Francis Humberston Mackenzie of Seaforth (1754-1815) was a Highland proprietor in what has become known as 'The First Phase of Clearance', was governor of Barbados (1801-6) in the sensitive period immediately before the abolition of the British slave trade and was himself a plantation owner in Berbice (Guiana). It is suggested that his concern for his Highland small tenants was paralleled by his ambition in Barbados to make the killing of a slave by a white a capital offence, by his attempts to give free coloureds the right to testify against whites and by his aim to provide good conditions for his own enslaved labourers in Berbice.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
294 p, From New World to Pan-Atlantic: opening the history of America -- Francisco de Miranda, Toussaint Louverture, and the Pan-Atlantic sphere of liberation -- Pan-Atlantic exports and imports: translation, freedom, and the circulation of cultural capital -- Positioning South America from HMS Beagle: the navigator, the discoverer, and the ocean of free trade -- Pan-Atlantic migrations: capital, culture, revolution.; Time: 1700 - 1899
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
446 p., The sugar revolution made the English, in particular, a nation of voracious consumers. The wealth of her island colonies became the foundation and focus of England's commercial and imperial greatness, underpinning the British economy and ultimately fueling the Industrial Revolution. Yet with the incredible wealth came untold misery: the horror endured by slaves, on whose backs the sugar empire was brutally built; the rampant disease that claimed the lives of one-third of all whites within three years of arrival in the Caribbean; the cruelty, corruption, and decadence of the plantation culture.
The article discusses engineer and service corps in the British Army which operated during the 18th and 19th centuries and were made up of African, African-American, and West Indian soldiers and laborers. According to the author, the existence of these corps is not readily apparent in the historical record because they depended on commissioned officers from other units for senior command and because for political reasons their funding was taken discreetly from the budgets of other units and government departments. Details on the roles of enslaved soldiers in engineer and service corps are presented. Other topics include the corps' service in Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent, the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, and compensation received by the soldiers.