Saturday, September 24, 2016

Emancipation in British West Indies: Slavery Extended

Your way of life, economic well-being, and culture is largely based on the institution of slavery…  What do you do when the government emancipates the slave labor force?  The British West Indies extended slavery through apprenticeship and legal implementations after passing of the Abolition Act of 1833.


Crewmen from the Pinta were the first to see land in the evening of October 11th, 1492; the caravel was the “better sailer” of the three ships in Christopher Columbus’s fleet.[1]  Rodrigo de Triana, sailor on the Pinta, was the first to see land, yet no confirmation was made until after midnight.[2]  King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain “invested so liberally in his [Columbus] enterprise, determined to find new, more expedient trade routes between Europe and India.[3]  ]  American journalist and author Charles C. Mann appropriately identifies Columbus’s voyage not as “the discovery of a New World,” but the creation of a New World.[4]  A world in which cultures already existed and populations were thriving.
As with any mark of bravery, once it is successfully accomplished by one, more will attempt, more will try.  This is true with Columbus’s expedition.  Columbus’s initial voyage lit the fuse of European Exploration throughout the Americas, creating a Trans-Atlantic trade that would exchange goods, resources, and people.  This transferring of cultures, plants, disease, animals, and populations from the Americas, Europe, and Africa will become known as the Columbian Exchange and it will provide nations the opportunity for settlement in the New World.  With that opportunity for settlement and the movement of British citizens, also came the extension of “the medieval Mediterranean slave codes into the Atlantic World.”[5]  The British West Indies were founded and operated on slave labor until its emancipation in 1838.

Emancipation for the slave in the British West Indies was not dissimilar to the emancipation of the slave in the United States.  Both saw emancipation put into law.  Both saw a population lost the ability to own slaves.  Yet, one major difference between emancipation of slaves in the United States and emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies was the economic impact immediately following emancipation.  The loss of the American Civil War and the loss of slave labor in the South after the American Civil War brought economic downfall and famine to the American South.  The same is not true with the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies, who did not see a depression or a loss in imports or exports after emancipation.  Why?  The British West Indies planters found themselves in a “peculiar” situation after the abolition of the slave trade, even more so upon emancipation.[6]  The impact of the emancipation of slaves in the British West Indies is similar to the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation made by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War in 1863, slavery continued to exist, even after prohibited by law.  British West Indies planters used apprenticeship programs to continue a control over their slaves, hence the absence of an economic recession or a drop in import/export data.  The British West Indies eliminated slavery by law, but continued practices to control former slaves after emancipation, avoiding an economic downturn.
Opportunistic and powerful, Great Britain will participate in expanding through colonization of the New World, particularly in Central and North America.  What will become the British West Indies was a series of islands in the Caribbean, including; Belize, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, the British Leeward Islands, and the British Windward Islands.  Sir Thomas Warner and associates claimed the first West Indies settlement, St. Christopher, for the English in 1624 (Appendix, I).[7]  St. Christopher would be referred to as the “Mother Colony” by the British.[8]  These islands will become a major recipient of the goods traded from Africa, human slaves.  For over a century the slave culture will be “deeply embedded” throughout the British West Indies.[9]  This culture will remain after emancipation in 1838. 
Native Americans already living in the New World preferred death over a denial of liberty, thus the importation of African slaves began.  African slaves were imported into the New World as raw materials and manufactured goods were exported from Europe and the Americas.  Portugal was first to use the slave trade.  
Great Britain also became an active participant in the slave trade.  By the 1600’s slavery was “planted on an extensive scale in the West Indies.”[10]  The British actively participated in kidnapping from the West African coast to acquire slave labor.[11]  The use of bound labor, slavery, to operate plantations in the British West Indies was considered more valuable, more productive in the New World than in the Old.[12] 
Amos K. Fiske, a writer for the New York Times in his lifetime, cited the prices of sugar in Europe in conjunction with the cheap production of sugar in the British West Indies as an “extremely profitable business”: a business in which slaver labor was “considered necessary.”[13]  The sugar plantations in the British West Indies became a crucial negotiation point during the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War), as approximately 90% of the world’s sugar came from the islands in the Caribbean.  British West Indies planters were to grow sugar for Great Britain and Ireland.  At the turn of the 19th century, sugar was a profitable and demanded resource.  From 1796 through 1800, the market for sugar never ran out of purchasers; sugar was a cash crop in high demand.[14]  At this time, no one thought of using the labor of African slaves other than as slave labor.[15]
The process of cultivating and manufacturing sugar and goods derived from sugar was a strenuous and dangerous task.  Thomas Fleming, an award-winning American historian describes the harvesting of sugar in the British West Indies as a task that “required unremitting, exhausting toil in a climate that was thick with diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.”[16]   To the typical Englishmen and planters of the British West Indies, manual labor was considered an “undignified” undertaking; this would be a continued mentality after emancipation.[17]  Slave labor, especially in the British West Indies was grueling and dangerous.  The death rate of slaves in the British West Indies was higher than the birthrate.  Slave labor
Regardless of the increased death rate among the slave labor force, slaves vastly outnumbered the white population in the British West Indies.  In the Caribbean, slaves outnumbered whites 10:1.  Antigua had a 15:1 ratio, while in Jamaica, a 30:1 ratio existed.[18]  Fear of slave uprising was not unfamiliar.  Fleming’s book, A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War argues that it was the extension of this fear from the British West Indies that sparked the Civil War through radical abolitionist mentalities, such as John Brown.[19]
The treatment of slaves on plantations is a debated topic among historians.  In 1838, slavery ended in the British West Indies, the same year that photography was developed, therefore a pictorial history of slavery is not accessible, only the written history.[20]  Henry Nelson Coleridge, suffering from illness, joined his uncle, the Bishop of Barbados to the British West Indies in 1825.[21]  He documented this trip, where he spent six months.  He characterizes the treatment of slaves over
twelve British colonies in the Caribbean.  He explains the the “state of society in the West Indies is of that mingled and peculiar character… difficult for anyone to conceive,” arguing that “there is much to praise and much to condemn” about the goings on in the West Indies.[22]  Coleridge states that “it is a certain truth, that the slaves in general do labor much less, do eat and drink much more;  have much more ready money, dress much more gaily, and are treated with more kindness and attention when sick than nine-tenths of all people of Great Britain under the condition of tradesmen.”[23]  Further, he claims that slaves were treated so well and had comforts that they would “forego freedom rather than be deprived of them [comforts].”[24]  Coleridge paints an interesting picture of the treatment of slaves in general.  This could be because of his uncle’s position, or a true change in the treatment of slaves in the British West Indies.  Coleridge took his trip in 1825; a year after the British West Indies passed laws that would implement more humane treatment of the slaves.  In 1824, prohibition of the use of whip or “physical force” to coerce work effort was implemented throughout the British West Indies.[25]
Richard K. Fleischman, accounting scholar at John Carroll University, David Oldroyd, Australian geologist, and Thomas Tyson, Certified Management Accountant, compare the plantation systems of the British West Indies and the United States at the end of their slavery eras.  The British West Indies plantation would, on average, be twice as large as the American plantation in regards to acreage and the number of slave laborers on the plantation.  This was due to the size of the sugar mills and the hands needed to efficiently operate those mills.  In the British West Indies, slaves
showed higher skill.  Again, this is needed due to the necessity of skill in operating the sugar mills; using the mills to convert the crop into rum, sugar, molasses, etc.[26]  In general, “life and labour for the majority of slaves” was considerably more easy than in the American South than in the British West Indies.[27] 
Regardless of the treatment of slaves on a sugar plantation in the British West Indies, sugar crop exports saw a “gradual diminution” in the beginning of the 19th century.[28]  In 1806, planters saw less than half of the sugar crop exported compared to 1802.[29]  The following year, the slave trade would be abolished, furthering the strain on the British West Indies planter who had to struggle with high death rates and low birth rates of the slave labor force.  John Robley, a governor of Trinidad and Tobago, in a public letter to planters noticed the coming grim consequence of the abolishment of the slave trade.  He warned that “you [planters] are now without hope of ever keeping up the numbers of the Negroes upon your estate but by natural increase, “and prophesized that no produce can make up the expense of a lowered strength of their [planters] slave force.[30]  Advocates for the continuation of the slave trade made last, desperate, arguments to stick with the status quo.  They argued theory and logic of consistency by claiming that an end to the slave trade was merely “experiment… and theory, contradicted too by all that we know from fact and experience.”[31]  He continued with the understood fact and experience that  “we are not now in the case of debating whether our colonies shall or shall not be cultivated by slaves from Africa; they are and ever have been so cultivated; and we know at least that their prosperity has been hitherto dependent upon… the… imported population.”[32]  This argument would be used during debates for emancipation. 
After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, debate heated up in British Parliament on the emancipation of all slaves.  Supporters of the abolitionist movement cited economic benefits to the emancipation of slavery, while defenders of the institution of slavery leaned on the economic necessity and culture that was common ground for centuries in the British West Indies.  The debates included the economic impact of the elimination of slavery.  Proponents of emancipation cited financial responsibilities of estate owners as a reason for emancipation.  A slave owner would need to purchase food, clothes, medicine, beddings, and utensils for the household on top of hiring white watchers, whips, and “bilboes” for their slave force.[33]  With emancipation, they would need only to pay for labor, which Robley assessed at one dollar per day as “the usual rate of hire.”[34]    In agreement with the arguments supporting emancipation, British historian James Anderson argued that there was evidence to suggest that slavery “in no case” can prove to be a benefit to those employing “bond-men” in regards to profit.[35]  Advocates of slavery contested that the “value of a slave was greater, especially in the British West Indies, than any non-slave laborer in the colonial zone.”[36]   To the planters and slave owners of the West Indies, slavery was an “economic necessity” as well as a means to salvage “savage souls.”[37] 
By 1824, and more intensely following that year, the British government “took a very active interest… in slavery” throughout the British West Indies.[38]  Professor of History Emeritus at the University of York, James Walvin argues that this increased attention by British Parliament in the issue of slavery in the British West Indies was due to an absence of the slave tradition and slavery’s standing in British Law at the time.[39]  With this increase in British oversight, more restrictions on the treatment of slaves took place.  In 1831, an “order in council” enforced “mutual obligations of slaves and masters” concerning work expectations, allotment of foods, medical care, and clothing.[40]During debates in the British House of Commons, the concern for the future of the British West Indies post-emancipation was analyzed.  The issue was centered on whether the “colonial slave labor forces already in place” was efficient for future and present needs for the plantations and their staple production.[41]
Coleridge, during his visit to the British West Indies, eloquently predicted the fate of slavery; saying that “the untraveled Englishmen… knows the strict definition of slavery…” but does not know, or understand that slavery has never permanently existed in the world.[42]  In British Parliament, the debate for emancipation surged as did slave revolts in the early 19th century; the same revolts that Fleming accuses of sparking radical abolitionism in the United States.  Abolitionists considered and “validated slave rebels” as an instrument in advancing their campaign.[43]  As predicted by Coleridge, in 1833, slavery would no longer exist, by law, in the British West Indies. 
Unlike the United States, the British West Indies implemented emancipation without fighting a full-fledged war.   Instead of a slow, gradual emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies, In 1833 British Parliament passed the Abolition Act.  This movement away from gradual emancipation shifted in 1830 and abolitionists used the “decision of slaves in Jamaica” to rise as a reinforcement to immediate emancipation.[44]
The British West Indies after emancipation did not differ drastically from years prior to the 1833 Abolition Act.  O. Nigel Bolland, Sociology professor at Colgate University, goes as far to call it “erroneous to imply an evolutionary development in labor systems” after 1838’s emancipation.[45]  The production of sugar remained consisted.  Besides Jamaica, major sugar plantations did not see a drop in exports.  This was due to the aspects of the Abolition Act that created an environment in which slave owners still held control over their now former slaves.  The 1833 Abolition Act included provisions for apprenticeship as well as rules for behavior, punishments, effort, and pay.[46]  In general, the Abolition Act of 1833 was a “comprehensive framework” with the goal of transitioning the British West Indies from slave to wage labor.[47]
The actual emancipation date for slaves in the British West Indies was August 1, 1834, at which time all slaveholders who wanted their share of the £20 million fund would have a set of ordinances that detail “work rules and punishment.”[48]  Initially, as evidenced in the Jamaican House of Assembly, emancipation was to be an experiment, one in which the “contemporaries did not know how it was going to turn out.”[49]
Although slavery was abolished in the British West Indies, traditions remained the same.  Hence, no economic depression or windfall occurred, as seen in the American South after the Civil War.  The “elimination of racial discrimination… involves painful adjustments,” adjustments that were not made immediately after emancipation.[50]  As in the American South, newly freed slaves did not enjoy the same freedoms as Englishmen in the British West Indies, particularly on the plantation in which they were under bonded labor.  The system of the plantation also did not change under the apprenticeship program.  The chain of command remained the same; the estate owner was the top of this chain, followed by the estate manager, overseers, headmen, and finally drivers.  This chain of command and a replication of similar black to white ratios of the British West Indies is evidence into the 1900’s.  In a 1904 photo, a white overseer stands with twelve black laborers in the field (Appendix II).[51]  The photo, if left undated, could be assessed as a slave labor force in the fields of a plantation in the British West Indies prior to emancipation. 
            To continue to maintain the living conditions of the planter-class, other implementations took place after emancipation.  Fleischman et al., emphasize the use of special magistrates along with local justices that were “empowered to administer corporal punishments for particular (and repeated) violations.”[52]  These violations could range from breaking work rules or inappropriate social behaviors, but most importantly vagrancy.[53]
As the black codes controlled black labor in the South in North America after the Civil War, the British West Indies used other devices to offset their limitations on corporal punishment under the 1833 Abolition Act.  Under the apprenticeship system, the implementations of “prison reform, non-corporal treadmills, religious instruction, and detailed work rules and work standards” were implemented in an attempt to continue to control newly freed laborers.[54]  Difficulty to own land caused many ex-slaves to continue their same work on the same plantations that they served under bondage.[55]  For example, a newly freed slave in British Guiana who entered the apprenticeship program would be doing the exact same labor as they did prior to emancipation.  Only when that slave accumulated over 45 hours of work for the week would a plantation owner be required to pay wages to the worker.[56]  This was not as aspect of emancipation that the newly freed slaves took without conflict.  Bolland points out that strikes broke out, almost always due to objections on the wage rates.  These strikes would sometimes turn violent.[57]
The apprenticeship system allowed for estate owners to continue their power over the laborers on the plantation.  Runaways under apprenticeship “could be punished with imprisonment” while negligence or disobedience could lead to a correction of the malfeasance with force.[58]  Inflicting pain on ex-slaves was also an accepted penalty for “shirking work.[59]  In general, the apprenticeship system was an aspect of the precedents of British law.  The British law in this case “legitimized the continued ‘enslavement’ of plantation workers in the West Indies after emancipation” through an alternative form of “social control” and “binding” that was typically accepted prior to emancipation.[60]
British Parliament was interested in securing the benefits from the British West Indies.  English Law reflects this as it held even the freeborn English, in manual labor, as not free due to the power instilled to the employers and local magistrates.[61]  Basically, the system of slavery ended by name only in 1838, yet the institution itself continued.  This is interesting as the culture of slavery was so imbedded into the population of the British West Indies and the economic success of the plantation system.  Drescher ironically suggests that “penal restrictions on free labor continued to apply and to be fully enforced in precisely that area of the Anglo-American world where the abolitionist movement first developed a popular mass base.”[62] 
Although the British West Indies implemented an apprenticeship system that replicated slavery, some reports show that, post-emancipation, laborers were treated more humanely, particularly the experience of Joseph John Gurney.  An abolitionist and evangelical Minister of the Religious Society of Friends, Gurney assessed the emancipated as “working well on the estates of their old masters.”[63]  Gurney explained that this was not a rarity among the British West Indies.  While in Jamaica, he described the treatment of Negroes in the same light as on other islands; fair, kind, and wise.[64]  Gurney also offers a perspective of the freed slaves that were able to find their own land after emancipation, instead of working on their old masters’ estates.  He describes them as not being idle; instead they work “busily” cultivating their land, fishing, and attempting to benefit their own cause and community.[65]  In general Gurney felt that more of the black people were “operative under freedom than was the case under slavery.”[66]  This is contradictory to most evidence on the treatment of slaves or post-emancipation laborers; however the British West Indies began implementing provisions on the treatment of slaves beginning in the 1920’s, almost two decades prior to emancipation.  It is not unreasonable to assume that there were instances in which laborers were treated fairly. 
Basically, the apprenticeship system, additional attention to the British West Indies by British Parliament, English Law, and a devotion and attachment to the culture led to a continuation to slavery in an attempt to continue the economic success of the British West Indies.  Apprenticeship did not
create a perfect solution for the slaves or planters; slaves wanted complete freedom and planters wanted authority and a sustaining of plantation economics.[67]  These implementations saw success at different degrees in control of the former slaves who were now in the labor force.[68]  Yet, the British West Indies did not see the immediate economic effects that the American South would see after the elimination of the institution of slavery.  Workers on Plantation Walton Hall in British Guiana wrote a petition to Captain J.A. Allen, a Stipendiary Magistrate in which they adequately sum up their situation after the elimination of slavery.  “During our slavery we was clothed, ration, and seported [sic] in all manner of respects.  Now we are free men (free indeed), we are to work for nothing.  Then we might actually say, we become slaves again.”[69]
Tyson et al. explain that the economics was the reasoning for apprenticeship and other restrictions put on the British West Indies slaves after their emancipation.  Apprenticeship assisted in maintaining “production in the short-term by coercion, “as well as controlling labor costs and developing a labor class of waged workers through “indoctrination” for the long-term.[70]
            Antigua became the exception to the general emancipation plan of the British West Indies, as analyzed by William Grant Sewell in 1860.  He identifies Antigua as one of the “favored” islands in British West India and despite her small size, was the lead in political and social reform for larger, more economically advanced islands.[71]  Antigua did not approach emancipation with apprenticeship or strict labor laws to prepare newly freed slaves for their new freedom.  Instead, immediate emancipation took place; an “at once… substitution of free labor for slave labor.”[72]  Their argument for this course of action was one of learning.  The leaders of Antigua knew “much had to be learnt,” that the successes and failures of this new system “could only be determined by time and experience,” and they choose to get a head start on the change.[73]
            The objective of maintaining economic stability while abolishing slavery from the British West Indies was done through an extension of slavery.  The framework of apprenticeship was basically a substitution for slavery.  Slavery was culturally rooted in the British West Indies with hundreds of years’ worth of participation in the slave trade.  Although resistance to emancipation existed, the halt of the slave trade in 1807 combined with the diminution of sugar consumption in Great Britain led to the passing of the Abolition Act of 1833.  Economic stability only remained in the British West Indies after emancipation because slavery, by definition, was not abolished, rather given another name, apprenticeship.
            Apprenticeship extended slavery in the British West Indies.  This program was a means to continue economic strength, the production of sugar, and to protect the planter class of the British Empire.  The belief that former slaves would work only with extensive networks of regulations, rules, and “paternalistic persuasion…” created a post-emancipation environment that mimicked the same slave lifestyle for many freed slaves.[74]  As slaveholders held control over their owned slaves, so did the estate owners after emancipation.  After emancipation, it was clear that to continue to thrive economically, the British West Indies were willing to continue a regulation of behavior, labor, and social control over their apprentices.[75]
            Upon the discovery of the New World and the explosion of European exploration across the Atlantic, the slave trade was engrained into many cultures.  The British West Indies were no exception to this reality and their cultivating, harvesting, and exporting of sugar and other crops provided wealth to the British Empire.  As the debate for emancipation came to the forefront, so too did the ways in which to continue a beneficial lifestyle without slavery.  The South lost the American Civil War and their slaves.  What followed was economic depression as well as social and cultural hindrances.  This was not seen in the British West Indies.  The British West Indies avoided a similar fate, because of their extension of social, economic, and behavioral control of their slave population after emancipation.  The production of goods did not drop because the labor system changed only by name.  Slavery, as we understand the term, existed for many years after emancipation in the British West Indies.

           
Bibliography

Anderson, James. Observations on Slavery; Particularly With a View to its Effects on the British Colonies, in the West-Indies. Manchester: J. Harrop, 1789.

Bolland, O. Nigel. “Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land and Labor in the British West Indies after 1838.”  Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1981): 591-619.

Coleridge, Henry Nelson. Six Months in the West Indies. London: J. Haddon, 1841.

Drescher, Seymour. The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Fiske, Amos K. The West Indies: A History of the Islands of the West Indian Archipelago, Together with an Account of their Physical Characteristics, Natural Resources, and Present Condition. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1902.

Fleming, Thomas. A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War. Boston: De Capo Press, 2013.

Fleischman, Richard K., Oldroyd, David, and Tyson N. Thomas. “Plantation Accounting and Management Practices in the US and the British West Indies at the end of their Slavery Eras.” Economic History Review 64, No. 3 (2011): 765-797.

Gurney, Joseph John. The West Indies, Described in Familiar Letters to Henry Clay, of Kentucky. London: John Murray, 1840.

 “Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus.” American Journeys Collection. Doc. No. AJ -062. Wisconsin Historical Society Digital Library and Archives (2003).

Knowles, William H. “Supervision in the British West Indies: Source of Labor Unrest.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 8, No. 4 (July, 1955): 572-580.

Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2011.

Matthews, Gelien. Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.

“Petition from workers on Plantation Walton Hall, British Guiana, to Captain J. A. Allen, Stipendiary Magistrate.”  In Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the West India Colonies, 1842. (Jan. 6, 1842): Appendix III.
Robley, John. A Permanent and Effectual Remedy Suggested for the Evils Under Which the British West Indies Now Labour: In a Letter from a West India Merchant to a West India Planter. London: J.G. Barnard, 1808.

Sewell, William G. The Ordeal of Free Labor in the British West Indies. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861.

Thompson, Krista. “The Evidence of Things Not Photographed: Slavery and Historical Memory in the British West Indies.” Representations 113, No. 1 (Winter 2011): 39-71.

Tyson, Thomas N., Oldroyd, David., and Fleischman, Richard. “Accounting, Coercion and Social Control During Apprenticeship: Converting Slave Workers to Wage Workers in the British West Indies, C. 1834-1838.” Accounting Historians Journal, 32. (Dec. 2005): 201-231.

Walvin, J. Slaves and Slavery: The British Colonial Experience. New York: Manchester University Press, 1992.

“Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus.” American Journeys Collection. Doc. No. AJ -062. Wisconsin Historical Society Digital Library and Archives (2003).




[1] Christopher Columbus, “Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus,” American Journeys Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society Digital Library and Archives, (2003): 108.
[2] Columbus, “Journal,” 109.
[3] Amos K. Fiske, The West Indies: A History of the Islands of the West Indian Archipelago, Together with an Account of their Physical Characteristics, Natural Resources, and Present Condition (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 2003), 103.
[4] Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), XV.
[5] Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor Versus Slavery in British Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 10.
[6] John Robley, A Permanent and Effectual Remedy Suggested for the Evils Under Which the British West Indies Now Labour: In a Letter from a West India Merchant to a West India Planter (London: J.G. Barnard, 1808), 5.
[7] Fiske, The West Indies, 73-74.
[8] Ibid, 74.
[9] William H. Knowles, “Supervision in the British West Indies: Source of Labor Unrest,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 8, no. 4 (July, 1955): 574.
[10] Ibid, 104.
[11] Ibid, 104.
[12] Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, 14.
[13] Ibid, 105.
[14] Robley, A Permanent and Effectual Remedy, 10.
[15] Fiske, The West Indies, 105.
[16] Thomas Fleming, A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War (Boston: De Capo Press, 2013), 17.
[17] Knowles, “Supervision in the West Indies,” 573.
[18] Richard K. Fleischman, David Oldroyd, and Thomas Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management Practices in the US and the British West Indies at the end of their Slavery Eras,” Economic History Review 64, no. 3 (2011): 777.
[19] Fleming, A Disease of the Public Mind, xi-xiv.
[20] Krista Thompson, “The Evidence of Things Not Photographed: Slavery and Historical Memory in the British West Indies,” Representations 113, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 39.
[21] Henry N. Coleridge, Six Months in the West Indies (London: J. Haddon, 1841), 1.
[22] Coleridge, Six Months in the West Indies, 287.
[23] Ibid, 289.
[24] Ibid, 290.
[25] Fleischman, Oldroyd, and Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management,” 789.
[26] Ibid, 778.
[27] Ibid, 778.
[28] Robley, A Permanent and Effectual Remedy, 11.
[29] Ibid, 11.
[30] Ibid, 19.
[31] Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, 106.
[32] Ibid, 106.
[33] Joseph John Gurney, The West Indies, Described in Familiar Letter to Henry Clay, of Kentucky (London: John Murray, 1840), 178-179.
[34] Robley, A Permanent and Effectual Remedy, 27.
[35] James Anderson, Observations on Slavery: Particularly With a View to its Effects on the British Colonies in the West-Indies (Manchester: J. Harrop, 1780), 11.
[36] Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, 15.
[37] Ibid, 11.
[38] Fleischman, Oldroyd, and Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management,” 791.
[39] J. Walvin, Slaves and Slavery: The British Colonial Experience (New York: Manchester University Press, 1992), 32-35.
[40] Fleischman, Oldroyd, and Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management,” 789.
[41] Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, 107.
[42] Coleridge, Six Months in the West Indies, 287-288.
[43] Matthews, Caribbean Slave Revoltss, 1.
[44] Ibid, 17.
[45] O. Nigel Bolland, “Systems of Domination after Slavery: The Control of Land and Labor in the British West Indies after 1838,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 4 (Oct., 1981): 592.
[46] Fleischman, Oldroyd, and Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management,” 791.
[47] Thomas Tyson, David Oldroyd, and Richard Fleischman, “Accounting, Coercion, and Social Control During Apprenticeship: Converting Slave Workers to Wage Workers in the British West Indies, C. 1834-1838,” Accounting Historians Journal 32 (Dec., 2005):, 206.
[48] Tyson, Oldroyd, and Fleischman, Áccounting, Coercion, and Social Control,” 203.
[49] Ibid, 203.
[50] Knowles, Supervision in the British West Indies, 573.
[51] Thompson, The Evidence of Things, 46.
[52] Fleischman, Oldroyd, and Tyson, “Plantation Accounting and Management,”  791.
[53] Ibid, 791.
[54] Ibid, 791.
[55] Ibid, 790.
[56] Ibid, 790.
[57] Bolland, “Systems of Domination after Slavery,” 591.
[58] Tyson, Oldroyd, and Fleischman, “Accounting, Coercion, and Social Control,” 203.
[59] Ibid, 206.
[60] Ibid, 206.
[61] Drescher, The Mighty Experiment, 13.
[62] Ibid, 13.
[63] Gurney, The West Indies, 177.
[64] Ibid, 178.
[65] Ibid, 178.
[66] Ibid, 178.
[67] Tyson, Oldroyd, and Fleischman, “Accounting, Coercion, and Social Control,” 204.
[68] Bolland, “Systems of Domination after Slavery,” 592.
[69] Petition from workers on Plantation Walton Hall, British Guiana, to Captain J. A. Allen, Stipendiary Magistrate, 6 January 1842, in Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the West India Colonies, 1842, Appendix III.
[70] Tyson, Oldroyd, and Fleischman, “Accounting, Coercion, and Social Control,” 204.
[71] William G. Sewell, The Ordeal of Free Labor in the British West Indies (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861), 141.
[72] Sewell, The Ordeal of Free Labor, 141.
[73] Ibid, 141.
[74]Tyson, Oldroyd, Fleischman, “Accounting, Coercion, and Social Control,” 207.
[75] Ibid, 207.