The article discusses the history of philosophy in the Caribbean. Particular focus is given to the philosophies of the peoples who lived and worked on sugar cane plantations, also called the canepiece. These include the Taíno people, enslaved Africans, indentured Indian and Chinese workers, and their descendants. Details related to Taíno ontology, the roles of slavery and liberty in Afro-Caribbean philosophy, and the role of labor in Indo-Caribbean philosophy are presented. Other topics include genocide, social harmony, and the relationship between the Enlightenment and colonialism.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
141 p, Reprints an 1830s text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain’s colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican “apprentice” (former slave), came to Britain in 1837 at the instigation of the abolitionist Joseph Sturge. The Narrative he produced there, one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves, became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for effecting the immediate end to the system of apprenticeship that had replaced slavery
