Emancipation and Post-Emancipation Cultures (Tim Lockley)
This session deals with the aftermath of emancipation, focussing especially on the varying patterns of adjustment to emancipation in the Americas. Foner’s text provides a general overview of emancipation and focuses on what he calls ‘the political economy of emancipation’. Other readings will complement this approach and also concentrate on the resistance of ex-slaves in the Caribbean to the terms of emancipation.
For discussion
How did ex-slaves respond to freedom in the United States and the rest of the Americas?
How did brown politicians in Jamaica view the aftermath of emancipation?
How do you explain the degree of black resistance after emancipation, especially in the Caribbean?
Readings
Required Readings
Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom
Gad Heuman, Between Black and White, chapter 5.
Gad Heuman, ‘Post-Emancipation Resistance in the Caribbean: An Overview’, in Karen Fog Olwig, ed., Small Islands, Large Questions: Society, Culture and Resistance in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean
Supplementary Readings
Bridget Brereton, ‘Post-Emancipation Protest in the Caribbean: The ‘Belmanna Riots’ in Tobago’, Caribbean Quarterly, 30 (1984): 110-23
Russell E. Chace, Jr., ‘Protest in Post-Emancipation Dominica: The ‘Guerre Negre’ of
Woodville K. Marshall, ‘‘Vox Populi’: The St. Vincent Riots and Disturbances of
Gad Heuman, ‘Post-Emancipation Protest in Jamaica: The Morant Bay Rebellion,