African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
388 p, Includes Richard S. Dunn's "Sugar production and slave women in Jamaica"; -- David P. Geggus' "Sugar and coffee cultivation in Saint Domingue and the shaping of the slave labor force"; David Barry Gaspar's "Sugar cultivation and slave life in Antigua before 1800"; Michel-Rolph Trouillot's "Coffee planters and coffee slaves in the Antilles: the impact of a secondary crop"; Woodville K. Marshall's "Provision ground and plantation labor in four windward islands: competition for resources during slavery"; and Dale Tomich's "Une petite guinée: provision ground and plantation in Martinique, 1830-1848"
Examines changes in enslaved women's working lives as planters sought to increase birth rates to replenish declining laboring populations. Establishes that enslaved women in Jamaica experienced a considerable shift in their work responsibilities and their subjection to discipline as slaveholders sought to capitalize on their abilities to reproduce. Enslaved women's reproductive capabilities were pivotal for slavery and the plantation economy's survival once legal supplies from Africa were discontinued.
