 'It
was not in the power of white people to kill him'. His statement encapsul-
ated the political significance of the slave workers' religion. 25

Slave workers' religion, Christianity and social

stratification
By the end of the slavery era slave religious beliefs encompassed a spectrum
which included Myal and vodun, sects identified by Christian terms, and

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Christian church membership. The history of these developments reflected,

as missionary letters record, complex and delicate combinations of political
and social forces specific to each island or territory, much of which remains
under-researched. Throughout the Caribbean, however, the forces of
Christianity were identified directly in the case of the official churches and
indirectly in the case of the missionaries with the slave owners. The pre-
sumed secular power of the owners to determine the material fortunes of
slave workers necessarily prompted interest in their sources of spiritual
power. The question was, could their slave chattels command it for
themselves?
Slaves resolved this problem primarily by eclectically incorporating
elements of Christian beliefs and practices into their popular belief system.
The religion continued to be practised by households, villages and cult
groups loosely connected to formal religions, but essentially autonomous.
Church attendance and associated practices were added to these religious
activities, much as elsewhere in Latin America indigenous Indians responded
to Spanish Catholic evangelization.
The dynamic for interaction with Christianity, in so far as it was access-
ible, derived from the increasing social stratification of the slave population
characteristic of the pre-industrial plantation colonies. It was generated by
the division of labour on the plantation, by birth (as native born or mulatto)
and by manumissions. At the top were the freed blacks and coloureds, their
families and ancestors locked in slavery, their children born in freedom.
Their occupations ranged from small farmer and skilled domestics to busi-
nessmen and landowners and included a proportion of minor professionals.
They provided powerful evidence that change of status was possible for indi-
viduals within the existing social framework. Urban slaves who accumulated
in Significant numbers in the great port cities formed a broad stratum ranging
from goldsmiths to manual workers, fragmented by national and material
differences, but bonded by their unique social context. The rural slaves were
divided by the occupational hierarchy that characterized their crop pro-
duction units in which Caribbean-born and mulatto workers enjoyed some
preference. Social stratification of the working population and the emergence
in particular of a category of freed people invited a new level of engagement
with ruling-class culture.
This dynamic was fuelled by the growing numbers of Caribbean-born
slaves whose ancestors were buried in plantation graveyards and who
identified themselves with their birthplace. The growth of this sector was
vitally affected by the abolition of the slave trade in the early nineteenth
century to Danish, British and Dutch colonies. By 1817 Africans in the British
colonies, the main focus of Protestant mission work, exceeded 50 per cent
only in the newly-acquired territories of Trinidad, Berbice and Demerara-

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 Religious beliefs

Essequibo. In Jamaica and the Windward Islands they were little more than
one-third, and in Barbados only 7.1 per cent of the population. Exposure to
Christian teaching in the Protestant Caribbean coincided to a large extent
with these developments. 26
Caribbean-born ancestors, of course, were readily accommodated in
the spirit world of traditional Caribbean religions and freedmen (like Dom
Pedre) actively promoted new forms of cult worship. Both these develop-
ments, however, facilitated adaptations and adoptions of new religious
concepts, particularly among aspiring upper strata.
The slaves most easily persuaded to conform to Christian rituals were
newly-arrived Africans: this was equally the case in seventeenth-century
Catholic Martinique and late eighteenth-century Protestant St Vincent, newly-
opened up for plantation production. Their responsiveness contrasted
sharply with Caribbean Indian and African Muslim resistance to seventeenth-
century proselytizers. Once the slaves' collectively recognized belief systems
became firmly entrenched, however, as among the predominantly African
population in the rural fastnesses of plantation-dominated nineteenth-century
Tobago, missionaries again made little headway.
The juxtaposition of African and Catholic religion produced elaborate
new religious forms. Developments in the French plantation and the Spanish
mixed farm and plantation colonies differed and will be dealt with in tum. In
general slave workers found many recognizable elements in Catholic
religious rituals: religious specialists who interceded with the gods, ranks of
spirits deified for their miraculous deeds, spiritual powers embodied in
statues, medallions, relics, feasts and processions, sacred clothing and special
utensils. All these elements were both novel and familiar. The saints were
easily equated with African gods who commanded the same powers to cure,
make fertile, combat evil, send rain and find lost property as the elaborate
correlations characteristic of twentieth-century vodun, Shango and Santeria
demonstrate. Only the ancestors themselves, spirit possession through dance,
and animal sacrifices were omitted.
The slave workers in the French plantation colonies accepted the
services the church offered and used its rituals, ceremonies and powers as
additional means of protection, in particular, from witchcraft. Baptism, for
example, was valued. By 1789 there were parishes in the French Antilles
where almost all the population was baptized. Some slaves demanded to be
baptized repeatedly and Africans in St Domingue, who made their own
calculations as to the best juxtaposition of spiritual forces, favoured baptism
on Pentecost Sunday.
Baptism also gave congregations access to the bread blessed for the
miracle of transubstantiation at Mass. Though few slaves were communicants,
du pain ben it, the bread left over from the communion table following

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 General History of the Caribbean

contemporary French custom was distributed to the laity in some churches,

including those at Fort de France. Blessed bread had powerful properties. It
fertilized fields, cured disease, secured affection or vengeance, embodied in
short the powers of an 6bia charm. More commonly available and also
sources of power were rosaries and crucifixes, amulets and medallions
blessed by the church. 27
The social status associated with Catholic religious forms encouraged
their adoption. Caribbean-born slaves, some of them mulatto and all charac-
teristically favoured for positions of authority on the plantations, liked to
claim baptism at birth as a form of status; new Africans were categorized as
merely' baptises debouf. Catholic forms of worship, moreover, met with the
owners' approval and legitimated one form of public worship. In the French
plantation colonies, where the slaves vastly outnumbered their masters
and the church was always understaffed, such demonstration of religious
conformity had a high political value. It is not surprising to find that as early
as 1684 slaves in a Jesuit parish in Guadeloupe seized the initiative and
organized themselves as a congregation. They met as a group before Mass,
recited prayers and sang canticles under the direction of two elders of their
own choosing.
Efforts were made by the Jesuits in particular to maintain control of
these developments. Priests were appointed to serve as 'cures des negroeS and
hold special Masses for the slaves, a practice extended to Martinique and, by
the early eighteenth century, to Le Cap, St Domingue. The ritual practices of
these apparent converts do not indicate that they had adopted Christian
concepts; the process was characterized by Pere Labat who commented,

The Negroes do without a qualm what the Phillistines did; they put
Dagon with the Ark and secretly preserve all the superstitions of their
ancient idolatrous cult alongside the ceremonies of Christianity.28

By the mid-eighteenth century, demonstrations of loyalty to church and

king and claims to new religiOUS rights became a means for the urban slaves
and free coloureds to enhance their social status. In Martinique officially
Catholic converts attempted to organize, with the support of some Jesuit and
Jacobin cures, traditional Catholic brotherhoods; the metropolitan govern-
ment, however, refused permission. A similar struggle took place at Le Cap
where slaves and free people, again under Jesuit auspices, organized inform-
ally a church within a church. The black congregation at Le Cap had freed-
men and slaves to teach prayers and catechism, and appointed their own
church officials. This development was stamped on by the police and by the
Conseil Superieure on the ground, 'ils melaient souvent les cboses saintes de
notre religion a des objets profanes d'un culte idolatre. A comprehensive

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 Religious beliefs

ruling put an end to black converts meeting without priests and forbade
them to teach. Two years later the Jesuits themselves were expelled. The
council was clearly concerned, however, to suppress all forms of organiza-
tion as subversive of the masters' power. 29
The urban slave and free population continued to pressurize the
authorities, however, by their participation in religious processions and
festivities linked to important political events - war-time victories, peace
treaties, Royal occasions which displayed their numbers, wealth, loyalty and,
by implication, their claim to improved status. Slaves in one church proces-
sion in Martinique dressed to represent the Royal family and ministers of the
Crown and were attended by well disciplined slave soldiers armed with
wooden rifles, a manifestation the local authorities characterized as detri-
mental to both discipline and religion. The metropolitan French government
eventually requested the Papacy to reduce church fete days to ten each year
in their Caribbean and African colonies, a request that reflected political as
well as economic interests.
The political difference between participation in the Catholic church
and in traditional cult groups is reflected in two myths, popular in eighteenth-
century St Domingue: God made man white, said one, and then to make the
Devil different knocked man over and squashed his lips. God made
man black, said the other, and whites were blacks whose colour had
degenerated. 30
The limitations imposed on slave and free coloured activities in the
church, however, closed a route to improved social status. Frustration with
these attempts, together with the rising tide of new African immigrants in
St Domingue, may have increased the number of cult groups among urban
slave workers as well as enhanced the reputation of Dom Pedre in the last
generation before the revolution.
The revolution in St Domingue evoked the forces embodied in
Caribbean traditional religion with success and made it the foundation for
late twentieth-century vodun which preserves elements of traditional African
medicine. Elsewhere in the French Caribbean, under the impact of English
invasions and revolutionary ideology, slaves in Martinique, Guadeloupe and
St Lucia fought for freedom, and in French-settled, English-owned Grenada
succeeded briefly (1795-7) in sustaining it. The Grenada slaves subsequently
proved impervious to Protestant missionary efforts headed by the Methodists
and continued to find satisfaction in their own established forms of
traditional Caribbean religion.
No evidence suggests that the Catholic church in the post-revolutionary
period was more effective. After a generation of confusion it did not regain
its pre-revolutionary strength in the French Caribbean colonies at the
Restoration. Significant imports (1814-31) of new Africans, mostly from

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 General History of the Caribbean

upper Guinea and the Bight of Biafra, constituted, by 1831, some 78000 of a
total slave population of some 200000. The new priests faced a new
constituency. Unlike their seventeenth-century predecessors, however, they
also confronted well-established forms of traditional Caribbean religions that
incorporated Catholic rituals and practices, but maintained slave religious
leadership and the slave workers' own sources of supernatural power.
Religious developments followed a different trajectory in the Spanish
settlement colonies. The Catholic Church exercised great influence over the
majority white population. Its rituals and festivals permeated lay life: its saints
identified towns and plantations, vegas and ranches; its calendar determined
work rhythms. The slave and free black and coloured population, which
even in the port cities of Havana and Santiago comprised less than a quarter
of the total population in 1774, were actively encouraged to become
Catholic.
In the rural areas slaveholdings were small-scale, freed blacks and
coloured settlers and much of the white population itself had little education
and a low standard of living. The relationships established in these circum-
stances and the public devotions practised by the whites - telling the rosary,
pausing for the angelus - kissing the hands of the clergy - no doubt assisted
the slaves to incorporate Catholic elements in their devotions, and perhaps
infused some African elements into Catholic practices. 31
In the urban areas, however, the slaves and freedmen organized
themselves according to their own perception of themselves as African
nations. These clubs, or cabildos, constituted initially of new Africans,
although encouraged to take part in Catholic festivals, were never incor-
porated into the church. They adopted Catholic forms only under pressure
from church and civil authorities. In Havana, for example, they initially
(1573) joined religious processions with their own 'fetishes'. Such manifesta-
tions were rapidly prohibited. Local saints and virgins were adopted, dressed
in African robes and surrounded by non-Catholic symbols. 32
The religiOUS element in these urban clubs which was ffiQintained over
the centuries may reflect the pervasively Catholic culture in which they were
embedded. In the nominally Protestant, primarily secular, society of
eighteenth-century Paramaribo, however, the substantial urban slave popula-
tion also formed clubs called Dou, defined not by religion, language or
nation, but labelled like carnival bands by symbols of wealth and power:
Gold, Diamond, or simply Bigie Dou, the large one. Religious practices
focused in the Winti cults.
The adoption of Catholic saints did not mean paSSively hiding African
gods, but rather the active manipulation of Catholic powers to serve custom-
ary ends. In twentieth-century Santeria, for example, Obatala the supreme
spirit has the form of the Virgin of the Mercies; Elegua, the path maker, the

310
 Religious beliefs

form of St Anthony of the roadways; Ogun, god of thunder, the form of

St Peter. Similar connections among the African gods themselves assisted
cabildo formation.
By the end of the eighteenth century, despite periodic efforts by church
authorities to incorporate them as Catholic, there were twenty-one cabildos
in Havana. Each had its own ritual centre, its African language, the objects
and musical instruments for their liturgies and dance. They were taCitly
acknowledged by the authorities as non-Catholic. The cabildos shared,
however, one great Catholic feast day, the twelfth day feast of the Epiphany,
the Day of the Black King Balthazar, recognized throughout Cuba for the
processional celebration of the slaves' distinctive beliefs and culture. 33

Religious development in Cuba and Puerto Rico

The development of the sugar frontier in eighteenth-century Cuba and

nineteenth-century Puerto Rico introduced new armies of slave workers who,
by 1840, made Cuba the world's leading sugar producer. The demographic
balance in Cuba shifted from 56 per cent white population in 1774 to 53 per
cent slave and free coloured in 1846, some 40 per cent of whom were slaves.
Imports totalled more than half a million people (637 700). The slaves were
geographically widely recruited, but significant proportions came from
trading ports in Upper Guinea, the Bights of Benin and Biafra and West
Central Africa, including the old Kingdom of the Kongo. They included sub-
stantial proportions of Yoruba, (the largest single ethnic group involved in
the nineteenth century West African traffic), designated Lucumi in Cuba, lbo,
called Carabali, and Kongo people. 34
The Spanish government attempted to maintain the policy of incorpor-
ating slaves into the church. The Code Noir of 1789 intended to improve
slave conditions was never promulgated in the colonies where the planters,
adjusting to a new level of capitalist development, ceased to send slaves to
Mass. The number of priests declined in proportion to the rapidly increasing
slave population and withdrew to the towns; no less than 50 per cent of the
Cuban clergy lived in Havana by 1860. In the Matanzas sugar belt, by con-
trast, there was no more than one priest for every 2000 slaves and few
remained on the plantations; most slaves saw no priest between baptism and
burial.
The priests themselves reflected the reduced power of a nineteenth-
century church besieged abroad by anti-clericalism and divided at home by
Cuban and Spanish, national and Imperial rivalries. They addressed them-
selves to making money and raising families. Most importantly, the church as
landowner and slave holder capitalized readily on the sugar revolution (the

311
 General History of the Caribbean

monastery of Santa Clara owned 20 sugar mills by 1800) and aligned

Christianity with slavery to the point that slave sales were announced in
church and took place outside on Sundays during Mass. 35
The new slave population, however, found themselves in a society
where religiOUS groups organized by African 'nations' were well established
in the urban centres. The new Africans elaborated this system, multiplying
and refining ethnic distinctions among the 20 to 30 per cent of Cuba's urban
slaves. In the countryside, plantation slaves found themselves surrounded by
a loose framework of Catholic customs. Some feast days were observed. The
bell calls which regulated the working day began and ended with the Ave
Maria. Slave children, though often sold for their labour potential, were born
in the infirmary, named for the saint of their birthday, routinely baptized, and
awarded godparents at the behest of Catholic owners. Domestic slaves,
Catholic like their masters, advertised their religious status on visits to the
barracoons. 'In those days', a Cuban-born slave worker observed, 'the most
uncivilized people believed. The Spaniards were all believers'. 36
The sugar plantation workers, however, who increasingly served
steam-powered, railway-fed factories characteristic of the new industrial age,
endured extremely long work hours. The problem was, literally, to keep
themselves alive. They lived, not in villages but in stockaded barracks built
round courtyards and their time, like factory workers, was tightly controlled.
The bell and locked doors curtailed each day and limited movement. Food
distribution reduced social contacts. White supervisors slept in the barra-
coons and occupied positions of authority. Gender imbalance (two men to
every woman) as well as an active internal slave trade restricted family life
and kin formation. Owners and managers, alerted by barracoon supervisors,
broke up any groups which appeared to threaten their authority by moving
or selling the slave workers involved. Continuous influxes of new Africans,
Haitians and, on some plantations, Chinese workers, all men, mitigated
against a sense of community.
Cult worship and forms of religious expertise sprang into existence,
nevertheless, in response to the slaves' fundamental needs. Evidence sug-
gests that these practices, in the confined conditions of the barracoons, were
sustained by self-identifying national groups which, like their urban equiva-
lent, claimed space in which to practise their rituals. On Flor de Sagua in Las
Villas province, for example, there were two cult groups: the Yoruba-based
Santeria and the Kongo. The Santeria made figures of their gods, wooden
statues with large heads for Obatala, Shango and Yemana, and small half-
rounded stones with white shell eyes for Elegua. The gods were surrounded
by sacred signs and symbols and worshipped daily with prayers and
libations. The Santeria (like the Yoruba) were respected as diviners.
Kongolese rites focused, as in the Kongo, on a collective charm, the nganga.

312
 Religious beliefs

On Cuban plantations, as in twentieth-century Central Africa, this took the

form of an iron pot. It was closely guarded by the chief priest as the em-
bodiment of supernatural power which passed on his death to his successor.
Medical skills, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, were applied by slaves who
worked in the estates' hospitals.
Similar developments may also have taken place in Puerto Rican barra-
coons. Any Catholic input, however, would have been derived mainly from
the Puerto Rican peasants coerced into plantation serfdom since plantation
owners rarely bothered even to baptize the new bornY
The religious beliefs developed by Africans in Catholic territories
characteristically incorporated Christian forms and in the Spanish territories,
contacts with white wage labourers promoted Catholic terminology. African
gods as well as the powers of the ngangas were referred to as saints. It is
dear, however, that the religious beliefs developed among the self-defined
immigrant nations centred, nevertheless, on sources of supernatural power
specific to the slave workers and generated leaders among them. Recurrent
plantation uprisings no doubt involved religious specialists. Evidence also
indicates moments when cabildos were associated with rebellion. The 1730
EI Cobre rebellion, for example, prompted one Bishop of Cuba to assign
priests to learn African languages in an effort to incorporate the Havana
cabildos into the church. The cabildos spiritual and political value was vali-
dated, however, by the continuous incorporation of second and third genera-
tion immigrants to their African nation and the unsuccessful attempts made
after abolition to suppress them. 38

Religious development in the Protestant plantation

colonies

Religious developments in the officially Protestant plantation colonies, where

the majority of the slaves were under British rule, differed from the Catholic
plantation colonies in two important respects. The first slave generations
established forms of traditional Caribbean religion Virtually free from
Christian influence. This religion was firmly established at household, village
and cult group level in a system characterized by autonomy when systematic
efforts to teach Christianity began. Secondly, the slave workers' instructors
were not the religious specialists who directly served the planters. They
learned Christianity first, from a scattering of lay people, black and white:
pious planters and artisans, black and coloured American and Caribbean
freedmen inspired by the eighteenth-century religious revival in Britain and
the American colonies. One of the earliest churches among slave, free

313
 General History of the Caribbean

black and coloured Christians in Jamaica, for example, was formed by a

black American freedman, the Baptist, George Lisle. Such endeavours, sup-
plemented by the work of slave converts, continued to be important. The
systematic efforts, moreover, were made by missionaries who were products,
like Lisle, of non-established churches inspired by the religious revival, to
address themselves to the heathen worldwide. The German Moravian church
took the lead in 1730 and was followed by Baptists, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, and most notably the Wesleyan Methodists, motor of the
English religious revival. The Anglican church in the British islands was
stirred into action eventually by the imperial government in the last decade
of slavery.
The distinction between the established state churches and the mission-
ary churches was firmly underscored by the planters' attitudes to the mission-
aries. The missionaries claimed what in a Protestant context were new rights
for the slaves: the right to attend services, to save their souls, to be admitted
to the Europeans' sources of spiritual power. At the same time they chal-
lenged the religious monopoly of the established churches and claimed equal
treatment for their interpretations of Christianity in which every individual
communicated directly with God and churches consisted of self-governing
bodies of believers. Promotion of these concepts in authoritarian slave soci-
eties created opposition and in the British islands recurrently prompted legis-
lation (duly disallowed by the Imperial government) to outlaw mission work.
The political context for teaching the slaves Christianity was further
complicated in the last quarter of the eighteenth century by the Caribbean
repercussions of the French and Haitian revolutions. The phased abolition of
the slave trade and, in the British Caribbean, by efforts to reform slavery and
prepare the slaves for freedom were also factors. When the slaves attempted
rebellion, missionaries were inevitably blamed and efforts made, as in
Demerara in 1823 and Jamaica in 1831, to punish them as traitors.
Recurrent planter hostility was counter-balanced, however, by planter
patronage inspired by religious convictions, by perceptions of religion as
instrumental to social control and, in the British islands, by political consider-
ations. Planters dependent on the Imperial government to protect their
privileged position in the British sugar market obstructed slave attendance at
church, and curtailed missionary activity, but rarely blocked it entirely. Even
Barbados, a densely populated island with a comparatively high proportion
of resident whites, counterbalanced its temporary expulsion of the
Methodists (1823) with patronage of the Moravians.
In these circumstances, once the missionaries had established a right to
preach, success depended entirely on popular response which is reflected in
the geographical spread of mission churches. The first wave of mission
expansion (1730-1815) pioneered by the Moravians in the Danish West

314
 Religious belieft

Indies was energetically pursued by the Methodists. In the space of three

years (1786--89) Methodist societies were established in St Kitts, Nevis,
Tortola, Jamaica, Dominica, St Vincent, Grenada, St Eustatius and Saba. By
the end of the eighteenth century Methodist and Moravian converts com-
prised some 25 per cent of the predominantly slave population in the British
Leewards.
The second wave of expansion which followed the Napoleonic wars,
opened up new territories with equal success. Jamaica, for example, which
had the largest slave population in the British Caribbean, attracted Baptist
and Presbyterian as well as Methodist and Moravian missionaries who
claimed almost 10 per cent of the slave population as church members at
emancipation. 39
The initial attraction of mission preaching, often commented on by the
missionaries, was the sheer novelty of the event. The first appearance of a
preacher produced an audience which in the towns included all elements of
the population. In societies where official religion was a formality associated
with white privilege, popular presentation of the gospel was guaranteed a
hearing.
The mission churches appealed particularly to the free coloured and
black population which, by the late eighteenth century, constituted a distinct
stratum of the population. They outnumbered the white population through-
out the Protestant Caribbean (by no less than two-to-one in the British
territories) and comprised one in seven of the Jamaican slave population, for
example, by 1830. Despite their varied economic status, with the exception
of a privileged few, they were deprived of civil rights and their social inferi-
ority was vividly symbolized by being consigned to pews at the back and
sides of the Anglican church. The mission churches offered them equal status
and they became core converts. They opened their houses for preaching,
supplied land and sometimes interest-free credit for chapel building as well
as taking an active part in church work. Their participation, like the activities
of free coloureds in Catholic brotherhoods and cabildos, constituted a form
of protest against their inferior status that led in some instances (notably
Jamaica) to political agitation for legal change.
Protestant Christianity afforded the slaves fewer parallels than
Catholicism with their established belief system. It emphasized the worship
of one God without intermediating saints; it actively opposed festive pro-
cessions, drinking, dancing, drumming and feasting; it condemned all mater-
ial manifestations of spiritual power. It demanded that converts adopt new
sexual mores, new habits of thrift and new levels of industry. Good
Christians were faithful servants.
The slaves heard the Christian message of universal salvation, however,
from men who modelled themselves on the great eighteenth-century

315
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European preachers to the masses, Wesley, Coke and Whitfield, who were
dedicated to making theology accessible to the illiterate and the poor. Their
passion and conviction helped to bridge the gap between preacher and slave
Creole speakers unaccustomed to Biblical terminology. It was easier, one
experienced missionary commented, to impress their minds with 'feeling
application' than with argument, to make them feel the spirit. 40
The slaves were encouraged to take part in church structure that incor-
porated lay persons as servants, deacons, stewards and assistants to conduct
classes - developments suppressed in Catholic societies. Legally, slave
workers were precluded from serving as 'helpers', 'leaders' and 'elders' and
the missionaries themselves were, to differing degrees, unwilling to appoint
illiterates. Slave leaders, however, proved reliable and the missions were
usually understaffed. The mission churches consequently trained new reli-
gious experts and the tenor of their teaching as well as the slaves' indigenous
traditions promoted independency.
Every member of the congregation and every church member, more-
over, was expected, like cult and cabildo members, to contribute money and
services to maintain the church. They contributed money for chapel repairs,
new furnishings, even new buildings, paid quarterly dues and class money,
formed auxiliary missionary societies and 'threw up for Guinea country'.
Consequently, as the number of mission churches expanded over the
decades and acquired important sites on town squares, they manifested, in
contrast to Catholic churches, a collective achievement and their members'
collective strength. The slaves provided themselves with an extensive
network of public meeting places which served, like the cabildo houses,
(though on a regional and national rather than urban basis) to bring together
a new form of kin group.
The slave workers also had limited, but important, opportunities to
become literate. Resources were few, but some missionaries were deter-
mined to demonstrate the intellectual as well as the spiritual equality of their
converts and to root their Christianity in knowledge of the Bible. The slaves
displayed an appetite that astonished their teachers. Literacy lessons spread
beyond church congregations and facilitated newspaper reading as well as
Bible study. A few missionaries also volunteered medical advice based on
Wesley's Primitive Physic, a staple of popular medicine in EnglandY
The mission congregations, however, introduced their own rhythms
into hymn singing, and their own framework of beliefs to mission teaching.
As in Catholic colonies, baptism - the ritual used for Baptist church member-
ship - was very popular and invested with layers of significance. Baptisms
were public ceremonies held on the sea shore, orin a river which attracted
spectators and permitted subdued, Christian versions of the feasting asso-
ciated with traditional religious ceremonies. Each candidate, robed in white

316
 Religious beliefs

for the initiation, was immersed by the minister in person, power transferred
directly from his hands to wash away sin. The process evoked associations
with cult worship of water spirits, with traditional initiation rites and washed
away the power of witchcraft. This rite alone guaranteed a level of popularity
for the Baptist missions.
In the same way church membership tickets, printed in England to
establish links with English church members, became talismans against
witchcraft. The requirement to renew the tickets quarterly as a demonstra-
tion of Christian faith was construed as a need to refresh its powers and
influence church attendance, particularly for plantation workers. It is
possible, moreover, that the missionaries themselves were perceived as per-
sonifying, like cult leaders, the forces of the new spiritual universe to which
they testified.
The earliest contacts between the slaves and the missionaries, however,
generated two broad strata of followers. There were converts like Lisle and
his fellows, who constituted themselves Christian churches; one such group
of Moravian, Methodist and Baptist slaves exported from Antigua to Mustique
(in the Grenadines) in 1792, were found by a missionary a generation later as
an organized Christian church. They had taught their children Methodist
hymns which they sang with 'all the vivacity of Old Methodists'. On the other
hand there were leaders who set up independent sects which emphasized
the ecstatic and the experiential: the Spirit, not the Word. There were sects
that mortified the flesh, where baptism was interpreted not as a symbol of
grace, but as grace itself and John replaced Christ as the Saviour figure. Such
preachers were commonly observed in urban settings, but the 1831 Jamaica
rebellion revealed centres also on plantations. Each mission station and each
Black Baptist church was the focus of concentric circles of cults which in
some territories were sufficiently well known, like Myal and Confu to surface
in local parlance as 'Native Baptist', 'Native Methodist' or 'Spirit Christian,.42
Both these developments reflect the most important single element in
Protestant Christianity, the fact that it sanctioned the emergence inside and
outside the mission churches of new religious specialists. The missionaries
usually dismissed independent sect leaders as 'Christianized 6bias'; the slaves
themselves perhaps defined their meetings more properly as the 'Negroes'
home religion'. The sects vividly illustrate the extent to which the new
religious ideas were absorbed and used to serve the slaves' needs.
At the time of emancipation in the British colonies these new religiOUS
forms were challenging established specialists. The missions attracted
members of the slave elite who already wielded authority on the plantations
as headmen and artisans, and were well placed to use their new knowledge
and skills to develop new bases of power both as church members and sect
leaders.

317
 General History of the Caribbean

The extent to which this process developed among Jamaican slaves is

dramatically illustrated by contrasting the leadership and organization of the
1760 and 1831 slave rebellions. The Jamaican-born 1760s leader, Tacky, sur-
rounded by his 6bia men, his followers bound by 6bia oaths was succeeded
in the latter by the 1831 Jamaican-born Sam Sharpe, a literate, urban, domes-
tic leader in the Montego Bay Baptist church and among the Native Baptists,
surrounded by his co-religionists, their followers bound by Bible oaths.43
This transition reflects in part political circumstances which linked the
missionaries and the abolitionists. A missionary, daily expected from
England, was widely rumoured among the slaves on the verge of rebellion to
be bringing the 'free paper' with him. The congregations that overflowed the
churches and the rebels who swore on the Bible, were invoking new
spiritual powers in the hope of strengthening their hand in the struggle for
freedom.
The achievement of emancipation and the hopes it generated increased
the popularity of the missions in the British islands for the following decade.
Reversion to hard times in the 1840s, however, characteristically regenerated
traditional and sparked new sectarian religiOUS practices which· incorporated
Christian elements (in Jamaica Myal men were supplemented by Angel men),
but emphasized their autonomy.
Protestant Christianity was clearly established in the slavery period as
one of the belief systems to which elements in the slave population
subscribed. This development was facilitated by two factors: slave workers
freely chose to listen to the missionaries and, subsequently, incorporated
themselves into church organizations that resonated with the collective
nature of their existing religiOUS practices and promoted new forms of
expertise, in particular, book learning.

Conclusion

The development of religiOUS beliefs at a popular level in the Caribbean

during the slavery period used African and European traditions to generate
the distinctive eclectic spectrum of practices outlined above. The religious
concepts imported from Africa were moulded for the majority of the slave
population by their experience as plantation workers which included
differing degrees of exposure to European religious concepts. The funda-
mental purposes served by the beliefs formulated on the first plantations and
the complex systems characteristic of the stratified slave societies on the eve
of emancipation, remained, however, essentially the same. They explained
the manifest contradictions of material life, provided access to supernatural

318
 Religious beliefs

powers to resolve crises, and generated within the slave community leaders
whose spiritual powers reinforced political capacities.

NOTES

1 'Slave worker' is used in preference to 'slave' to emphasize their value as

sources of labour power.
2 John S. Mbiti, African ReligiOns and Philosophy (London 1969), p. l.
3 John S. Mbiti, African Religions, p. 95; Anne Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 49.
4 Willy de Craemer, Jan Vansina, Renee C. Fox, 'Religious Movements in Central
Africa: A Theoretical Study', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 18, 4
(976), p. 460.
5 Terence O. Ranger, 'Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa',
African Studies Review, 29, 2(986), p. 44; John M. Janzen, Lemba, 1650-1930
(New York, London, 1982), pp. 3-6, 273-4, 286-92.
6 Manuel Moreno Fraginals, 'Cultural contributions and Deculturation', in
M. Moreno Fraginals (ed.) Africa in Latin America, translated by Leonor Blum
(New York, Paris: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1984), p. 19.
7 Harriet F. Durham, Quakers in the Caribbean (Hollywood, Fla., 1972),
pp. 22-23, 36.
8 Johan Hartog, Curar;ao from Colonial Dependency to Autonomy (Aruba, 1968)
pp. 151-3; R. A. J. van Lier, Frontier Society (The Hague, 1971), p. 40; J. R.
Marcus and Stanley F. Chyet (eds) , Historical Essay on the Colony of Surinam
1788, translated by Simon Cohen, (New York, Cincinnati, 1974), pp. ix-xi.
9 Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-
American Past (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1976), p. 25.
10 Cf. Richard Price, First-Time, The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). See also, H. U. E. Thoden
van Velzen and W. van Wetering, The Great Father and the Danger: ReligiOUS
Cults, Material Forces, and Collective Fantasies in the World of the Surinamese
Maroons (Leiden: Foris Publications, 1988).
11 Ibid., pp. 43-7, 121, 147, 169; Bronislaw Malinowski, MagiC, Science and
Religion (Boston, 1948), pp. 75, 83; de Craemer, Vansina and Fox, op. cit.,
p. 469; Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de janeiro, 1808-1850 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 268-7l.
12 Price, First Time, p. 124; B. W. Higman, 'African and Slave Family Patterns in
Trinidad', in Margaret E. Crahan and Franklin Knight (eds) , Africa and
the Caribbean (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 54-8;
M. G. Smith, Kinship and Community in Carriacou (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1962) pp. 10, 97-8.
13 Roger Bastide, African Civilizations in the New World, translated by Peter Green
(London: Harper Row, 1971), pp. 91-2; Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and
Black Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 41-2.
14 Melville J. Herskovits, Life in a Haitian Valley (New York: Knopf, 1937.
Reprinted, New York Octagon Books, 1971), p. 29; Hilton, op. cit., p. 13.
15 C. G. A. Oldendorp, A Caribbean Mission, edited by Arnold R. Highfield, trans-
lated by Vladimir Barac (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987),

319
 General History of the Caribbean

pp. 187, 196, 197; Edward Long, The History ofJamaica (London: Lowndes,
1774), vol. 2, p. 378; T. Banbury, jamaica Superstitions, or The Obeah Book
(Jamaica, 1894), pp. 3s-6.
16 B. W. Higman, 'African and Creole Slave Family Patterns in Trinidad', in Crahan
and Knight (eds), Africa and the Caribbean, pp. 45, 55.
17 Moreau de Saint-Mery, Description ... de la Partie Franr;:aise de I'isle Saint-
Domingue (Philadelphia: The author, 1797), vol. 1, p. 69; Herskovits, Life,
p. 151; George E. Simpson, Religious Cults in the Caribbean (Rio Piedras:
University of Puerto Rico Press, 1970), pp. 161-3; Thoden van Velzen and van
Wetering, Great Father, pp. 75-120.
18 Richard Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves, 1680-1834 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), pp. 76-7, 81, 83-4; Essay op. cit., pp. 156-63;
J. Comaroff, 'Medicine and Culture: Some Anthropological Perspectives', Social
Science and Medicine, 12B (1978--9) pp. 247-54; Joshua W. Sempebwa,
'Religiosity and Health Behaviour in Africa', Social Science, 17 (1983), p. 2034.
19 Mbiti, African Religions, p. 167; Price, First Time, p. 82; R. R. Madden, A Twelve
Month's Residence in the West Indies (London, 1835), vol. 2, pp. 94-5 quoted in
Roger D. Abraham and John F. Szwed (eds), After Africa (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), p. 199.
20 Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons, Liberty or Death, trans. A. Faulkner (New
York, 1982), pp. 319-20; Harold Courlander, The Drum and the Hoe (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960), p. 359.
21 Charles Leslie, A New and Exact Account of jamaica (Edinburgh, 1740),
pp. 323-4, quoted in Abrahams and Szwed (eds), After Africa, p. 14l.
22 Price, First Time, pp. 47-8.
23 J. G. Stedman, Narrative of a Five Year's expedition against the Revolted Negroes
of Surinam (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1971 11796]), pp. 364-6,
quoted in Abrahams and Szwed (eds), After Africa, p. 14l.
24 W. Aimes to W.M.M.S., 14 March 1820 quoted in Ann C. Ince, Religion in Five
Islands (Oxford, D. Phil. 1980), p. 186.
25 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial of the British Colonies of the
West Indies, (Dublin, 1793), vol. 2, p. 92.
26 B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean 1807-34 (Baltimore:
johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), p. 115, Table 5.7.
27 Gabriel Debien, Les esclaves aux Antillesfranr;:aises XVIl'-XVIIl' siecles (Basse-
Terre, Fort-de-France, 1974), pp. 258, 259; Fran~ois Girod, Une fortune coloniale
sous l'ancien regime (PariS, 1970), p. 162; Moreau de Saint-Mery, Description ...
vol. 1, p. 55; R. P. J. Janin, La ville et la paroisse de Fort de France, 1638-1924
(Avignon, 1924), p. 75.
28 Lucien Peytraud, L 'esclavage aux Antilles franr;:aises avant 1789 (Paris, 1897),
p. 177; Debien, op. cit., pp. 283-4; Henri Metraux, Voodoo in Haiti (Paris,
London, 1960), p. 35, quoting Pere Labat, Nouveau Voyage ... vol. 14, p. 132.
29 Debien, Les esclaves, pp. 182-3, 186.
30 Peytraud, L'esclavage, pp. 182-3, 186.
31 Moreau de Saint-Mery, A topographical and political description of the Spanish
port ofSt Domingo, trans. William Cobbett (Philadelphia, 1976), vol. 1, pp. 47-55.
32 Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1970), pp. 10-22; Herbert S. Klein, Slavery in the Americas (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1(67), p. 101.

320
 Religious beliefs

33 Historical Essay, pp. 141-2; van tier, Frontier Society, p. 290; Odilio Urfe, 'Music
and Dance in Cuba', in M. Moreno Fraginals (ed.), Africa in Latin America,
p.l72.
34 David Eltis, 'The Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade: An Annual Time
Series of Imports to the Americas Broken down by Region', Hispanic America
Historical Review, 67, 1 (1987), pp. 121-33, Table 2. See also, Eltis, Economic
Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988), pp. 165-7; Robert L. Paquette, Sugar is made with Blood
(Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), pp. 29, 30.
35 Knight, Slave Society, pp. 108-10; Urfe, 'Music and Dance', p. 182.
36 Esteban Montejo, The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave, edited by M. Barnet,
translated by Jocasta Innes (London, Sydney, Toronto, 1968), p. 83.
37 Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1984), p. 132.
38 Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba, 1860-99 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1985), pp. 267-8.
39 Elsa V. Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the end of the
Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), pp. 290-1, 307;
Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982),
p.83.
40 Turner, Slaves and Missionaries, pp. 68, 11.
41 John Wesley's Primitive Physic went through 27 editions between 1740-1832. It
demonstrates the extent to which prayer and herbal remedies were essential to
popular medicine in England.
42 Ince, Religion, p. 298; Higman, Slave Population, pp. 121, 116; Goveia, Slave
Society, p. 198.
43 Ince, Religion, p. 209; Turner, Slaves and Missionaries, pp. 152-4.

321
 10

THE DISINTEGRATION OF
THE CARIBBEAN SLAVE SYSTEMS,
1772-1886
Franklin W Knight

S LAVE R Y remained such an integral aspect of Western society for so

many centuries that it could not be easily nor willingly dismantled.
Having been part and parcel of the expansion of Europeans into the
American hemisphere, slavery remained firmly embedded in all the resultant
social, political and economic systems. Throughout its history the concept of
slavery had been a controversial one, yet no generalized opposition to the
deplorable institution arose before the eighteenth century. In law as well as
in practice, individuals and groups had sometimes expressed vehement
opposition to slavery - although more often to the enslavement of their
fellow citizens, rather than objection to the institution in general. The preced-
ents for anti-slavery opinion have a long, varied and distinguished history.
In the earliest known codification of Roman law made by the Emperor,
Justinian I (AD 527-565), slavery, though widely practised, was acknowledged
as 'contrary to nature'. The Siete Partidas, the first important codification of
Spanish laws made between 1252 and 1255 by Alfonso X, El Sabio, reflected
some of the humanistic Roman tradition concerning slavery by describing the
institution as 'the vilest and most despicable thing which can exist among
men' and something 'which men by nature abhor'. 1 The quarrelsome renais-
sance pope, Pius II (1405-64), announced in 1462 that slavery was a 'great
misfortune' - meaning that it was not a natural condition for mankind - and
encouraged individuals to manumit their slaves. The papal denunciation had
little practical effect, and the ownership and use of slaves continued to
increase, most notably along the new European frontiers on the Atlantic
islands and in the Americas. In the early phases of the increaSingly wide-
spread use of slaves in the Americas other loud but ineffectual voices of
protest arose. In the sixteenth century, Pope Paul III, in a letter to Cardinal
Toledo condemned slavery as anti-Christian, and declared, in his famous
edict of 1537, Sublimis Deus, that the indigenous Indians of the Americas
were rational people who ought not to be enslaved. 2

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 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

Before that, two Spanish clergymen in the early colonies voiced strong
opposition to the enslavement of the indigenous Indians. They were the
Dominican missionary Antonio Montesinos (c.1485-c.1530) and Bartolome
de las Casas (1474-1566). Las Casas, an ex-slaveholder and former enco-
mendero of Indians on Spanish Hispaniola, consistently opposed slavery. He
argued forcefully, with deep conviction, but unsuccessfully, against the
renowned humanist lawyer Juan Gines de Sepulveda (c.1490-1572), at the
Court assembled in Valladolid in 1550-1 that slavery - albeit Indian slavery
- should be abolished in the New World. 3 Francisco Jose de Jaca (born
c.1645) and Epifanio de Moirans (c.1644-89) were two obscure Capuchin
missionaries who voiced conscientious opposition to slavery while they
worked in the Caribbean and Venezuela during the later seventeenth
centuries. 4
Those individual displays of conscience did not coalesce into a full
anti-slavery movement before the eighteenth century. The churches and all
the other respectable and exemplary sectors of society supported slavery and
derived enormous social and economic benefits from its existence. Public
attitudes, however, began to change perceptibly during the eighteenth
century. Many factors slowly began to coincide to facilitate the increase in
opposition to, and a slow dismantling of the system which had enjoyed
broad general support in Europe, Africa and throughout the Americas for
centuries.
To understand fully this radical change in public attitudes, it is useful to
consider the vast array of interconnected fundamental changes which
gradually took place, especially, but not solely, within European societies
during that pivotal century. During the seventeenth century great and import-
ant advances took place in science and philosophy, especially the novel
experiments and theories of Rene Descartes (159~1650), Isaac Newton
(1642-1726), and John Locke (1632-1704). Some of these new discoveries
and theories challenged accepted notions about life and society and laid the
foundation for that spirit of inquiry which was to flourish later. 5 Those
changes came together dramatically and forcefully during the Enlightenment
of the eighteenth century, with the prolific intellectual pronouncements of a
large number of exceptionally articulate international scholars. The group
included men such as Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), Fran~ois Voltaire
(1694-1778), Denis Diderot (1713-84) and Charles Montesquieu (1689-1755)
in France; Adam Smith (1723-90), Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), David
Hume (1711-76) and Edward Gibbon (1737-94) in Great Britain; Gotthold
Lessing 0729-81), Moses Mendelsohn (1729-86) and Johann von Herder
(1744-1803) in Germany; and Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826) and Benjamin Franklin (1709-90) in the United States. Together
the ideas of those intellectuals had a veritable revolutionary impact on the

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 General History of the Caribbean

general consciousness of Europeans and Americans, altering their attitudes

toward government and society. and contributing to the outbreak of political
revolutions in British North America, France (including St Domingue), and
Spanish America.
The broad reconsiderations of society and government included
rethinking the nature of slavery and the basis of national participation in the
transatlantic slave trade. Within the metropolitan societies serious questions
arose about the moral, religious and economic justifications for the institution
- some of these based on contemporary physical and structural domestic
changes. Emancipation, however, did not result solely from the preoccupa-
tions of groups at the centre of the empires. The intellectual restlessness
among the European and American colonial elites paralleled some significant
changes at the lowest levels of the peripheral plantation-dominant, slave-
holding societies.
During the eighteenth century slaves and their free sympathizers began
to exert some powerful pressures locally on the social, political and eco-
nomic systems, making it more difficult to maintain local social cohesion,
Imperial political complacency, plantation economic efficiency and desirable
levels of labourers. Since those pressures operated differently within and
between the various European imperial units, the consequential disintegra-
tion of the slave systems took place with varying rapidity throughout the
region. Abolition, therefore, responded to the fortuitous circumstances of
empire. In most cases a time lag existed between the abolition of the slave
trade and the emancipation of the slaves. But in the case of French St
Domingue, the abolition of slavery came before the termination of the slave
trade. Even within a relatively small geographical region such as the
Caribbean the differences could be quite considerable. More than 40 years
elapsed between the abolition of slavery in St Domingue and neighbouring
Jamaica; and nearly half a century separated the legal abolition of slavery in
the neighbouring colonial islands of British Jamaica and Spanish Cuba - only
145 kilometres (90 miles) apart. Nearly a century elapsed between the aboli-
tion of slavery in French St Domingue and Spanish Cuba, roughly an equal
distance. The abolition of slavery in the Caribbean ultimately depended on a
fortuitous combination of active and passive forces.

Active forces

The successful abolition of both the slave trade and slavery in the colonies
began with challenges on moral and legal grounds in the various metro-
polises. In this respect the Enlightenment was extremely important in creat-
ing the necessary pre-conditions for attacking the institution of slavery. The

324
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

Enlightenment not only promoted the ideas of rationality, order, efficiency

and social engineering, but also suggested that what was conventionally con-
sidered the 'natural order' of things derived less from divine intervention than
from human will and was therefore subject to change. Through applied
reason, men could construct their own perfect societies or reconstruct the
reality which they found around them. In short, many of the great thinkers of
the Enlightenment and their successors began to apply some of the newly-
discovered laws of science to society. In doing so they promoted and popu-
larized new notions of individual and collective liberty, of political rights, of
equality, and to a certain extent, of democracy.
No reconsideration of local societies within Europe in the eighteenth
century could be contemplated without also eventually including the over-
seas colonies. There the most important problems concerned the implications
of race and slavery, and the consciousness of those problems began to seep
back into the European mind in a new way. As the historian, David Brion
Davis, wrote,

In the 1760s there was nothing unprecedented about chattel slavery,

even the slavery of one ethnic group to another. What was unpreced-
ented by the 1760s and 1770s was the emergence of a widespread
conviction that New World slavery symbolized all the forces that threat-
ened the true destiny of man. 6

Yet the metropolitan concern for slavery in the colonies was only a part of a
much wider concern for the condition of the working classes and for the
domestic social order in an increasingly urbanized and industrialized Europe.
Advocates of working class improvements increasingly came to regard the
circumstances of urban, industrial workers as a form of 'wage slavery', and to
identify such conditions as akin to black chattel slavery in the coloniesJ
Those advocates even began to see the two as basically linked.
Once this identity was made, organized protests developed which
sought to declare slavery illegal in some countries. Nowhere was this identity
and purpose clearer than in the career of Granville Sharp (1735-1813),
widely recognized as the father of the British anti-slavery movement. Sharp
was the well-connected member of the English Establishment - his father
and brother were successively Archdeacon of Northumberland, his grand-
father was Archbishop of York, and three philanthropic brothers were priest,
entrepreneur and surgeon - who after more than a decade of supporting a
variety of social causes, took up the case of the detained slave, James
Somerset. H~ving been brought from Jamaica by his master, Somerset was
being held on a boat to be returned to the island when Sharp sought his
release by a writ of habeas corpus. In reluctantly ruling in favour of the slave,

325
 General History of the Caribbean

the celebrated but misunderstood verdict of Lord Chief Justice William

Murray Mansfield (1705-93) on 22 Jun~, 1772 established a precedent for the
total legal abolition of slavery in England. 8 By claiming that 'the state of
slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any
reasons, moral or political ... It's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to
support it, but positive law ... and therefore the black must be discharged',
the court appeared to revoke a number of previous legal decisions which
supported the 'opinion, that a slave, by coming from the West Indies, with or
without his master, to Great Britain or Ireland, doth not become free.'9
At the time of the Mansfield ruling, colonial planters had approximately
15000 slaves in England, valued at nearly £700 000 sterling. Mansfield's
judgement was a landmark decision simply because it allowed Sharp and
other abolitionists in England to attack slaveholding on new legal grounds.
They would also extend their arguments much further, suggesting that by
countenancing slavery in the colonies frightful retribution would befall
England. Abolitionists on the continent later exploited the English legal
precedent, and finally secured laws which explicitly forbade slavery in
France in 1836 and in Spain in 1864.
Despite those initial gains, the movement to abolish slavery as an insti-
tution was a rather drawn-out affair. It had two clearly identifiable phases.
The first was the movement to abolish the slave trade, a movement which
lasted from the 1780s to the 1870s. Although the Danes had abolished their
trade in 1804, the first major success came with the decision by the English
Parliament and the American Congress to discontinue their participation in
the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. The British were the largest volume
carriers, and their withdrawal from, and opposition to, the transatlantic trade
had profound international repercussions. The second phase involved the
gradual emancipation of all slaves after the abolition of the trade. Both
phases overlapped each other; and some confusion existed between the
goals of abolitionists and those of emancipationists. 10

THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE AND EMANCIPATION

The abolitionists were a motley group. They encompassed religious human-

itarians, intellectuals, common workers and a small number of slaves and ex-
slaves. No group was homogeneous, and few were Singularly focused.
Sometimes they worked at cross purposes. OccaSionally they coordinated
their efforts. When they worked in unison - as they did on the issue of
slavery - their political impact was extraordinary.
The religious humanitarians had the best contemporary press, and
probably th,.e most attention. Yet, important as was their effort in the aboli-
tion of slavery, it must be put in a broader perspective. The eighteenth

326
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

century was a profoundly restless religious age that Voltaire described as a

time of 'astonishing contrasts' with 'a civil war in every soul' Y It would have
been most surprising if this religious discontent did not influence the general
political opinions about society. Individual churchmen were prominent in the
fight to abolish the slave trade and ameliorate the material conditions of the
slaves. Many bishops throughout England were mobilized by Sharp, and by
Anthony Benezet, a prominent North American Quaker who wrote persua-
sively against the evils of enslavement without suggesting that slavery was
totally contrary to divine law since it was sanctioned in the Bible. By the
1760s the Quakers as a group were beginning to oppose the slave trade.
During the early 1770s a number of British North American colonies began to
curtail the slave trade, even as they fought to establish their collective politi-
cal independence. In 1776 the Second Continental Congress of the United
States resolved that 'no slaves be imported into any of the Thirteen United
Colonies', and Delaware prohibited the importation of slaves. In 1777 the
state of Vermont outlawed slavery in its constitution. Clearly within the realm
of empire strong anti-slavery sentiments abounded.
In the 1780s many northern states, largely under Quaker auspices, were
moving to abolish slavery in the United States, and the humanitarian move-
ment was getting stronger and more organized in Britain and France. A
powerful piece of anti-slave trade propaganda emerged with the publication
in 1785 of the prize-winning essay at Cambridge University by Thomas
Clarkson (1760-1846), entitled, 'An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of
the Human Species, particularly the African ... ' Ranging over a variety of
topics, its importance from the religiOUS humanitarian point of view was the
conclusion that continued participation in the slave trade would result in dire
punishment for the entire British nation. Clarkson's essay, originally written
in Latin, was translated into English and French, and published the following
year both in Philadelphia and Paris. The author became an indefatigable
writer and lecturer against the slave trade. In 1787 Clarkson joined Granville
Sharp and Josiah Wedgewood (1730-95), the famous potter, to form a
'Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade' in England, and
through its provincial branches, began to collect signed petitions to
Parliament seeking the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Recruiting
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) as their parliamentary spokesman, the
Society succeeded in 1788 in getting Prime Minister William Pitt to establish a
select committee of the Privy Council to investigate the slave trade. At the
same time the French were also becoming active, inspired in part by the
English and American Quakers.u In 1787 the Abbe Gregoire (1750-1831),
the Abbe Raynal (1713-96), the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) and others
formed an anti-slavery committee, the Societe des Amis des Noirs, and began
to sponsor abolitionist motions in the Estates General. The SOCiete, influenced

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 General History of tbe Caribbean

by Clarkson and aided by colonial representatives from the gens de couleur

or free coloured, pursued their advocacy through the first years of the great
Revolution.
The British humanitarians took the question of slavery to the masses in
the metropolis and made it a popular issue until the great Reform Act of
1832. Their continuous agitation further reinforced the connection between
conditions of slaves in the colonies and society in the metropolis. But
humanitarian pressure alone would not have resulted in the legislation to
abolish either the slave trade or slavery. The humanitarians were assisted by
other currents of opinion and the general religious changes in the society.
One such religious change in England was the dramatic rise of
Evangelical religion, especially the followers of John Wesley (1703-91) within
the Church of England. This religious fervour crossed class lines, involving
the upper classes of the 'Clapham Sect' as well as the working classes, espe-
cially prominent among the Wesleyan Methodists, the Baptists and the
Moravians.13 Since the colonies did not have the comparable working-class
segment for proselytizing activity, the evangelicals regarded the slaves as
their chosen group, their special constituency. Slave masters, however, con-
sLdered religious activity among the slaves as a form of potential subversion,
and, with few exceptions, opposed it vigorously. When this colonial opposi-
tion erupted into occasional persecution - as it did in Barbados in 1816,
Demerara in 1823 and Jamaica in 1831 - the evangelicals portrayed slavery as
an obstacle to missionary work in Africa and the West Indies, and mobilized
their political contacts in England to oppose the slave trade (where it still
persisted) and slavery.
One important affiliated group affecting the formation of parliamentary
opinion consisted of the political economists and moral philosophers. And
perhaps no economist was more important in this regard than Adam Smith
(1723-90), one-time professor of logic and moral philosophy at Glasgow
University. In 1776, a rather auspicious year, Smith published his Wealth of
Nations which provided sound economic reasons for abolishing the slave
trade and slavery. Basing his argument on the comparative costs of pro-
duction, Smith insisted that' ... from the experience of all ages and nations, I
believe that the work done by free men comes cheaper in the end than that
performed by slaves.'14 Slavery, Smith further stated, was uneconomical and
irrational not only because the plantation system was a wasteful use of land,
but also because slaves cost more to maintain than free labourers.
At the popular level the economic argument against slavery was inter~
preted as higher sugar prices for the workers, and working-class subsidy of
the wealthy sugar producers. Whether or not the economic argument was
valid, large numbers of people began to perceive an economic connection
between slavery and their personal situation and to act not on the reality, but

328
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

on their perception of the reality. The English and French metropolitan

masses felt that slavery affected their daily lives. By the early 1790s some
consumers were boycotting sugar in England as a demonstration against
slavery while trying to find a number of local substitutes for increasingly
expensive West Indian sugar. In France the increase in sugar prices due to
dislocations caused by war and the revolution in St Domingue, also resulted
in popular discontent. In January 1792 sugar riots erupted in Paris, with
crowds burning some sugar establishments, or breaking into others and
selling the confiscated product at prices set by the mobs. 15
The economy of slavery and the slave trade got altogether intertwined
with larger questions dealing with the morality of trade and empire. Indeed,
Adam Smith's substantial disquisition on economics and empire began as an
investigation in moral philosophy.16 It was a most complex issue. Proponents
of slavery saw mutual benefits in personal and national wealth and the
charitable salvation of the Africans from a fate worse than that offered
by their transportation and enslavement. Opponents saw the opposite.
Evangelicals as diverse as John Wesley and the Abbe Raynal condemned
slavery on the grounds of Christian charity as well as the assumption of a
natural law of common humanity. Economists opposed slavery because, as
Adam Smith explained, it was wasteful of valuable resources and inhibited
free trade. Political philosophers went further and blamed it as the basis for
the unjust privilege and the unequal distribution of social and corporate
responsibility. The masses, especially the urban masses, whether or not they
fully understood the various positions, knew that they wanted cheaper food,
and felt that free trade would be a device to lower food prices, especially
sugar prices. The important observation is that at the end of the eighteenth
century the question of slavery fused religion, materialism, idealism and
individualism. It was, as William Woodruff explained, erosive of traditions of
all sorts: 'Under the "enlightened" revolutions of the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, right became what the individual conscience determined;
truth what the individual reason recognized.'17
The slaves also had their perceptions of slavery. Some expressed their
antagonism to the loss of their freedom and the condition of their servitude
in various ways. The most obvious, extreme and dramatic form of opposition
was rebellion and slave revolts were endemic throughout the history of
slavery, but after the 1770s revolts became more frequent. But other activities
also reflected negative reactions to enslavement: chronic malingering, sabo-
tage, suicide, self-purchase or coartaci6n, and running away. Throughout the
Caribbean slaves were continually converting themselves into free persons,
although such persons usually enjoyed circumscribed political and civil
rights. The Rumbers may not have been large, but the relentless quest was
enormously important.

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 General History of the Caribbean

In the French colonies the slaves vigilantly exploited the few legal
means of changing their status into that of free non-whites. 18 In addition to
the normal forms of self-purchase or owner benevolence, slaves serving as
military drummers for eight years, or in active military service for ten years
were granted their freedom by the state. 19 When the French Revolution
decreed the abolition of slavery in -1794 - a response to the limited decree of
emancipation announced by their commissioner, Leger Felicite Sonthonax,
the previous yearo - slaves from the neighbouring islands fled to the French
Antilles seeking liberty. In Jamaica throughout the eighteenth century slaves
frequently built or stole small canoes and rowed the nearly 150 kilometres
(90 miles) to Cuba where they sought, and often received, religious asylum
and their freedom.21 Those and other less obvious challenges to the system
of slavery exerted continual pressure on the planters, owners and administra-
tors of the slave colonies. These challenges increased productive and admin-
istrative costs, especially when troops were needed to quell or prevent slave
revolts. The constant fear of slave revolts and disruptions heightened the
level of tension in the region between the supporters of slavery and their
opponents. These tensions erupted into anti-missionary riots in some British
Caribbean colonies in the early nineteenth century.22

Passive forces
Parliamentary activity, the agitation of humanitarians and politicians and the
activities of slaves were all self-evident factors which contributed to the dis-
integration of the slave systems. Other factors were not as overtly
connected but remained equally important. Those passive influences
coincided with - and in some cases were almost indistinguishable from -
the active forces. Foremost among these passive factors was the combina-
tion of social, economic and structural changes within Europe and the
Americas.

POPULATION CHANGES AND POLITICAL RECOGNITION

European and American populations began to grow at a more rapid rate than
ever before. 23 Between 1715 and 1789 the French population increased some
37 per cent, from 19 to 26 million persons. In England and Wales the popu-
lation grew by some 57 per cent, from nearly six million to slightly more
than nine million inhabitants. Throughout Europe the growth of commerce,
especially trade between the various nation states and their overseas
colonies, had brought new importance to port cities, and altered the

330
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

traditional roles of social classes and their relationship to politics. 24 The con-
centration of commerce and capital in the various port cities stimulated the
growth of an urban population both by natural increase as well as byattract-
ing inhabitants away from the rural areas. By the end of the eighteenth
century the management of cities was a major administrative as well as
political problem.
Within the various Caribbean slave colonies the populations were also
changing, as Stanley Engerman and Barry Higman demonstrate in Chapter 2.
In the older English sugar colonies such as Barbados and the Leeward
Islands, the slave populations had begun to level off, while expansion con-
tinued in Jamaica, Trinidad and the Guianas until the termination of the
English slave trade in 1807. 25 The Spanish Caribbean colonies of Cuba and
Puerto Rico began to participate fully in the sugar plantation complex only
toward the end of the eighteenth century, and so became large-scale
importers of manpower at exactly the time when increasing opposition both
to the trade and slavery manifested itself in Europe as well as elsewhere in
the Americas. 26
Throughout the eighteenth century the free non-white population
(especially the Creole or American born), as well as those descended from
free persons of colour, began to agitate increasingly for greater civil liberty
and political recognition. At the same time, the colonial whites sought to
differentiate more clearly the racial distinctions within the colonies. This rest-
lessness on the part of this emergent, intermediate, free group created a truly
potentially revolutionary situation throughout the region, especially in the
physically larger colonies where they represented a significant critical mass
of the free population. In the major French colony of St Domingue, the free
coloureds not only acquired substantial wealth but used the notarial system
and service in the colonial militia and rural constabulary to establish legal
precedents for their social importance. They vigorously resisted white
attempts to exclude them from social and legal recognition or impugn their
ancestryP Throughout the French Antilles the increasing attempts at segrega-
tion led to a more explosive conflict between free whites and free non-
whites. 28 Elsewhere the free non-whites, while less overtly revolutionary,
nevertheless steadily challenged the system for increasingly greater political
and civil participation and eventual equality of status with those of the white
sector. 29 Moreover, free persons of colour often proved extremely influential
in purchasing or otherwise assisting slaves to gain their freedom, thereby
elevating their social and legal status. 30 The peculiar composition of the colo-
nial caste/class structure, therefore, made each territory inherently explosive
and violent, by virtue of the dissatisfactions and rivalries which society and
economy engendered.

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 General History of the Caribbean

COMMODITY EXCHANGE AND SLAVE-BASED ECONOMIES

Changes in the overall world economy also began to affect the nature of the
slave trade and slavery by the beginning of the nineteenth century. These
changes, not necessarily connected causally, were particularly noticeable in
four aspects of the Caribbean slave-based economy: at the macro-level of
entrepreneurial investment capital; at the micro-level of production and
profits; in the changing nature of markets and marketing; and in the modern-
izing technology of sugar production.
In the century between the end of the Seven Years War (1756-63)
when Great Britain established its commercial monopoly in North America,
and the second opium war with China (1856-60), an enormous change took
place in the Atlantic economy world. 31 It was a series of interrelated revolu-
tions which changed the role of commodity exchange in the economic
system of the Western world. Industrial capitalism developed, with interests
which were, if not antagonistic to, certainly competitive with, commercial
capitalism. 32 Although the abolition of the slave trade and slavery coincided
with, rather than resulted from, these economic developments, the slave,
sugar, and other tropical staple trades - the foundations of Caribbean
economic and political importance - gradually yielded priority to the produc-
tion of raw materials, the merchandising of industrial products and the
speculative investments in alternative forms of profit production. Industrial
capitalism was replacing agricultural and commercial capitalism as the prime
agents of profit. Moreover European capitalism had gone global. Newly-
organized monetary and banking systems made commerce more efficient.
Would-be capitalists had a greater variety of ventures in which to speculate
confidently: railways, steamship services, and factories at home and abroad. 33
The older, smaller Caribbean territories became less significant in this newly-
developing economy world.
Changes in productive potential at the micro-level also affected slavery.
The productivity and the output of the older Caribbean colonies such as
Antigua, Barbados, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique and St Kitts declined, or
at best remained constant while new, more productive areas were brought
under cultivation in Trinidad, the Guianas, Cuba and Puerto Rico. One calcu-
lation of the older producers in acquiescing to the abolition of the English
slave trade in 1808 was the mistaken belief that the scarcity of labour would
inhibit the agricultural development of these new zones. This, of course,
failed to occur. The slave trade to Cuba and Brazil continued strongly until
the middle of the nineteenth century and technological changes introduced
to cane sugar production increased the gross output in Cuba. By the late
1840s, thanks to the introduction of railways and the first new steam-driven
mills, Cuba alone was producing more sugar than the combined British West

332
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

Indies. Meanwhile, free trade removed the preference enjoyed by the older
British Caribbean producers.
As if this was not disadvantageous enough for the smaller islands with
their nearly exhausted soils and limited land, beet sugar production was
rapidly rivalling cane sugar on the European and American market. Beet
sugar, introduced during the Napoleonic Wars, had become an important
item of trade by 1839 when it comprised less than 5 per cent of the world
sugar market. By 1850 beet sugar accounted for slightly more than 13 per
cent; and in 1886 - the year when slavery was legally abolished in Cuba -
beet sugar was 53 per cent of the total world sugar market. 34 There was, of
course, no direct connection between beet sugar production and the
abolition of slavery, but the competition between beet sugar and cane sugar
illustrated the economic problem of Caribbean sugar producers. The increase
in the production of beet sugar was merely part of the overall expansion and
complexity of trade.
Equally important to the sugar producers was the growth of 'trade in
bulky articles of commerce: grain, minerals, raw textile materials, timber and
perishable commodities like fruit and meat.'3S Indeed, the sugar trade was a
good barometer for the change in patterns of trade. Caribbean colonial com-
modities were not maintaining their volume and their value in the European
metropolitan markets. As late as 1831 sugar and coffee together represented
the most important trade commodities for Great Britain, accounting for
20 per cent of the total value of all imports. By 1875 these commodities had
declined to 6 per cent ranking fourth behind grain, cotton and wool. And
while Britain imported 76 per cent of its sugar from the British West Indies in
1831, in 1875 it imported only 22 per cent. Obviously the British West Indies
were no longer the important source of sugar that they were before the end
of free trade. The same pattern holds true for the French import trade. In
1830 sugar accounted for 9 per cent of the total value of French imports,
ranking second on the list. By 1875 sugar ranked sixth, and represented
merely 2 per cent of the total value of imports. At the same time, while
France imported 74 per cent of its sugar from the French West Indies in
1830, in 1875 this proportion had declined to 15 per cent. 36 Within the
Caribbean the foreign trade of the French and British colonies could not
compete with that of Cuba in either volume or value. Furthermore, the most
elastic and desirable market for Caribbean produce shifted during the nine-
teenth century from Europe to the United States.

INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE SLAVE SYSTEM

Finally there was the impact of changing technology on slavery and planta-
tion production during the nineteenth century.37 Slave systems and plantation

333
 General History of the Caribbean

systems were not strictly coterminous, although the relationship between the
two was close, sometimes overlapping, and prolonged. Some slave systems
did not involve plantation production and some plantations, especially
during the nineteenth century, operated with a mixed free/non-free labour
force. Not all the factors that contributed to the disintegration of the slave
system affected the structure and operation of plantations. The abolition of
slavery certainly affected the labour factor, and, to a somewhat lesser degree,
the overall economic structure of the plantation. Technological innovation
facilitated the transition from slavery to wage labour as the dominant organ-
izational pattern of plantation workers during the nineteenth century. 38
The industrial revolution - especially the applications of steam, rail-
ways and the telegraph - had an enormous impact on the concept of
distance, the cost of transport and the integration of the world market. 39
Within the Caribbean the newer participants in the sugar revolutions - Cuba,
Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and British Guiana - could,
and did, introduce this new technology more rapidly in sugar production. 4o
By introducing steam and railways within the factories and the field and by
separating the agricultural and industrial processes of sugar manufacture, the
newer producers I could achieve economies of scale unimaginable to the
older, more conventional ones. 41 While all sugar producers in the Caribbean
tried to modernize production, some, like those in Cuba and Puerto Rico
(despite their delay in abolishing slavery) were far more successful than
others, and employing economies of scale, they expanded production even
while prices continued to fall on the world sugar market between the 1820s
and the 1850s. 42 Introducing new, expensive industrial technology during the
market uncertainties of the nineteenth century was not a prospect equally
appealing to all Caribbean sugar producers, however much their survival
depended on it. The crisis of the Caribbean sugar complex, therefore, was far
more than merely a crisis of the labour component.

ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY

The pattern of plantation agriculture and the use of slavery varied consider-
ably across the Caribbean. Some colonies were far more dependent on
slavery for their labour organization than others. But regardless of their
labour need, most slave owners during the nineteenth century agreed that
the future of slav~ry was uncertain. The opponents of slavery were becoming
more numerous, and the opposition more varied and more sophisticated.
Moreover, the agitation to abolish the slave trade sometimes became con-
fused with the movement to abolish slavery. Attacks on the slave trade often
became attacks on the system of slavery. In 1792 the Danes, anticipating
abolition of the English trade, agreed to abolish their slave trade in 1804,

334
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1 772-1886

although as minor participants the impact was not great. In 1793 the French
Commissioners of St Domingue, following the example of Sonthonax in the
North Province, issued a general declaration of emancipation as a measure to
combat the civil war taking place within the French Revolution. This was
ratified by the Convention in 1794, thereby establishing a legal precedent for
the total abolition of slavery. The abolition of slavery in St Domingue in the
midst of the greatest slave revolt in the Western hemisphere resulted, there-
fore, from the efforts of the slaves to secure their own freedom.43 The eman-
cipation decree was later rescinded by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) in
1802 but the successful declaration of the independence of Haiti in 1804
by Jean Jacques Dessalines (c. 1758-1806), the successor of Toussaint
Louverture (c.1744-1803), made reimposition of slavery impossible in that
former French colony. Haitian independence - the coup-de-grace of the
slave system there - made all slave owners throughout the Americas more
nervous and more careful about social control of non-whites. In 1812 Puerto
Rican representatives to the Spanish Cortes sought a petition to abolish
slavery, only to be thwarted by the more persuasive pro-slavery Cuban
representatives.
The abolition of the British slave trade to the Americas in 1808 was a
significant milepost in the disintegration of the Caribbean slave systems. 44
While it did not immediately affect the large numbers of slaves imported into
Cuba (and Brazil), it did place the Caribbean slaveholders on the defensive -
especially when the revolution in Haiti established a free black republic. The
British government also began an energetic, if not entirely successful,
crusade to abolish the entire transatlantic slave trade. To this end it began a
series of bilateral agreements - sometimes supported by generous financial
allowances - with other European states to phase out the trade. In 1814
Holland abolished the slave trade, followed by France in 1818. In 1817 Spain
accepted £400 000 sterling to abolish the trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico and
Santo Domingo after 1820. Theoretically, then, the legal slave trade to the
Caribbean should have ended by 1820, but it remained in full force to Cuba
until well into the 1850s, with the last known slave expedition recorded in
1873. 45
Slave trading, however, became more expensive and more dangerous
with the declaration by the British Parliament in 1827 that participation in the
trade was equivalent to piracy and therefore punishable by death. By then
the opposition to slavery as an institution had entered a new phase.
Opponents were no longer interested only in ending the slave trade and
ameliorating the condition of the slaves, they were also determined to
abolish the institution root and branch.
Legal abolition of the slave trade and slavery was, in most cases,
imposed by the metropolis in rulings designed to apply uniformly across

335
 General History of the Caribbean

their overseas empires.· In all cases the abolition of slavery was closely
bound up with metropolitan domestic political reform and socia-economic
class realignment. Everywhere it was conceived as a gradual process of
emancipation in which the ex-slaves would learn slowly to conduct them-
selves as other free persons. The transition to free labour was accomplished
by a combination of compensation money to the slave owners, importation
of supplementary free labourers tied to the plantations, and a series of
measures aimed at maintaining as far as possible the political and econOl~lic
hegemony of the white slave-owning elite. In no case did it work out quite
as anticipated.
The British Parliament passed its Emancipation Act in 1833 (to take
effect on 1 August, 1834) as one of the first measures of the newly-elected
Reform Parliament. The legislation prOVided £20 million sterling as compen-
sation to the colonial slave owners, condemned the slaves to apprentice
themselves to their masters for a period of six years and established a system
of Stipendiary Magistrates to supervise the system. 46 In colonies directly
administered by the Crown such as Trinidad and British Guiana, the imple-
mentation was direct. The representative legislatures of the other colonies -
Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, St Vincent and the rest of the Leewards
and Windwards - were told to adopt the measures without modifications
beyond a possible shortening of the mandatory apprenticeship period.
Antigua, where the landowners controlled both the land and the slaves,
dispensed with the apprenticeship period and granted total abolition immedi-
ately. Wages, however, remained low, among the lowest in the Caribbean,
and working conditions did not change appreciably by the act of emancipa-
tion. Overall the administration of the apprenticeship system proved so
difficult that it was prematurely abolished in 1838.
Like the English, the French enacted measures to ameliorate the condi-
tions of slavery throughout the 1830s and 1840s. During that time many
measures for a gradual abolition of slavery were discussed without concrete
results. In 1836 slaves arriving in France automatically became free, and
public opinion slowly began to identify ownership of slaves as a crime. The
revolution of 1848 provided Victor Schoelcher (1804-93), an eloquent aboli-
tionist, with the opportunity to act on his beliefs from his newly-appointed
position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Overseas Colonies. 47 Basing
his arguments on the English experience in the Caribbean, he decreed the
immediate abolition of slavery without a period of apprenticeship and with
only a nominal compensation averaging 430 francs per slave to the slave
owners in Martinique, 470 francs in Guadeloupe and 618 in French Guiana. 48
Caught up in a massive, bloodless slave revolt in their Caribbean
islands, the Danish Governor General, facing an ultimatum from an assembly
of slaves, precipitately abolished slavery by proclamation on 3 July, 1848 on

336
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

St Croix.49 It forbade future enslavement, declared free all future children

born to slaves, but tied slaves to their estates until 1859. The Danish govern-
ment ratified the proclamation in September, 1848. Thus were the slaves of
the Danish West Indies freed largely by their own efforts. Three years later
the slave owners applied for, and received, a compensation of more than
five million francs. Moreover, Danish Caribbean slaves remained serving
under an apprenticeship system until 1878.
On 2 August, 1862 the Dutch government finally passed a law dealing
with the abolition of slavery in their territories in the Caribbean. 50 The law
took effect on 1 July, 1863. The achievement was complicated because of the
sharp differences between the social and economic conditions of the small
island colonies and Suriname. The islands - Aruba, Bonaire, Cura~ao, Saba,
St Eustatius and St Maarten - had small slave populations hardly distinguish-
able from the free non-white populations. Suriname, on the other hand, had
a budding plantation system which, as elsewhere in the Caribbean,
depended on a coerced labour supply for its continued economic viability.
The abolition law recognized this difference, mandating state supervision of
the emancipated slaves in Suriname, thereby preserving their availability for
the sugar estates. The colonial slave owners shared compensation money of
more than 16 million florins, with the ex-slaves paying a part of this. One
curiosity in the Dutch experience was that compensation paid in Suriname
for domestic slaves averaged 700 florins, while those in sugar averaged 500,
and those in coffee and cocoa, 325 florins. The value for slaves on the
islands, according to the compensation paid, ranged between 50 and 500
florins.
The Spanish colonies of Cuba ~nd Puerto Rico were the last to abolish
slavery in the Caribbean. There abolition was as closely tied to international
events as to domestic concerns. S1 For decades the English government and
some Puerto Rican planters had pressured the Spanish government to abolish
slavery in the Spanish Caribbean. But the economic importance of the Cuban
sugar producers and the spirited opposition of certain domestic Spanish
groups, especially Catalan merchants, made emancipation a difficult issue. It
was then that events began to overtake Spain. The American Civil War ended
in 1865 with victory by the abolitionist Northern States. In 1868 the Glorious
Revolution overthrew the Spanish monarchy and introduced a republican
government which included a number of anti-slavery sympathizers. At the
same time, the Grito de Yara in Cuba and the Grito de Lares in Puerto Rico
included emancipation among their independence goals. The fate of slavery
became a part of the political solution. 52 In 1870 the Spanish Cortes passed
the Moret Law (named after its author, Segismundo Moret, the Minister for
the Colonies) that freed all slaves born after September 1868, and all slaves
over 60 years of age, and promised to return to the matter when the civil war

337
 General History of the Caribbean

in Cuba ended. On 22 March, 1873 Puerto Rico abolished slavery immedi-

ately, paid 35 million pesetas to the former slave owners and organized the
ex-slaves to assure their continued service to the planter classes. The situ-
ation in Cuba was different. With the system of slavery becoming more
chaotic and the truce ending the Ten Years War (1868-78) demonstrating the
relatively weak situation of the metropolis, Spain, vis-a-vis the colonies, the
Spanish government passed a measure in 1880 for the gradual emancipation
of the nearly 200000 slaves in Cuba. 53 Owing to the long war, Spain was in
no financial position to pay compensation to the Cuban slave owners. The
gradual system, however, was abruptly abandoned on 7 October, 1886,
granting complete liberty to the last 30000 slaves in bondage in Cuba and
anywhere in the Caribbean.
In her excellent study, Rebecca Scott wrote that 'Emancipation in Cuba
was prolonged, ambiguous and complex, unfolding over an eighteen year
period through a series of legal, social and economic transformations. '54
Despite some peculiarities of the Cuban case, this description was generally
applicable to all colonies in the Caribbean.
Emancipation, after all, represented merely the removal of one legal
disability, albeit an important one, from one segment of the society. It was a
necessary phase in the arduous task of social, political and economic restruc-
turing which took place throughout the Caribbean during the nineteenth
century. The interest groups were diverse with often conflicting points of
view; and a significant faction, the slaves, had no direct participation in the
complex legal and legislative denouement - except in revolutionary
St Domingue. By the late eighteenth century the slaveholders and their
supporters began to realize that, however long the process of abolition, the
institution of slavery was doomed, although few thought it would end in
their lifetime.
Indeed, that much was conceded in the lengthy, spirited reply of one
pro-slavery writer, Gilbert Francklyn, to Thomas Clarkson's essay of 1786.
Considering the slave trade a convenient device for labour recruitment,
Francklyn wrote that:

the greater number of slaves imported, the more frequent and numer-
ous will future emancipations become; until perhaps the numbers of
free Negroes may become so considerable, that the planter may be able
to hire them at a reasonable rate, to do the work on his estate; in which
case you may rest satisfied that the emancipation of the Negroes will
become general. 55

The official abolitionists had hidden fears and an unspoken secret

agenda. They feared that too rapid an emancipation of the slaves would lead

338
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1 772-1886

to increased public disorder in the colonies, and the certain economic

ruin of the planters. The impromptu abolition in Haiti reinforced those
fears. At the same time they wished for some gradual social 'improvement'
of the previously enslaved that would allow them to become industrious,
though poorly-paid workers eternally grateful for the benefits of European
civilization. The more radical abolitionists such as James Stephen
(1758-1832), James Stephen, Jr. (1789-1859), and Victor Schoelcher felt that
the recently freed blacks were capable of immediate full political participa-
tion in the society. 56 They, however, represented a distinctly minority
opinion.
Changes in nineteenth-century thought produced the often patronizing,
sometimes racist, impression that Africans and their descendants could never
become the equal of Europeans. Nevertheless, the unpredictable fortunes of
imperial rivalry and the social reality of the Caribbean coincided to provide
opportunities where ex-slaves received their political recognition, and
occasionally performed in the economic sphere more successfully than their
European fellow residents. Lacking the critical mass in most cases, the white
Europeans could not always replicate their native habitat in the tropical
Caribbean nor did they always comprise a coherent managerial class. A
cohesive social structure was only possible with non-whites in a variety of
social, economic and administrative roles. Political equality for non-whites as
a group, however, came only after a struggle as prolonged as the fight to
abolish slavery. The achievement was highly erratic, varying from place to
place, and sometimes suffering reversals in the process.

The reasons for the abolition of slavery

Why was slavery abolished, then, between 1794 and 1886? The reasons were
varied and complex. In the case of St Domingue in 1794, abolition derived
from the outbreak of the French Revolution, and was largely the action of
the slaves themselves. In 1848 in St Croix the slaves forced the colonial
Governor General to decree the immediate emancipation of all slaves or they
would burn the town of Fredericksted. He complied but his action did not
prevent widespread looting across the island. The cases of colonial
St Domingue and St Croix represented the only occasions in the Caribbean of
abolition entirely from below. Elsewhere the process was painfully slow,
grudgingly conceded by metropolitan parliaments besieged by a variety of
often competing interest groups. These interest groups included social and
intellectual reformers, religiOUS evangelicals, politicians and economists.
Opinion is sharply divided among historians on the relative importance of
each group in the final act of emancipation.

339
 General History of the Caribbean

While there is no longer a consensus as to why slavery ended during

the nineteenth century, the conventional view that abolition began as a sin-
gularly magnanimous gesture of altruistic goodwill by inspired English
humanitarians has lost all validity. Humanitarian arguments alone would not
have convinced the English parliament to spend the enormous sum of
£20 million to redeem property in slaves in the overseas colonies. Some
powerful economic forces were also at work. The economic forces behind
the disintegration of the slave system, however, are extremely difficult to
ascertain clearly. The schools of thought are sharply divided, with each
producing overwhelming evidence to support its position. Nevertheless, the
dialogue has not been consistently focused on the same set of premises. For
historians such as Eric Williams, Elsa Goveia, Manuel Moreno Fraginals and
Eugene Genovese, economic changes lay at the root of the emancipation
movement. In various ways they argue that slavery and the slave trade gener-
ated the capital base for the industrial revolution, which then made a slave
system redundant or anachronistic. Seymour Drescher and Roger Anstey
focus on the value of trade and profits, without explicitly conceding that the
question is far more complicated than simple cost accounting. Marshalling
data largely drawn before 1830, Drescher tries to show that the local
economies of the Caribbean were robust at the beginning of the nineteenth
century and still very important in the overall British economy when the
slave trade was abolished. Anstey shows that the cumulative capital from
investment in the slave trade before 1807 was smaller than the venture
capital required for promoting the industrial revolution. Neither Drescher nor
Anstey, however, have successfully demolished the more sophisticated impli-
cation of the thesis of Eric Williams that abolition coincided with changed
economic perceptions of the sugar colonies. As David Brion Davis suggests,
'the debate over the West Indies' relative "decline" involves a good bit more
than the value of overseas trade ... '57 Slavery was a crucial part of the produc-
tion of wealth but it was also a catalyst for the expansion of the economic
system. As a catalyst it served its purpose very well.

NOTES

1 John E. Keller, Alfonso X, El Sabio (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967),

pp. 111-33; E. N. van Kleffens, HispaniC Law Until the End of the Middle Ages
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968), pp. 199-200; Orlando Patterson,
Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1982), p. 231.
2 Jose Tomas L6pez Garcia, Dos defensores de los esclavos negros en el siglo XV/I
(Caracas: Universidad Cat6lica Andres Bello, 1981), p. 3; Bartolome de las Casas,

340
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

Los Indios de Mexico y Nueva Espana. Antologfa. Edici6n, pr610go, apendices y

notas de Edmundo O'Goonan (Mexico: Editorial Porma, 1971), p. xxi.
3 Benjamin Keen, The Aztec Image in Western Thought (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1971), pp. 78-82; Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for justice
in the Conquest of America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), pp. 115-19; Lewis
Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians. A Study in Race Prejudice in the
Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970. First published
1959); Bartolome de las Casas, Tratado de Indias y el Doctor Sepulveda, Estudio
preliminar de Maria Teresa Bermejo de Capdevila (Caracas: Academia Nacional
de Historia, 1962). The debate concerned far more than merely the question of
slavery. It sought to establish the legitimacy of the entire Spanish conquest of
the Americas, and while it was taking place, Charles I forbade further expansion
by conquest anywhere in the Americas.
4 Jose Tomas LOpez Garcia, Dos defensores de los esclavos negros en el siglo XVII
(Caracas: Universidad Cat6lica Andres Bello, 1981).
5 For a convenient summary see, Frederick L. Nussbaum, The Triumph of Science
and Reason, 1660-1685 (New York: Harper Brothers, 1953).
6 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 177~ 1823
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), p. 41.
7 Betty Fladeland, Abolitionists and Working-Class Problems in the Age of
Industrialization (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984).
8 Roger Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 176~181O
(Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1975), pp. 243-4; Fladeland,
Abolitionists, pp. 1-16; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of
Revolution, 177~1823, pp. 386-402.
9 Quoted in Michael Craton, James Walvin and David Wright, Slavery, Abolition
and Emancipation. Black Slaves and the British Empire (London: Longman,
1976), p. 170, and p. 165.
10 The distinction made between abolitionists and emancipationists by David Brion
Davis simply does not make much sense. He writes: 'British reformers, too,
were by no means consistent in distinguishing the slave trade from slavery. In
England, "the abolition" always referred to the end of the slave trade; but many
"abolitionists" favoured emancipation, and "emancipationists" were known
as "abolitionists".' See, Age of RevolUtion, p. 21. Note, however, that the
Emancipation Act of 1833 reads: 'An Act for the Abolition of slavery throughout
the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the Manumitted Slaves; and
for compensating the persons hitherto entitled to the Services of Such Slaves.'
[Emphasis added.)
11 Cited in Bernard Semmel, The Methodist Revolution (New York: Basic Books,
1973), p. 6.
12 Ruth F. Necheles, The Abbe Gregoire, 1787-1831. The OdyssEry ofan Egalitarian
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing, 1971), pp. 54-5.
13 For the intricate web of social, political and kin ties among the evangelicals, see
Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade, pp. 157-99.
14 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Abbreviated edition, New York: Penguin
Books, 1974. First published in 1776), p. 184.
15 Seymour Drescher, Econocide. British Slavery in the Era ofAbolition (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), pp. 116-17.

341
 General History of the Caribbean

16 Andrew Skinner, in 'Introduction' to The Wealth of Nations (New York: Penguin

Books, 1974), pp. 12-13.
17 William Woodruff, The Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the
World Economy, 1750-1960 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1967), p. 6.
18 See John Garrigus, 'A Struggle for Respect: The Free Coloreds of Pre-
Revolutionary Saint-Domingue, 1760--69', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The
Johns Hopkins University, 1988.
19 Fran~ois Girod, La Vie Quotidienne De la Societe Creole (Saint-Domingue au
XVIII siecle) (Paris: Hachette, 1972), pp. 194-200.
20 See Robert Louis Stein, Leger Felicite Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic
(Rutherford: Dickinson University Press, 1985).
21 See, for example, Archivo General de Indias. Secci6n de Cuba. Legajo 1049. Ano
de 1767.
22 Michael Craton, Testing the Chains. Resistance to Slavery in the British West
Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982); Mary Turner, Slaves and
Missionaries: the disintegration ofJamaican Slave Society, 1788-1834 (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1982).
23 Michael W. Flinn, The European Demographic System, 1500-1820 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press 1981); Pedro Romero de Solis, La poblaci6n
Espanola en los siglos XVIII Y XIX (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1973).
24 Semmel, Methodist Revolution, pp. 9-10; Seymour Shapiro, Capital and the
Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
(1967), p. 248.
25 See B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 43. See also J. R. Ward,
British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1988),
pp.118-89.
26 Manuel Moreno Fraginais, El ingenio. Complejo econ6mico social Cubano del
azucar. 3 vols. (Havana: Ciencias Sociales, 1978); Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar
and Slavery in Puerto Rico. The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).
27 John Garrigus, 'A Struggle for Respect: The Free Coloreds of Pre-Revolutionary
Saint- Domingue, 1760--69', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins
University, 1988.
28 Leo Elisabeth, 'The French Antilles' in David Cohen and Jack P. Greene (eds) ,
Neither Slave Nor Free. The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies
of the New World (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972),
pp. 134-71. Also, Garrigus, 'A Struggle for Respect.'
29 The bibliography on this is extensive. For example, see Cohen and Greene
(eds) , Neither Slave Nor Free; Verena Martinez Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour
in Nineteenth Century Cuba (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1974); Jerome Handler, The Unappropriated People. Freedmen in the Slave
Society of Barbados (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974); David
Barry Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels. A Study of Master-Slave Relations in
Antigua with implications for Colonial British America (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1985); Edward 1. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave
Societies of St Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1984); Mavis Christine Campbell, The Dynamics of Change in a Slave
Society. A Socio-political History of the Free Coloreds in Jamaica, 1800-1865

342
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

(Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairley Dickinson University Press, 1976); Gad J.

Heuman, Between Black and White. Race, Politics and the Free Coloreds in
jamaica, 1792-1865(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1981).
30 Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean. The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 105-20; Rebecca J. Scott, Slave
Emancipation in Cuba. The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 163-4.
31 The phrase 'economy world' is a modification of the 'economy-world' of
Fernand Braudel, Afterthoughts of Material Civilization and Capitalism.
Translated by Patricia Ranum. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1977), pp. 80-1.
32 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (New York: Russell and Russell, 1961. First
published, 1944); Woodruff, Impact of Western Man; Roger Anstey, The Atlantic
Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-181O(Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey:
Humanities Press, 1975); David Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Seymour
Drescher, Econocide. British Slavery in the Era of Abolition (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977).
33 Woodruff, Impact of Western Man, pp. 168-94. See also Ralph Davis, The Rise of
the Atlantic Economies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 288-316.
34 Figures adopted from Hugh Thomas, Cuba. The Pursuit of Freedom (New York:
Harper & Row, 1971), p. 1561.
35 Woodruff, Impact of Western Man, p. 268.
36 The figures for trade are taken from Woodruff, Impact of Western Man, Tables
VII/I and VII/5. These figures do not exactly coincide with those given by
Drescher, Econocide, pp. 16-32 to support his argument that the British West
Indies were gaining in economic importance rather than losing their value in
worldwide British trade. Both Anstey and Drescher attempt to refute the thesis
of Eric Williams, best expressed in Capitalism and Slavery, that the economic
value of the Caribbean slave colonies was declining toward the end of the
eighteenth century.
37 Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro. The History of the Caribbean
1492-1969 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 374-91.
38 Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba; Oscar Zanetti Lecuona and
Alejandro Garcia Alvarez, Caminos para el azucar (Havana: Editorial de
Ciencias Sociales, 1987).
39 See Geoffrey Blainey, The 7yranny of Distance. How Distance Shaped Australia's
History (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1966), especially part two, for an incisive view
on the impact of technological change on the world of commerce during the
nineteenth century.
40 See, for example, Teresita Martinez Vergne, 'An Experiment in Capitalism:
Central San Vicente, 1873-1892', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation in History, The
University of Texas at Austin, 1985.
41 Christian Schnackenbourg, 'From Sugar Estate to Central Factory: The Industrial
Revolution in the Caribbean (1840-1905)', in Bill Albert and Adrian Graves
(eds), Crisis and Change in the International Sugar Economy 1860-1914
(Edinburgh: ISC Press, 1984), pp. 83-94.
42 Sugar prices declined about 50 per cent between 1820 and 1850, and would fall
by 65 per cent between 1884 and 1905. See Schnackenbourg, 'From Sugar Estate
to Central Factory', pp. 84-5.

343
 General History of tbe Caribbean

43 For a succinct description of the process see David Geggus, 'The Haitian
Revolution' in Franklin W. Knight and Colin A. Palmer (eds), The Modern
Caribbean (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989),
pp.21-50.
44 Dale H. Porter, The Abolition oftbe Slave Trade in England (New York: Archon
Books, 1970); Davis, Slavery in tbe Age of Revolution, pp. 65-7; David Brion
Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984),
pp. 169-226; David Eltis and James Walvin (eds), The Abolition oftbe Atlantic
Slave Trade. Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa, and tbe Americas (Madison:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1981); Suzanne Miers, Britain and tbe
Ending of tbe Slave Trade (New York: Africana Publishing, 1975); Roger Anstey,
The Atlantic SlaVe Trade and Britisb Abolition, 176{)-181O (Atlantic Highlands,
New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1975).
45 Rafael 1. L6pez Valdes, 'Hada una periodizaci6n de la historia de la esclavitud
en Cuba', in Instituto de Ciencias Sociales (ed.), La esclavitud en Cuba (Havana:
Editorial Academia, 1986), pp. 11-41. See also Arthur F. Corwin, Spain and tbe
Abolition of Slavery in Cuba (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967); Enriqueta
Vila Vilar, 'La esclavitud americana en la politica espanola del siglo XIX',
Anuario de Estudios Americanos, vol. XXXIV (1977), pp. 56~; and David R.
Murray, Odious Commerce. Britain, Spain and tbe Abolition oftbe Cuban Slave
Trade (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
46 William A. Green, Britisb Slave Emancipation. The Sugar Colonies and tbe Great
Experiment 1830-1865 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 99-161. On one
special magistrate's reports during the apprenticeship, see Woodville K. Marshall
(ed.), The ColburstJournal (Millwood, New York: KTO Press, 1977). See also
Claude Levy, Emancipation, Sugar, and Federalism: Barbados and tbe West
Indies, 1833-1876 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980); and
Kathleen Mary Butler, 'Slave Compensation and Property, Jamaica and
Barbados, 1823-1843', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation in History, The Johns
Hopkins University, 1986.
47 Victor Schoelcher, Des colonies franfaises. Abolition immediate de I'esclavage
(Paris, 1842. New Edition, Basseterre, 1976); W. Adolphe Roberts, The Frencb in
tbe West Indies (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1942), pp. 245--8.
48 Williams, Columbus to Castro, p. 332.
49 N. A. T. Hall, 'The Post Emancipation Court martial in Fredericksted, St Croix,
July-August 1848. An Account and Analysis'. Paper presented at the thirteenth
Conference of Caribbean Historians, Guadeloupe, April, 1981.
50 See, Rene Romer, Curafao (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Association of Caribbean
Universities and Research Institutes, 1981), pp. 60--6.
51 Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba; Rebecca). Scon, Slave Emancipation
in Cuba. For Puerto Rico see Arturo Morales Carri6n, Auge y decadencia de la
trata negrera en Puerto Rico (1820-1860) (San Juan: Instituto de Cultura
Puertorriquena, 1978); Arturo Morales Carri6n (ed.), EI proceso abolicionista en
Puerto Rico: Documentos para su estudio (San Juan: Centro de Investigaciones
Hist6ricas, 1974); Luis M. Diaz Soler, Historia de la esclavitud negra en Puerto
Rico, 2nd edition (Rio Piedras: Editorial Universitaria, 1974).
52 Enriqueta Vila Vilar, 'La esclavitud americana en la politica espanola del siglo
XIX', in Anuario de Estudios Americanos, vol. XXXIV, (1977), pp. 563-88.

344
 Disintegration of Caribbean slave systems, 1772-1886

53 Rebecca J. Scott, 'Explaining Abolition: Contradiction, Adaptation, and Challenge

in Cuban Slave Society, 1860-1886', in Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Frank Moya
Pons, and Stanley L. Engerman (eds) , Between Slavery and Free Labor. The
Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century, (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 25-53.
54 Scott, Sfave Emancipation, p. xii.
55 G. Francklyn, An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Clarkson's Essay on the Slavery and
Commerce of the Human Species (London, 1789. Reprinted, Miami: Mnemosyne
Publishing Company, 1969), pp. 240-1.
56 Paul Knaplund, James Stephen and The British Colonial System, 181~1847
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953).
57 Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 335.

345
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VAN KuFFENS, E. N. (1968) Hispanic Law Until the End of the Middle Ages, Edinburgh:
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VAN LIER, R. A. J. (1954) 'Negro Slavery in Surinam', Caribbean Historical Review,
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367
 INDEX

(Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations)

abolition of slavery 164, 334-9; active Maroons 176, 196; numbers of 58-9;
forces 324-30; economic forces slaves 79
340; effect of 155-7: on economies Amina slave uprising, St John, 1733-4
116, 120, 121, 130; passive forces 239-40
330-9; and planters 125-6, 162-3; ancestor worship 296-8
reasons for 339-40; and religion Anomabo fort 31
314, 318; varying speed of 324, Anguilla: fertility rate 90; population 48,
339 51, 53; slave death rate 92
absentee planters 153, 155; holdings of Antigua: demographic structure 38;
75, 79 English in 14; emancipation 336;
Accra, Ghana 20 exports 40, 109; freedmen in 147,
acquis de guinee 115 148; marronage in 174, 230; output
aJrrancbis 245,246,248 113, 117; population 35,48,50,52;
Africa: disease environment 23; West, productivity 332; Quakers in 293;
slaves from 21-2 slave plots in 229, 250; sugar in 109
African-born population 78-96 passim; Antillean Taino 237
age-specific mortality rates 92-3; and apalencados 177, 178
fertility 89 Aponte, Jose Antonio 197,257
African culture: and creolization 271--83 apprenticeships 253,336-7
passim; and slave resistance 233--6, anti-slavery: movement 323, 325;
245; survival of 277-8 opinion 322
African-European relationships 9, 17 Aruba 203; Amerindians in 58;
Africans: in Caribbean 9; description of population 51,53
201; -dominated slave resistance 223, asientistas 16
239; images of 6, 11-13; immigrants asiento system 15-18 passim, 274
9; male population 278; and national Atkins, John 30, 32, 35
identity 278; and religious beliefs Atlantic passage 25-9,238; conditions
287-319 of 25-9; death wish on 34; disease
African slaves 10, 107-8, 155-6, 169; on 26-7; food shortages 28; hunger
importation 13-14; investment in strikes 35; mortality rate on 26, 28,
194; as Maroons 187; treatment of 19; 29, 33; slave rebellions on 32-5,238,
value of 126; working conditions 243
290-1; see also slaves
Afro-Caribbean music 233 Bahamas, The: fertility rate 90;
age, of slaves 15, 80-5; profiles 81; -sex manumission rates 95; Maroons in
pyramids 82-5 230; population 48, 51, 53, 275;
Akanlanguage 238 slaveholding patterns 75; slave
Akwamu 20 migration from 67; slave rebellions in
Amerindians 45, 78, 138, 151; influence, 229,249-50; wreck salvaging 142
on slave resistance 236-8; and Bahoruco-Le Maniel: see under Le Maniel

368
 Index

baljaaren 305 51, 53; salt mining 142

bananas 40 Boni Maroons 186
baptism 307-8, 316-17 Bosman, William, trader 20,21,25
Barbados 7, 33, 292; 'cages' 198; cotton bozales 272
in 40, 113; demographic structure 38, Brandenburg African Company 17
122; emancipation 336; English Branston, William, trader 23
colonists in 4, 14, 22, 151, 152; Brazil (New Holland) 6; coffee in 116,
exports 40; freedmen in 85-6, 144, 120; Portuguese in 107; slaves to 17,
147, 158, 160; free migration to 63; 120, 332; sugar from 107, 110
free migration from 68; ginger in 40, Bridges, Rev. George 160
110; Maroons in 175-6, 230; militia Bridgetown, Barbados: 'cages' in 198;
regiment in 196; output 113, 117; trading port 126
population of 4, 48, 50, 52, 275: black Britain: and abolition of slavery 335-6;
majority 35, ethnicity 78; productivity see also England
332; provision grounds 111; Quakers British Guiana: Amerindians in 59;
in 293; religion in 307, 314; slaves in contract workers 120; East Indian
16, 61, 144, 207, 279, 331: concessions immigrants 59,64, 120; emancipation
to 213, Creole 155-6, death rate 92; 336; exports 120; free migration to
rebellions in 197,229, 243, 248, 250; 68; and fertility 89; manumission rates
slave sex ratio 81; sugar in 37, 107, 95; Maroons in 170, 176; output 117,
109, 110, 113: exports 39, 124; whites 332; per capita income 123;
in 144 population 53, 65, 66, 331: African-
Barbados Slave Code 1661 201 born 78, movements 66, urban 71;
Barbot, Jean, trader 34 slaves in 73, 121, 156; sugar in 59,
Barbuda: and active slave population 73; and sugar technology 334
76; fertility rate 90; food provisions British Honduras: Amerindians in 58;
142; population 48,51, 53; slave population 48,51,53: urban 71
death rate 92 Butcher, Thomas, agent 34
barracoons 312, 313 Buxton, Thomas 252
Barrett, Richard 160
beet sugar production 333 cabildos 310-11, 313, 315
Belize: Maroons in 171; slaves in 142; Cape Coast Castle, Ghana 19, 23, 27, 31,
timber in 142, 171 33
Benezet, Anthony 327 capitalism: and slavery 332
Benin, Bight of: slaves from 22 Caribbean: dialects 3; economic
Bequia 237 production 1770-1850 11-21; export
Berbice: African slaves in 156; Bush economies, total output 129; high
Negro revolt 242, 254; Creoles in 67; production level 123-4; nation
religion in 306; slave migration from building 8; social, political and
67 economic restructuring 338; societies
Bermuda: slaves in 207 3: plural 7-8
Biafra, Bight of: slaves from 22 Caribs 175, 337-8; see also under black:
black: Baptist preachers 235; Caribs 59, Caribs
237-8; free 81, 138, 144; 'inferiority' cash crops: export 5
207; mortality rates 91; political cassava 40
equality 339; ratio to white 86, 227, castes: slave 139-43; and society 138,
245, 275; and white, relations between 139; structure of 5
12, 207 Catholic church: and African religion
Bonaire: Amerindians in 58; population 307-11; missionaries 225; and slaves

369
 Index

234-5, 291-2: in Cuba 311-13 output 113, 115, 119; plantations 2,

Cayenne: Amerindians in 59 5,40, 169; production, and population
Cayman Island: population 48, 51, 53 72; in US 116, 120
Ceded Islands 1763 66 Creole: blane 272; definition of 271-2;
Gedula de Graeias 1783 78, 79 languages 3, 234, 288; noir 272;
Central Mexico 10 vernacular 283
eentrales (sugar mills) 125 Creole populations 78-96 passim, 180;
Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas 71 black 81, 8.?r5; coloured 81, 8.?r5;
Chinese immigrants 156; and and fertility 89; mortality rate 93
pluralization 283; sex ratio 80 Creole slaves 155-6; resistance by 223,
cholera 93-4 243
Christianity: and African religious beliefs creolization 4, 8, 35-40, 155, 271-83;
289,305-11; and black submissiveness process of 273-9; and slave age/sex
208; slave conversion to 225 profile 280; and slavery 210,215
Clarkson, Thomas 327 criminal offenders: as slaves 20-1
class: and religious beliefs 305-11; and eriol/os 163, 244
society 138-65 passim crop cultivation: changes in 5; Maroon
eoartaei6n 94, 157, 235, 329 178; and population growth 72
Cockpit country, Jamaica 172, 184 crop distribution: and economic power
cocoa: output 113, 119; plantations 37, 1770-1850 111-21
40; production, and population 72 crop diversification 7
Code Noir 146, 199-201 passim, 205, Cuba 6, 7, 105; and abolition of slavery
206, 211, 225, 311; and religion 292 324, 337-8; black: white ratio 86;
Codrington estates, Barbados 142 coffee in 142; Creole planters 79;
coffee 112; in Brazil 116, 120; output demographic structure 39, 122, 311;
113, 115, 117, 119; plantations 2, 5, economy 169; and emancipation
38, 40, 169; production, and 256-8; food production 111;
population 72, 73 freedmen in 144-5, 148, 158; ginger
eolonos 2 in 36; imports 335; indentureds in
colour: internalizing 276,277; and 36; livestock in 36; manumission rate
society 138-65 passim; and status 94; Maroons in 171-2, 178,230, 241;
85-7 mining economy 36; output 113, 118,
coloured, free 81, 138-65 passim 332; per capita output 123; planter
Columbus, Christopher 1, 9, 11, 273 absenteeism 75; planters in 162-3;
commodity exchange: and slave-based population 49, 52, 54, 58, 65, 275:
economies 332-3 and slaveholdings 75, urban 69,
Company of Senegal 18 white 63, 144, 153, 163; religion in
Company of the Royal Adventurers into 311-13; slave control 205, 208; slave
Africa 16 resistance 258-60; and slavery 22,
compensation: for abolition of slavery, to 72-3, 120; slaves in 61, 144, 156, 291,
slave owners 336-7 332; slave sex ratio 81; sugar in 36,
Confu 299 72, 73, 116, 120: industrialization of
Congo Basin: slaves in 22 259, plantations 74, revolution 157,
eontramayorales 143 334; tobacco in 110, 119; troops in
control: of slaves 194-221 197
Coromantine ethnic group 22, 33, 181, Cudjoe, Maroon headman 181-3 passim,
187, 238 187,240
cotton 107, 112, 151; and European Cuffee, Bush Negro leader 242
industrialization 129; exports 110; cults 298-301, 307, 309, 312, 317;

370
 Index

dances 304-5; leaders 298-301; ritual Duffield, Peter 19

299 Dutch: colonists 45, 106, 108; slave
cultural relativism 12 codes 225; and slave trade 14, 17-18;
Cura\;ao: Dutch in 14,203; and and trade 109
emancipation 255; fertility rate 90; Dutch Guiana: Maroons in 170; output
freedmen in 145-6, 149; manumission 113, 332; slave population 331; see
rate 94; population 49, 51, 53; slave also Suriname
death rate 92; as slave entrepot 61; Dutch West India Company 17,203;
slave laws 198; slaves to 17; sugar and slave laws 202
plantations 74 Duveme, Isaac, trader 17
customary: behaviour 206-9; family life dysentery 23; on Atlantic passage 26, 27
233; practice 226; relationships 149
economic: forces, and emancipation
Danish: abolition of slavery 336-7; 340; production 1770-1850 111-21
colonists 45; slave codes 202, 204, economies,Caribbean 6-7; and
225; and trade 109 creolization 282; slave 105-37
Danish West Indies: freedmen in 144, Elmina Castle 17, 18
147, 160; missions in 314-15 emancipation 46,63, 78, 125, 251-60;
Danish West India Company 17 and abolition 324, 326-30, 335, 336-8;
death rates: see mortality rates Acts 255, 336; and economic forces
death wish: on slave ships 34 340; and mortality rates 91,92; and
Demerara and Essequibo: planter population growth 88,89,96; and
absenteeism 75; population 48, 50, population relocation 66-7; and
275: slave 156; religion in 306; slave religion 318
death rate 93; slave migration to 67; employment of slaves: on plantations
slave rebellions 250 39-40
demographic: revolution, in Caribbean engages 62, 151
5, 35, 38-40, 276; structure, of England: demographic structure 122;
Caribbean slave societies 1700-1900 emigration 106; sugar consumption
45-104: and abolition 155, and per 110
capita income 121-5, skewed 122, English: colonists 9, 45, 106; in
144 Barbados 4; slave control laws 201,
dependants: as slaves 20, 21 205; and slave trade 14; and trade
Dessalines, Jean Jacques 335 108, 109; see also traders: English
diseases 9-11,93; and death, of traders English Navigation Acts 108
and slaves 22-5, 91-4; on slave ships Enlightenment: and anti-slavery
26 movement 323-5 passim
Djuka Maroons 185, 186 entertainment: of coloureds 161
domestic slaves 140 epidemics 9-11
Dominica: Maroons in 175,230, 241; ethnic groups: preferences for 22;
output 113, 117; population 48,50, rivalry between 139; of slaves 21-2,
53: ethnicity 79; slave migration from 78-80, 139, 231: and religion 288-90
67 European economic expansion: and
Dominican Republic 7; and sugar external trade 127-8; and slave
technology 334 economies 105-37; and class relations
Dom Pedre 301 127
Dou 310 Europeans: changes in Caribbean 3; as
Drax Hall, Jamaica 283 colonisers 14, 45: lifestyle of 151;
dropsy 27 culture 274; and disease 91; mortality

371
 Index

91,96; population changes 330-2; freedmen in 144; Maroons in 170,

settled in Caribbean 62; and slav!'! 176; output 117, 332; population 48,
societies 6; society, changes, and 51, 53; slaves in 62, 72, 292, 331
abolition of slavery 323-{i; trade with French Guinea Company 18
333; see also under traders: Europeans funeral rites, slave 297-8
exports: of sugar 39-40; see also under
Gambia, The: disease in 23, 24; and
individual countries
slave rebellion 30, 33
Gardelin, Philip 239
family structure 87-8; nuclear 87,88
Garifuna 238
fanning: small-scale 5
gender: slave ratio 80-5, 156; in slave
fear: rule by 226; of slave owners 248
occupations 141; of slaves 278, 279,
Fedon, Julien 148
280-1; and society 138; of urban
female: field labour 77; occupations 77;
population 69
slaves, domestic 77; see also women
Genoese: and slave trade 14
slaves
gens de couleur 147, 195, 197, 244
fertility rates 6, 46, 88-9; incentives for
ginger cultivation 36,40, 110
90; and occupation 90; and sugar
Gold Coast (Ghana): disease in 23-4;
plantation economy 89-90
slaves from 22
fevers 22-3, 26
grand marronage: see under marronage
field: labour 77; slaves 140
grands blancs 153, 155, 244
food: preparation, and culture 283;
Gregoire, Abbe 327
production 111; shortage, on Atlantic
Grenada 7; freedmen in 147, 148, 158,
passage 28
159; output 13, 117; population 48, SO,
free: migration 62-4, 68, 78; persons of
53, 275; ethnicity of 79; slave rebellion
colour 65; population 4, 5, 78: and
1795 197,248; whites in 159
occupation 76-7, and slaveholdings
Guadeloupe 152, 336; age-sex profiles
74-6; trade 7
81, 82-5; coffee in 72; Creoles in 78;
freedmen 164,331; in Barbados 85-6;
demographic structure 39; East Indian
behaviour to slaves 161; born free
immigrants in 59,64; freedmen in
145; coloured, female 144, 150;
144; French in 14, 106; Maroons in
colour gradation 145; intermediate
174,230; output 113,117; population
community of 281; and manumission
48, 51, 53, 275: black majority 35,
139, 145, 157, 158; and natural
urban 70; productivity 332; slave
increase 88, 158; numbers of, increase
death rate 92; slaves from 68; slaves
in 158; and occupations 157-9; and
in 18, 37, 61, 62, 72, 110, 292: unrest
property 147; restrictions on 146-8,
243,248,253; sugar in 37,107
157-9; rights of 145; campaigns for
159-62; in social structure 138, Haiti 7, 162; abolition of slavery in 339;
143-51, 164; and sugar revolution independence of 248, 335; Maroons
157; and whites 149, 161 in 230; output 117; per capita output
French: and abolition of slavery 252, 123; population 51, 53, 58, 64-6:
327,335,336; colonisers 106; movement 67, urban 70
revolution, effect of 227; slave control Haitian Revolution 1792-1804 45, 121,
205,206; and slave trade 14, 17, 18; 147, 151, 155, 159, 164, 165, 197, 222,
and slavery in France 326, 330; and 227,244-5,257,335;andfree
trade 108, 109, 115; see also Code Noir migration 63; influence of 248-51
French Company of the West Indies 18 Havana, Cuba 141, 310, 311; clergy in
French Guiana 336; agriculture of 72; 311; freedmen in 148; population of
East Indian immigrants in 59; 69; as trading port 126

372
 Index

Hawkins, John 16 123; indentureds in 64; indigo in 110;

head slaves 143 land consolidation 37; livestock in 36;
hegemony of force: and slavery 7 Maroons in 58, 170--2, 180--4, 187, 190,
Hispaniola 7, 105; Mrican slaves in 13, 213, 230, 237; wars 180, 183, 228,
279; economy 169: mining 36; 240--1, 248; missionaries in 315; output
livestock in 36; Maroons in 173; 113, 117; population 4-5, 48, SO, 53,
sugar mills in 36; see also Dominican 275: black majority 35, ethnicity 78,
Republic; Haiti; St Domingue movements of 66, urban 71, white
house slaves 140 63, 144; productivity 332; Quakers in
household structure 87~ 293; religion in 299, 301, 302, 307;
Houston, Dr James 13 slave death rates 92; slave rebellions
huckstering 115 33, 156, 228, 243, 250, 252; slave sex
Huffam, John, trader 27 ratio 80; slaves in 14,39,60,73, 144,
Hugues, Victor 248 279, 331: concessions to 213;
hunger strikes: on slave ships 35 slaveholding patterns 75; sugar in 36,
40, 73, 109: exports 39; town guards
image: of black Africa, negative 6, 198; trading 126; troop death rates 91
11-13 James Fort, The Gambia 32
immigrants: African 9; Indian 59,63-4 James Island 32
immigration: decline in 46; rates of 65 Judaism 293
indentured: labourers 59,62, 156,256:
white 151; servants 4: female 152, Kingston, Jamaica 71; town guards 198
white 79, 152 Komenda fort 30
Indian immigrants 59,63-4; and Kongo (Zaire) 288,312; and Christianity
pluralization 283; sex ratio 80 289
Indian indigenous population: decline of Kumina 296, 301
10,36; and disease 10; and religion
293; and slavery 322-3; see also labour force: distribution of 69--71;
Amerindians participation in 76, 124
indigo 38,40, 107, 110; production of labour supply: Mrican 10; increased
112, 113, 119 demand for 15
industrial technology: and slave system ladino 272
333-4 La Escalera 1844 157~, 258-60
industrialization: North Atlantic, and Lafayette, Marquis de 327
Caribbean 127~; and slave systems Lamartine, Alphonse de 252
128 land: availability 7; consolidation, for
ingenio (sugar mill): numbers of 36 plantations 37; holding, changes in 5,
intermarriage 88, 281 38
interracial alliances 280--1 languages: and Mrican culture 278;
enrichment 2-3; and slave control
Jaca, Francisco Jose de 323 210, 233; see also Creole languages
Jamaica: and abolition of slavery 156, Las Casas, Bartolome de 323
324, 330; absenteeism, planter 79; laws and regulations: for slave control
cocoa in 40; demographic structure 194-215 passim, 227, 239; and social
38, 122; economy 169; emancipation order 225; unwritten, and customary
336; English in 14; exports 40, 120; behaviour 206-9
fertility 89; food production 111, 115; Le Cap, St Domingue 308
freedmen in 144, 147, 158: rights of Leclerc, General: in Haiti 247
145, 159-60; free migration 68; GDP of Leeward Islands: absenteeism, planter

373
 Index

79; population ethnicity 78; slave black majority 35, urban 70, white
population 331 144, 159; productivity 332; religion in
Le )eune, coffee planter 206 307, 308; slave rebellions 248,252,
Le Maniel, St Domingue 173, 179, 237, 253; slaves from 68; slaves in 18,37,
245 61, 62, 12, 110, 144, 292; unrest 243;
Lemba religious cult 290 sugar in 37, 12
licenses: for slave trading 14-18, 273-4 Matuaris Maroons 186
Ligon, Richard, Barbados planter 209, measles 26, 27; epidemics 10
227, 297 medical remedies: African 302; local 25
Lisle, George 314,317 mercantilism 7
literacy: and mission churches 316 merchants: trading 127
livestock rearing 36, 151, 169; and mesties 145
population growth 12 Methodists 314; and abolition of slavery
loas 301 328
Long, Samuel, planter 153 metropolitan: legislation 45; product
processing 109
Macandals 303; Maroon leader 245 migration: free 62-4; indentured 63-4
Maceo, Antonio, mulatto leader 259 militia regiments: for slave control
Madagascar: slaves from 22 195-6, 226-7
malaria 23,27; Plasmodiumjalciparum mission churches 314-16
23,24 missionary societies: and abolition of
Mansfield ruling: on slavery 326 slavery 318; non-conformist 235-6;
manumission 85, 94-5; difficulty of 157; and planters 314; and slave
and freedmen 139, 143, 145; rates of submission 208--9
94, 95 Moirans, Epifanio de 323
marechaussee 195, 246 molasses 110, 111, 124; exports 40,
Maroons, of Caribbean 7,58,95, 112, 116, 119, 126; output 112, 113,
169-93, 213, 215, 230, 239, 245, 298; 114, 117
adaptability of 188; birth rate 89; monoculture 7
characteristics 181-2; factionalism in Montesinos, Antonio 3~3
182; headmen 181-3, 187; history of Montserrat: demographic structure 38;
171; houses 177--8, 196; plantation English in 14; exports 40, 109;
raids 175, 178, 189; settlements, freedmen in 160; output 113, 117;
location 170-6; sex ratio 80; slave population 48, 50, 52; slaveholding
resistance 223; social and political patterns 75; sugar in 109, 113
structure 177-6; survival 169, 170; Moore, Francis, trader 21, 30
threat from 189; treaties with In, Moravian Brethren 236, 314; and
177, 182, 183, 185, 186-7, 213; wars abolition of slavery 328
180, 183,228,240-1,248; women 188 Moret Law 1870 125, 257, 259, 337
marriages: between colours 150; mortality rates 6, 46, 91-4; age-specific
Surinamese 149 92-3; on Atlantic passage 26, 28--9,
marronage 94,95, 170, 171, 188, 189, 33; infant 91-2; of males 80; seasonal
245-6, 257; grand 229, 244, 245; petit variation 24; 'seasoning' 62; of ship
174, 189, 230 masters 29
Martinique 151, 336; East Indian mulatto 145
immigrants 64; exports 40; freedmen mustee 145
in 143, 144, 158, 159; French in 14, musteefino 145
106; Maroons in 174, 230; output muster records: on ship Hannah 1689
113, 117; population 48,51, 53, 275: 26

374
 Index

~yal 299-301, 305, 318 average size of 39; changes, in

Americas 2; crossplantation mating
Nanny, obeah woman 181-2,240 87; economies 108, 120-1, 169;
Negro: origin of word 2; proverbs 234 English, size of 107; and mortality
Netherlands West India Company 24 rates 93; output 113-14; produc~,
Nevis 33, 68, 152; demographic processing of 109; social structure
structure 38; English in 14; exports 1-2, 249, 274; sugar 37; system,
40; output 113, 117; population 48, domination of 163; work routine, and
50, 52, 275; Quakers in 293; sugar in religion 290-1
109,113 planters: absentee 75, 79; and abolition
ngangas 304, 312, 313 125-6, 162-3; beke 253; class of 153;
North America: trade with 126 decline in 162; lifestyle of 153-4;
North Atlantic economic development: nationality in islands 75-6; and slave
and Caribbean trade 127-30 control 209-12, 231; and slave
nuclear households 87-8; and resistance 224-31; weakness, and
fertility 89 slave rebellions 228
poison: and slaves 231, 305
oath-taking 303 political alliances: and slave supply 20
6bias 235,295,301,302,305, 317, 318; Ponce Valley, Puerto Rico 5, 74, 78;
signs 304 age-sex pyramids 1838 82-5;
occupations: and age 77; allocation of planters in 162; slave control 205;
76-7; and fertility rate 90; and slave population 156; slave sex
freedmen 157-9; and gender 77; and ratio 81
mortality rate 93; slave 140; and population: black, growth of 38;
social structure 138 changes, and abolition 330-1; qecline
Ochoa, Hernando de 15 65; economic distribution 71-6;
Old Calabar River 31 geographical distribution 64-9;
ophthalmia: on slave ships 26, 27 growth 6, 45-104; male 278;
ordenafoes 225 movements within Caribbean 66-7;
origins: of slaves 78-80 proportion enslaved 58, 274;
out-migration 63,68 pyramids 82-5,279: skewed 122;
Ovando, Nicolas de 13 racial composition 46; slave
overseers: slave 232 1700-1900 47; structures 38-9; total
1700-1900 47
pa~ques 172,177,230, 237, 245;hu~ Port of Spain, Trinidad 71
177-8 Portuguese: in Brazil 107; and slave
Panama: free migration to 68 trade 14, 18
Paramaribo, Suriname 7Q, 302, 310 potatoes 40
pardos 39 pre-plantation colonies 151
Park, ~ungo 30 Pringle-Polgreen, Rachel 148
patronato law 260 prisoners of war: as slaves 20
per capita income: and demographic products: Caribbean, annual value
structure 121-5 112-21
jJeninsu/ares 163 property: and freedmen ownership
Pernambuco 107 213
petits h/ancs 154, 155, 165, 244 pro-slavery alliances 212-14
Phipps, James, trader 23 Protestant colonies: and slaves 292-3,
piezas de Indias 16;17 313-18
plantation: average numbers on 39-40; proto-peasant activity 234

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 Index

provision grounds 111, 115, 126 Royal Mrican Company 16,19,23-4,

Puerto Rico 7, 105,313; age-sex 25, 27; mortality rate, on slave ships
pyramids 81,82-5; Amerindians in 28-9; and slave ship uprisings 30,
58; demographic structure 5, 39; 31
economy of 36,169; and rum 110, 111, 124; exports 40, 119, 126;
emancipation 256-7, 337--8; food production 112, 113, 116, 117
production 111; freedmen in 144-5; runaway slaves: see Maroons
free migration to 63; livestock in 36; rural: populations 69; slaves 306
Maroons in 171, 173; out-migration
69; output 113, 118, 123, 332; planters Saba: Dutch in 14; population 49, 51, 53
in 162-3; population 49, 52, 54, 275: St Bartholomew 45; fertility rate 90;
Mrican-born 78, ethnicity 79, white population 49, 52,54
63, 144; religion in 311-13; slave St Croix: abolition of slavery 339;
control 2OS; slave resistance 256; European settlers 67, 202; Maroons in
slave sex ratio 81; slaves in 14,61, 174, 230; output 113, 117; population
144, 156, 291; sugar in 36, 334; 49, 51, 54: urban 70; slave rebellion
tobacco in 119 243, 253-4
punishments: slave, 201, 202, 227, 229, St Domingue 7,8, 115, 116,155; and
239, 240 abolition of slavery 324,329,335,
339; coffee in 40, 113, 119; Creoles in
Quakers: and abolition of slavery 327; 78; exports 39, 140; food production
in Caribbean 293 115; freedmen in 144, 146, 147, 159,
Quao, Maroon leader 240 331; French in 14; indigo in 40, 110,
quadroon 145 113; land consolidation 37; Maroons
Quashee syndrome 232 in 171, 173, 178-9, 241; militia service
Quassy, 'Lukuman' 302 195; output 113; population 48: black
quinteron 145 majority 35; religion in 299, 301, 307,
309; slaves in 18, 39, 60, 61, 110, 144,
race: internalizing 276, 277 292; slave uprising 116, 215, 243;
racial composition 46, 138 sugar in 39, 40, 113; tobacco in 110;
racist ideology 12, 161, 261; anti-black trading 126; urbanization 70; whites
214; and slave control 214-15 in 67, 144; see also Haiti
rancbeadores 177 St Eustatius: Dutch in 14; output 113;
Raynal, Abbe 327, 329 population 49,51,53; as slave
religion: adapted Mrican 234; colonial entrep6t 61
state 291-4; new forms 317; popular St John 202; Amina slave uprising
236, 287; shrines for 299; and slaves 239-40; Maroons in 174; population
234-5; and social order 225, 292 49,51,54
religious beliefs 8,287-319; and class St Kitts, (Christopher) 7,34,68, 293;
292,305-11; traditional Caribbean demographic structure 38; English in
294-6, 313; political significance 14, 106; exports 40, 109; freedmen in
304-5 147, 148; Maroons in 174; output
religious humanitarians: and abolition of 113, 117; population 48, 50, 52;
slavery 326--8 productivity 332; sugar in 109
religious specialists 302-4 St Lucia: emancipation 336; family
resistance, slave: see under slave structure in 87; output 113, 117;
resistance population 48, 50, 53: ethnicity 275;
Reynel, Pedro Gomez, asientista 16 slave unrest 248; urban slaveholdings
Royal Adventurers Trading into Mrica 16 74

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 Index

St Maarten: fertility rate 90; population free population 74-6; size, and
53 fertility 90; societies 4, 6
St Martin (Dutch): Dutch in 14; slavehunters 196
population 49, 51, 53 slave owners 75-6; and control of slaves
St Martin (Fr.): population 48,51 194-215
St Thomas: Danes in 14, 202; slave rebellions 29-35, 194, 238-51; and
demographic structure 39; Maroons in planter response 209-12,227-8;
173; population 49, 51, 54: urban 70, savage repression of 251; see also
71 slave resistance
St Vincent 59,237; emancipation 336; slave resistance 7, 29-35, 222, 239;
free migration from 68; Maroons in African-dominated 223; Amerindian
175; output 113, 117; population 48, influence on 236-8; Creole 223;
SO, 53, 275; religion in 307; slave forms of 222-61; and marronage
unrest 248 169-90 passim, 223; and planter
sambo 145 response 224-31; by poisoning 231
San Juan, Puerto Rico 70 slave ships: escape from 30; and mental
Santeria 296, 307, 312 state 34; rebellions on 29-35; space
Santo Domingo 151; death rate 92; in 25-6
food production 111; Maroons in slave societies: cultural influence of
230; output 117; population 49,52, 276-9; demographic structure
54, 58, 66: slave 292, white 63; 1700-1900 45-104
ranching 142; slaves to 15,61 slavery 1, 2, 7, 10, 324; abolition of
Saramaka Maroons 185-00, 190; and 116,120-2, ISS, 251-61; effects of
religious belief 294-6, 304 155-7, 162-3; disintegration 3,8,45,
Schewsbury, Rev. William 214 215, 322-40; and economic argument
Schoelcher, Victor 252, 336, 339 7,328-9; and European
scurvy: on Atlantic passage 26, 27 industrialization 128; and high
segregation: in society 149 productivity 128; inefficiency of 231;
Senegambia: slaves from 22 opposition to 322-40 passim;
service industries 111 resistance to 169-90 passim
servitude: forms of 3 slaves 4,9,30; ages of 80-5; area of
settler colonies 3, 4 origin 21-2, 78-80, 242-3; categories
settlers: plantation 2 of 20-1; as chattels 199, 226, 236,
Seville: as trading centre 10-11 293, 306, 325; civil rights of 201, 210,
Shango 296, 299, 307 225, 243; control of 194-221; death
Sharp, Granville 325, 327 rates 22-5, 91-4 passim; demand for
Sharpe, Sam 318 279-80; in England 326; ethnic groups
shipboard rebellions 32-5, 238 21-2; family structure 87-8; humanity
shipmates: and new tribes 297 of 278-9; importation of African
Sierra Leone 23, 24, 30, 33; slaves from 13-14; as machine men 278; net
21 imports 1700-1870 60; numbers
Siete Partidas 199-201 passim, 204, 205, licensed 14-15; nutrition of 125-6;
211, 225, 322 occupations of 76, 140-3; physical
slave birth: seasonal pattern 90 preferences 22; population 4-5, 46;
slave children: as labour 77 privileged 211-12; and religious
slave economies 6-7, 105-37; and beliefs 287-319; separation from kin
abolition of slavery 116, 332-3; and 87; sex ratio 80-5; in social structure
English 109 138, 139-43; as subordinates 199, 201;
slaveholdi~gs; distribution 73-4; and and urbanization 70

377
 Index

slave trade 59-62, 238; abolition 121, system 333-4

251, 326-30; illicit 62, 80; nature of, in Thistlewood, Thomas: and interracial
Africa 9-44; numbers in 40, 127; alliance 280-1
organic consequences 279-82 see also Thomas, Sir Dalby 12, 23, 24, 26; and
transatlantic slave trade slave rebellions 31, 32
smallpox 10,23, 26, 27, 93 tobacco 5, 107, 151, 163; exports 110;
small-holders: slaves as 121 output 117, 119; slave workers in 73
Smith, Adam 328, 329 Tobago: free migration from 68; output
snake worship 299 113, 117; population 48, 50, 53, 275
Snelgrave, William, trader 21,31-3 Toussaint Louverture 247,248,335
social structure, of slave societies 7, trade 109,333; Maroon 178
138-68; and religious beliefs 306-11 traders 16, 17; European 9-44 passim;
societies, Caribbean 3, 7-8; and mortality rate 22-5; records of 6,9,
creolization 282; demographic 12, 16, 18
structure 17~1900 45-104 trading: Caribbean network 126-7; and
soi-disant Iibres 146 N. Atlantic economic development
Somerset, James 325 127-30; posts 18; relationship 19-20
South Sea Company 16,22,25,34 transatlantic slave trade 3, 6, 12, 13, 59,
Spain: slavery in 326 274, 276, 279; end of 122, 324, 326,
Spaniards: as colonisers 9, 10, 45; as 335
settlers 4, 106; settlement patterns 45 Trelawny, Jamaica: Maroons in 183-4
staple crops 40 Trinidad 7; Amerindians in 58,331;
Stephen, James 339 contract workers 120; Creoles in 67;
Stephen, James, Jr. 339 East Indian immigrants 59,64;
sugar: European demand for 116; emancipation 336; and fertility 89;
exports 39, 40, 110, 116; industry 36, free migration to 63, 68; freedmen
108, 110, 120, 124; plantations 2, 5, 6, 78-9, 148; manumission rates 95;
37,39-40,72-4,89-90,169; output 117; population 48, 50, 53,
production 66, 110, 112-14, 117, 129; 65, 66, 275: African-born 78,
and population growth 72; refining movements 66; productivity 332;
109, 128 religion in 300, 306; slave migration
sugar revolution 3, 5, 107, 153, 157-9, to 67,68; slaves to 17, 156; sugar in
196; effect of 271-83 59,334; and urbanization 71
Suriname 108, 203, 292, 299; and troops: for slave control 197
abolition of slavery 337; Amerindians Trotter, Dr Thomas 30
in 59; Bush negroes in 241; contract
workers 120; demographic structure unemployment: of Creole-born whites
39; and emancipation 254-5; and 76
fertility 89; freedmen in 149; Maroons United States of America 6, 123, 126,
in 58, 170, 176, 184-6, 189-90; 333; abolition of slavery 327; cotton
'marriages' 149; master-slave relations in 116, 120; population changes
203; output 117; population 49, 51, 330-2
53, 278: urban 70; slave death rate urban: cabildos 310-11; freedmen 148,
92; slaves in 61, 73-4; sugar in 73-4, 150; population 69-71, 331;
110 slaveholdings 74; slaves 141, 150,
systeme exclusif 108 197-8, 306

Tacky, Jamaican leader 318 van der Haagen, Pieter 17

technological innovation: and slave venereal disease 23, 24

378
 Index

victims of abduction: slaves as 20, 21 free migration 63; as labour 108, 151;
Virgin Islands 202; and emancipation mortality rates 91; nuclear families
253; freedmen in 147, 160; output 88; population, in Caribbean 65, 78:
113; planters to 67; population 48, age of 81; 'relapsed' 275; and skilled
50, 52; Quakers in 293; see also under occupations 76; and social structure
individual islands 139, 151-5, 165; solidarity of 165; and
vodun religion 235, 244, 245, 296, 299, urbanization 70, 71
301,305,307,309 Whydah 19, 21, 24, 133, 299; king of
19
wage: labourers 3; slavery 325 Wilberforce, William 252, 327
Walsh, David, trader 23 Windward Coast: slaves from 21-2
War of Jenkins' Ear 17 Winti 299, 310
Weaver, Thomas, agent 32 women slaves 34, 88, 282
Wedgewood, Josiah 327 Wooley, George 23
Wesley, John: and abolition 328-9 work patterns: intensive 124
whites: and blacks, ratio 86, 227, 245:. Worthy Park estate, Jamaica 154
relations between 12, 207, 275; claim
to superiority 13; class tension yams 40
between 154, 155; Creole-born, and yellow fever 23
unemployment 76; and disease 23; Yoruba 288-90,311,312
and freedmen 149, 158-9, 161, 165; Yucatan Peninsula 171

379