Colonial laws maintained the social and physical security of English settlements in the New World. This essay compares those laws that attempted to define and regulate servants and labour in seventeenth-century Virginia and Jamaica. The laws reveal differences in the social composition of their early populations and in the relationships each colony had with the imperial government. Earlier laws reflect a greater concern with the economic value of labour. In the last two decades, however, the laws defined new social constructs that would dominate slave laws in the next century. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT];
"Alexander Bedward, minister of the revivalist Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church during the period 1889-1921, emerged as one of the island's earliest black nationalists. Under the guise of religion Bedward called on the black majority to rise up and take action against the prevailing system of racial discrimination, socio-economic deprivation, injustice, the tyranny of minority colonial rule, and to establish a government representative of the people. While he was revered by the masses, attracting thousands of followers at home and abroad, he was feared by the upper classes and colonial authorities, who saw him as a threat to political stability. An antagonistic relationship developed between the government and Bedward. Eventually, he was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to the lunatic asylum, where he later died." (publication abstract);
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
32 p., Follows the island's history from colony to independence and beyond. Fabulous images and special spreads on food and life in a Maroon village show a side of Jamaica not depicted in tourist pamphlets. Other topics include: The Taino people -- Jamaica's first inhabitants; The slave trade and the plantation system; Pirates of the Caribbean; Rebellion and resistance to slavery and oppression; Jamaican heroes such as Paul Bogle ,Nanny, Marcus Garvey and Alexander Bustamante; Jamaican influence abroad and Jamaican foods made famous.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
320 p, "Trevor Burnard's Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire is a detailed study based on a rather unusual and exhaustive diary of an English migrant who becomes a small slaveholder in eighteenth-century Jamaica. It probably contains more information than any single source on Jamaican society and on slaves and slavery, and provides many important insights into the lives of slaves and of whites. Given the subject and the materials, this book will be of interest to all concerned with the study of slavery as well as scholars of the Caribbean and of British Caribbean history." (Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester )
