Wide Sargasso Sea
SLAVERY AND THE CARIBBEAN
West Indies
History of Slavery in the
Caribbean
Society for the
Abolition of Slavery
formed
1787
1735
Start of major slave
rebellions
Abolishment
of slavery:
Emancipation
Act passed
28/8/1833
1807
Abolishment of
slave trade
1/8/1938
Full
emancipation
granted ahead
of schedule in
Trinidad
EMANCIPATION ACT IN 1833
•
The Emancipation Act abolished slavery throughout the British colonies on
August 28th 1833.
•
20 million pounds was paid as compensation to slave-owners.
•
The final Act, which came into effect on 1 August 1834, stipulated that:
(1) Immediate and effective measures would be taken for the abolition of slavery throughout the
British colonies.
(2) All children born under the passing of the Act, or under the age of six shall be free.
(3) All slaves over the age of six years would have to serve an apprenticeship of six years in the case
of field slaves, and four years in the case of others.
(4) Apprentices should work for not more than 45 hours per week without pay, and any additional
hours for pay.
(5) Apprentices should be provided with food and clothing by the plantation owner.
(6) Funds should be provided for an efficient stipendiary magistracy, and for the moral and religious
education of the ex-slaves.
(7) Compensation in the form of a free gift of 20 million English pounds should be paid to the slave
owners for the loss of their slaves.
EMANCIPATION ACT IN 1833
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It must be noted that attached to the Emancipation Act was the condition which bound most
of the freed slaves to their former masters until 1840 and which required them to work on
the masters' estates seven and a half hours each day for six days each week of the year. On
news of their emancipation, the slaves were either too overjoyed to note this binding
condition, or did not fully understand what it meant.
Their masters, who were generally bitter about it, and in opposition to emancipation,
avoided all discussions and preparations for the changed status of the slaves on August 1,
1834.
condition of the Emancipation Act - an Apprenticeship period of six years - where the freed
slaves were compelled by law to serve their old masters just as they had done when they
were slaves.
The masters were required to provide moral and religious education for the ex-slaves, but the
planters' hostility to the Emancipation Act as a whole really meant that they would treat this
six year period as an extension of slavery, even though the working hours were greatly
reduced to seven and a half hours a day instead of the nine and ten hours they formerly
demanded of each slave.
Slavery in Wide Sargasso Sea
•
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Demand for slaves to cultivate sugarcane and other crops  the triangle trade.
Slaves were exchanged for sugar, rum, salt, and other island products.
•
An estimated 8 to 15 million Africans reached the Americas from the 16th through the 19th
century. Only the youngest and healthiest people were taken eventually. Conditions aboard the ship
were dreadful.
•
Slaves faced more abuses on the plantations.
•
Families were split up, and the Africans were not allowed to learn to read or write. African men,
women, and children were forced to work with little to eat or drink.
•
•
The African slave population quickly began to outnumber the Europeans and Native Americans.
Slave rebellions grew even more frequent, and European investors lost money. The costs of
maintaining slavery grew higher when the European governments sent in armed forces to quell the
revolts.
•
Many Europeans began to pressure their governments to abolish slavery. The first organized
opposition to slavery came in 1724 from the Quakers, a Christian sect also known as the Society of
Friends.
•
Great Britain outlawed slavery in all of their territories in 1833, but the practice continued for
almost fifty years on some of the islands of the Caribbean.
Slavery in the context of WSS
• Ex-slaves who worked on the sugar plantations of
wealthy Creoles are prominent in Part One of the
novel.
• Although the Emancipation Act has freed the
slaves by the time of Antoinette's childhood,
compensation has not been granted to the
island's black population.
hostility and resentment between servants and
their white employers.
• Annette is particularly attuned to the animosity in
many employer-employee interactions.
Antoinette and Annette
• After emancipation- Antoinette and her
mother, do not share the purely racist views of
other whites on the island. Both women
recognize their dependence on the black
servants who care for them, feeling a respect
that often borders on fear and resentment.
Themes
• Slavery and Entrapment- seen in the title.
• Sargasso Sea: almost lifeless area
located between the Caribbean and Europe
where there are no ocean currents, often with a complete lack of
wind = ships trapped.
It is symbolic of Antoinette being trapped lifeless, suspended
between the two worlds.
• Enslavement shapes many of the relationships in the novel
E.g. Between the whites and the blacks, Antoinette and
Rochester
Annette feels helplessly imprisoned at Coulibri Estate after the
death of her husband, repeating the word “marooned” over and
over again.
Themes
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Ownership
white masters on black slaves
Rochester on Antoinette: name-changing
asserting his authority
Displacement
-Antionette is not only displaced is society (belonging
nowhere), but she is also exiled within her own family. To her
servants, she’s a “white cockroach”. She is also an oddity in her
husband’s eyes.
Effects of Names
Sargasso Sea: almost lifeless area located between the Caribbean and
Europe where there are no ocean currents, often with a complete
lack of wind = ships trapped.
It is symbolic of Antoinette being trapped lifeless, suspended
between the two worlds.
Creole Culture
• Creoles are the native-born descendants of
early French, Spanish, and Portuguese settlers
in Latin America, the West Indies, and the
southern United States.
-16th century to distinguish persons born in the
New World colonies of European parents from
New World residents of European birth
-Later, the term designated persons of European
descent.
Mulatto Culture
• slave society regarded the African slaves as mules and even referred to the
offspring of a European and an African female slave as a "mulatto",
meaning literally a "young mule".
• Mulatto- person who has one white parent and one black parent/ person
with both black and white ancestry.
• On the sugar plantations of Latin America, in several Caribbean colonies,
and in southern and western Africa, where white masters faced an
overwhelming number of black workers in bondage to them, the mulatto
and his or her descendants formed a buffer zone between blacks and
whites that was indispensable for maintaining the authority and
prosperity of the Europeans.
• Colonial masters assigned members of this group certain tasks that they
would not themselves assume, but could not entrust to blacks, and in
exchange granted to mulattos privileges which were denied to black
workers on principle.
 such ‘half-breeds’ lost almost any incentive to ally themselves with
blacks, while at the same time they sought to move closer to the white
ruling class.
Differences between Creole
and Mulatto Culture
Creole
• native-born descendants of early
French, Spanish, and Portuguese
settlers in Latin America, the West
Indies, and the southern United
States.
• landowners and slaveholders
during the antebellum (before war)
period, they were perceived as
aristocrats
Mulatto
• one white parent and one black
parent/ person with both black and
white ancestry.
• workers of slave owners. Colonial
masters assigned members of this
group certain tasks that they would
not themselves assume, but could not
entrust to blacks
“Otherness”
• the state or fact of being different or distinct.
• Antionette- “othered” as Bertha by
imperialistic and patriarchal oppression loss
of her identity
• Rochestor- had to deal with the strange
otherness of the West Indies and cope with
the rejection by his father and brother (Pg39,
L29) he feels out of place and without
power in foreign land.
Analysis
• Please refer to your WSS book part II, page 61,
lines 4-31.
• Do a close analysis on the passage given,
making close references to the passage as
much as possible.
• discuss the degeneration of slavery with close
references to the passage
• discuss the use of biblical allusion in the
passage and its effects
Analysis
• “white cockroach”: someone like Antoinette, a white born in a black community.
Basically a black other than her skin colour.
•Unruliness of servant to Antoinette just because she is a ‘white cockroach’. “‘I hit
you back,’ said Amelie. And she did.”
•Rejection by the black community because she’s a white when she is actually
as ‘black’ as anyone of them, being brought up there and thus deeply influenced
by their culture.
•Rochester’s rejection of Antoinette. “‘Antoinette, for God’s sake,’”. Even after
seeing the whole episode where it was obvious that Amelie was clearly stepping
over the line, Rochester still sided her over his wife, Antoinette.
References
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http://www.gatewayno.com/culture/Creoles.html
http://www.enotes.com/wide-sargasso/q-and-a/significance-slavery-entrapment-widesargasso-sea-3057
http://caribbean-guide.info/past.and.present/history/slave.rebellion/
http://www.answers.com/topic/mulatto
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sargasso/themes.html
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Emancipation+Act&offset=0