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Abstract
Colonial slavery contained three interrelated aspects of law that transformed with the introduction of African slavery. Firstly, defining enslaved people as property, secondly, establishing forms of control over enslaved people, and thirdly, developing legal definitions of race, which distinguishes African enslaved people and their descendants from the rest of the population. The introduction of Imperial laws and their transplantation within the relevant island colonies had serious consequences on the enslaved persons therein. However, their impact on enslaved women was far reaching and resonated even within post-emancipation societies. Slavery remained an integral aspect of Western society for so long that its dismantling was not an easy feat. After all, it had been vital to European expansion into the Americas and was therefore deeply embedded into all resultant legal, social, political and economic systems. This paper looks at the introduction of the British Parliamentary laws of the Amelioration Acts and the Emancipation Act within the English-Speaking enslaved person holding Caribbean colonies. These laws were initiated to supposedly alleviate the atrocities of enslavement. In reality, the plantocracy used these legislations to create harsher conditions and mask cruelty which enslaved women felt the major brunt of especially as their health was increasingly compromised. Female enslaved persons' stories are often overlooked therefore, this paper also addresses the plight of enslaved women and tactics they used to protect their bodies within colonial enslavement and in the aftermath of its ending. Ultimately, the paper depicts what this signified for scholarship on the role of enslaved women within colonial Caribbean slavery as a whole.
Notes
1 James Stephen, ‘The Slavery of the British West Indies Delineated’ (1830), 2 vols 2, 178, quoting Bryan Edwards, ‘The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies of the West Indies’ (1801) 5 vols 1, 540–4.
2 Melanie J Newton, ‘The King v. Robert James, a Slave, for Rape: Inequality, Gender, and British Slave Amelioration, 1823-1834’ (2005) 47(3) Comparative Studies in Society and History 585.
3 Claudius Fergus, ‘Centring the City in the Amelioration of slavery in Trinidad, 1824-1834’ (2006) 40(1) The Journal of Caribbean History; ‘The Siete Partidas: A Framework for Philanthropy and Coercion during Amelioration Experiment in Trinidad 1823-34’ (2008) 36(1) Caribbean Studies and J R Ward, British West Indian Slavery 1750-1834, the Process of Amelioration (Clarendon Press 1988).
4 Angela Y Davis, Women, Race and Gender (Vintage Books 1983) 2–3.
5 This is not to negate the sexual violence against male enslaved persons, see the works of Thomas A Foster for more on this.
6 Marietta Morrissey, Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean (University Press of Kansas 1989) 68, 74.
7 Jennifer L Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press 2004) 10.
8 Vanneck-Arc/3A/1788/19, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, Kingston, 21 July 1788.
9 W Corbetts, Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to 1803, Vol 32 1795–1796 (Hansard 1818) 895, 981–91.
10 Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny and Desire, Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (University of North Carolina Press) 228.
11 Melissa Ono-George, Washing the Blackamoor White: Interracial Intimacy and Coloured Women's Agency in Jamaica, in Subverting Empire and Disorder in the British Colonial World (Palgrave MacMillan) 42.
12 Edward Long, The History of Jamaica. Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island: With Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, vol 3 (T. Lowndes, London, 1774), 921–34.
13 Brian Dyde, Robert Greenwood and Shirley Hamber, The Control and Treatment of Slaves, Emancipation to Emigration (Macmillan Education 2008, 3rd edn) 26–37.
14 Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499.
15 David Barry Gaspar, ‘The Leeward Islands Slave Act of 1798’ in Robert L Paquette and Stanley L Engerman (eds) The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion, Gainesville (University of Florida Press 1996) 242.
16 Above note 15.
17 Henrice Altink, Representations of Slave Women in Discourses of Slavery and Abolition, 1780-1838, PhD Thesis, University of Hull (2002) 25.
18 Above note 10.
19 Paul Gibbs, Instructions to the Treatment of Negroes (Shepperson and Reynolds, London, 1786, 2nd edn) 23.
20 John Baker Holroyd, Observations on the Project of Abolishing the Slave Trade and on the Reasonableness of Attempting Some Practicable Model of Relieving the Negroes (1790). Reprinted in P J Ketson (ed) Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period, Vol 2, The Abolition Debate (Picking and Cato, Routledge, 1999) 364.
21 Susanne Seymour and Sheryllynne Haggerty, ‘Slavery Connections of Bolsover Castle (1600-1830)’, Final Report for the English Heritage (University of Nottingham 2010) 6, 7 & 13.
22 Slave Trade Committee Report, vol 122, 65 in Altink note 17 at 36.
23 Katherine Paugh, The Politics of Reproduction, Race, Medicine and Fertility in the Age of Abolition (Oxford University Press, 2017) 18.
24 Barry W Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean (John Hopkins University Press 1984) 349.
25 Altink note 17 at 36–37.
26 Clause 36 Jamaica Slave Code 1792 in Altink note 17 at 37. Higman note 24 at 350.
27 Above note 22.
28 Article 19.
29 Caroline Quarrier Spence, Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies 1785-1865, Dissertation (Harvard University 2004) 72.
30 Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers Returns and Papers Relating to the Slave Trade 1816-1818, vol. 62 (Irish University Press 1971) 87–95.
31 Noted in Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2012, first published 1793) 171–3.
32 House of Commons resolution, 6 April 1797, Duke of Portland's circular letter, 6 May 1797, PP, Slave Trade, vol. 61, Shannon: Irish University Press, 1791, 73, 81 in David Barry Gaspar, ‘The Leeward Islands Slave Act of 1798’, in Robert L Paquette and Stanley L Engerman (eds) The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion (University of Florida Press 1996) 242.
33 The Abolition of Slavery Act 1807, 47 Geo III Sess. 1 C 36.
34 Above note 10.
35 J R Ward, British West Indian Slavery 1750-1834, the Process of Amelioration, (Clarendon Press 1988).
36 Above note 24.
37 Burke, ‘A Letter to the Right Honourable Henry Dundas,’ 261.
38 See Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie M Harris (eds) Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas (University of Georgia Press 2018); Marisa J Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (University of Pennsylvania Press 2018); Jessica Marie Johnson, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy and Freedom in the Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press 2020).
39 Sasha Turner, Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica (University of Pennsylvania Press 2017) 2–4.
40 Katherine Paugh, The Politics of Reproduction, Race, Medicine and Fertility in the Age of Abolition (Oxford University Press 2017) 8.
41 It was not in fact the first slavery code of the British West Indian colonies. Barbados had the first comprehensive slave code in 1661 which catalyzed slavery codes throughout the slave holding Atlantic world, however no such code existed in Britain up until this timespan.
42 Justine K Collins, Tracing British West Indian Legal Transplantation: An Analysis of the Development and Role of Slavery Legislation 1500-1800s, PhD Thesis (July 2020), (unpublished).
43 T.N.A. Kew, CO 295/37 Woodford to Goulburn, 15 October 1815, ff, 177–85; Meredith A John, The Plantation Slaves of Trinidad 1883-1816: A Mathematical and Demographic Enquiry (Cambridge University Press 1988) 145.
44 ‘The Stocks’ was a restraining device; it was a form of punishment and/or public humiliation.
45 The Jamaican Archives, Case of January 1823, 2/8/6, St. George Slave Trials (1822–1831).
46 Above note 43.
47 Bridget Brereton, A History of Modern Trinidad 1783-1962 (Heinemann 1981) 60.
48 Turner above note 39 at 145.
49 Turner above note 39 at 146, quoting Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedekne, 5 August 1789, 15 November 1794.
50 Above note 43.
51 CO 295/14, Ordinance: for Regulating the Treatment of Slaves, 30 June 1800, ff. 49–55 (Article XIV).
52 Diana Paton, ‘Maternal Struggles and the Politics of Childlessness under Pronatalist Caribbean Slavery’ (2017) 38(2) Slavery & Abolition 252.
53 For more on pronatalist agendas in Barbados and Jamaica particularly, see the prolific works of historians Katherine Paugh and Sasha Turner, noted earlier.
54 Randy M Browne, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press 2017).
55 Diana Paton, No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870 (Duke University Press 2004) 107.
56 Above note 55 at 52–3.
57 The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (citation 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) I will use both ‘Emancipation’ Act and ‘Abolition’ of Slavery Act as both are used in sources.
58 Thomas N Tyson, David Oldroyd and Richard K Fleischman, ‘Accounting, Coercion and Social Control During Apprenticeship: Converting Slave Workers to Wage Workers in the British West Indies c. 1834-1838’ (2005) 32(2) Accounting Historians Journal 207.
59 Above note 59.
60 Jas A Thome and J Horace Kimball, ‘Emancipation in the West Indies: A Six Months Tour in Antigua, Barbados and Jamaica in the year 1837’ (1838) (7) The Anti-Slavery Examiner The American Anti-Slavery Society, 81.
61 W L Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies (Jonathan Cape 1937) 346.
62 T.N.A. Kew, C/O 30/2, An Act for Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes/Barbados Slave Act/Code, Preamble.
63 Thomas N Tyson, David Oldroyd and Richard K Fleischman, ‘Accounting, Coercion and Social Control During Apprenticeship: Converting Slave Workers to Wage Workers in the British West Indies c. 1834-1838’ (2005) 32(2) Accounting Historians Journal.
64 Thomas Holt, The Problem of Freedom, Race, Labour and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938 (John Hopkins University 1992) 57.
65 Swithin Wilmot, ‘Not Full Free: The Ex-slaves and the Apprenticeship System in Jamaica, 1834-38’ (1984) 17 Jamaica Journal 2–10; Richard Frucht, ‘Emancipation and Revolt in the West Indies: St. Kitts, 1834’ (1975) 39 Science and Society 199-214; Woodville Marshall, ‘Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands’ in David Richardson (Ed) Abolition and its Aftermath: The Historical Context, 1790-1916 (Frank Cass 1985) 203–24; Holt above note 64 at chs 2 and 3.
66 T.N.A. Kew, CO 260/52., Tyler to Spring Rice, vol. 17, 1 November 1834, Abstract of Offences and Punishments as returned by Stipendiary Magistrates from 1 August 1834 to 30 September 1834.
67 Sheena Boa, ‘Experiences of Women Estate Workers during the Apprenticeship Period of St. Vincent, 1834-38: The Transition from Slavery to Freedom’ (2001) 10 Women's History Review 7–8.
68 Slavery Abolition Proceedings, 12 March 1835, BPP, 1835, Vol. 81, 1087–1090 quoted in Thomas N. Tyson, David Oldroyd and Richard K. Fleischman, 209.
69 Paton above note 52 at 263.
70 T.N.A. Kew, London, C.O. 137/231.
71 William Laurence Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies, (Jonathan Cape Publishing 1937) 175.
72 The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (citation 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73), Clause 1.
73 Cecily Jones, ‘Contesting Boundaries of Gender, Race and Sexuality in Barbadian Plantation Society’ (2003) 12(2) Women's History Review 195.
74 Lucille Mathurin Mair, A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica, 1655–1844 (University of the West Indies Press 2006).
75 See Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650–1838 (Indiana University Press 1990); David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (eds) More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press 1996); Hilary Beckles, Centering Women: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Society (Markus Wiener Publishers 1999).
76 Sligo to Glenelg, no. 169, 28 September 1835; PP 1836 (166) XLVIII, cases of 2, 12 and 16 February 1835.
77 Paton above note 52 at 262–3.
78 Kenneth Morgan, ‘Slave Women and Reproduction in Jamaica CA. 1776-1834’, in Women and Slavery, Vol Two (Ohio University Press 2008) 35–6.
79 Michael Craton, ‘Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in Jamaica’, (Harvard University Press 1978) 99.
80 ‘Report into the Slave Trade’, Part III, Barbados, Ans. No. 5, in Bush Slimani, 91.
81 Jamaican planter Lewis, quoted in Bush Slimani, 92.
82 The Reverend Henry Beame cited in Michael Craton, James Walvin and David Wright (eds) Abolition and Emancipation: Black Slaves and the British Empire: A Thematic Documentary (Longman Publishing 1976) 141.
83 Barbara Bush Slimani, ‘Hard Labour: Women, Childbirth and Resistance in the British Caribbean Slave Societies’, History Workshop (1993) No. 36, 92.
84 Richard Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies (Cambridge University Press 1985) 152–4.
85 Above note 71 at 92–93.
86 Melville J Herskovits and Frances S Herskovits, Trinidad Village (Alfred A. Knopf 1947) 111.
87 Slimani at 87.
88 Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823 (Oxford University Press 1994) 67–8; Randy M Browne, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press 2017) 94.
89 Slimani at 91.
90 Parliamentary Papers 1836, vol. XL VIII, 349.
91 Richard S Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (North Carolina University Press 1972), 61.
92 Barbara Bush Slimani at 88.
93 Bush Slimani at 88.
94 Bush Slimani at 88 and Paugh at 18.
95 Melanie J Newton, ‘The King v. Robert James, a Slave, for Rape: Inequality, Gender, and British Slave Amelioration, 1823-1834’ (2005) 47(3) Comparative Studies in Society and History 585.