African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
696 p, "This interpretation of labour organisations and politics of the working people of the British Caribbean relates their struggle to important national, regional and global factors. The chief focus is on the period between 1934 and 1954, when a series of labour rebellions gave rise to trade unions and political parties, and led to democratic reforms, self-government, and eventually independence. The author argues that while these new institutions were ostensibly democratic, they often exhibited authoritarian tendencies that reflected the wider political culture and global context in which these democratic-authoritarian states emerged. Social and economic changes since Emancipation are examined, including new class formations and racial consciousness, along with the impact of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, the decline of the British Empire and the increasing hegemony of the United States. These circumstances precluded the creation of a socialist labour movement and facilitated the rise of middle-class politicians throughout the region. This multi-disciplinary and comparative study will interest everyone who is concerned with understanding the social origins of modern Caribbean political culture." (Amazon) ;
Internal, indentured and regional migration were tightly interlinked in post-emancipation Martinique by both contemporary perceptions and migrant actions. Anticipating a flight from the estates, colonial elites were committed before emancipation to constructing a replacement workforce through immigration. Indentureship was therefore a reaction to a crisis of labour relations rather than of labour supply. Such schemes also stimulated regional movements, from marronage by indentured Africans and Asians to recruitment efforts in the British West Indies. Viewed together, the three faces of post-emancipation migration reveal the continuing tension between the colony's search for coerced labour and the migrants' assertions of agency. [abstract];
