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 )
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
309 p, Using the stories of ordinary people, Block illustrates how engaging with the powerful rhetoric and rituals of Christianity was central to survival. Isobel Criolla was a runaway slave in Cartagena who successfully lobbied the Spanish governor not to return her to an abusive mistress. Nicolas Burundel was a French Calvinist who served as henchman to the Spanish governor of Jamaica before his arrest by the Inquisition for heresy. Henry Whistler was an English sailor sent to the Caribbean under Oliver Cromwell's plan for holy war against Catholic Spain. Yaff and Nell were slaves who served a Quaker plantation owner, Lewis Morris, in Barbados. Seen from their on-the-ground perspective, the development of modern capitalism, race, and Christianity emerges as a story of negotiation, contingency, humanity, and the quest for community.