Caribbean History: From Colonialism to Independence
AM217
Lecture 10: After slavery – change or continuity?
Although the abolition of slavery across the Caribbean was a significant step, the
societies that emerged were far from free. Political, economic and military power
remained in the hands of the plantocracies and they used this to attempt to maintain
their dominance over the former slaves, who, in turn, continued to resist. Most of the
region also remained in the grip of European imperial powers.
Lecture structure
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
A clash of expectations
Apprenticeship
Struggles over the plantation system
Control and resistance
The ‘second slavery’
A clash of expectations
The post-emancipation Caribbean witnessed a confrontation between former slaves
and former masters. The enslaved had clear expectations about freedom: they
expected to work for employers of their choice, to move around freely, and to
reconstitute their families. They also believed that freedom meant more than the end
of slavery; many expected to be given the houses they had built and the grounds
they had worked…The planters had very different ideas about the onset of freedom.
Although forced to free their slaves, former masters sought to maintain the
hierarchies and the value system that had grown up during slavery.
Heuman, ‘Peasants, Immigrants, and Workers’ (2011), p. 359.
Post-emancipation education
Education was seen as invaluable for inculcating the ex-slaves with moral attitudes
which in turn encouraged the acceptance of the existing social and economic
system.
Blouet, 'Education and emancipation in Barbados’ (1981, p. 223.
1