The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938

Description

The Jamaican slave revolt of 1831-32 precipitated the abolition of slavery throughout the British colonial empire. A century later, the labor rebellion of 1938 marked the beginning of that empire’s end. Each event embraced a particular form of emancipation: at issue in the first revolt was the freedom of the individual slave; at issue in the second was the freedom of the society itself. The century that separated these watersheds in British colonial history was one of extraordinary transformations in British ideology, in economic and social policy, and in the lives of Jamaican freed people and their descendants. In 'The Problem of Freedom', Thomas C. Holt offers an intriguing analysis of this period, exploring the meaning and reality of freedom in the context of slave emancipation in Jamaica—the largest West Indian colony of the nineteenth century’s major world power. The Problem of Freedom Contents List of Tables, Figures, and Plates Preface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Prologue: The Problem of Freedom in an Age of Revolution Part 1 The Mighty Experiment 1. The Meaning of Freedom The Matrix of Reform: Providence’s Immanent Design, Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand The Problem of Free Labor Planning the Transition to Free Labor 2. An Apprenticeship for Ex-Slaves Defining Freedom for a Malthusian World 3. An Apprenticeship for Former Masters A World “Beyond the Line”: The Jamaican Planter Class Creating a Free Society The Jamaican Panopticon Part 2 The Free Labor Economy 4. The Planters: Managing a Free Labor Economy King Sugar’s Fall Costing Out Slavery and Freedom 5. Peasants and Workers: Building a Free Society Explaining the Growth of the Peasantry The Moral Economy of Jamaican Workers Part 3 The Political Economy of Freedom 6. Liberal Democratic Society in Theory and Practice Liberal Democracy beyond the Line Progressive Theory, Regressive Taxation, and Political Crisis 7. Politics and Power in a “Plural Society” The Great Fear: Black Power in Jamaican Politics Making a Better Government: Mid-Century Analyses of Race, Power, and Governance Taming Black Power 8. “A War of the Races” “The coming storm” The Road to Morant Bay: British Racial Ideology and Jamaican Policy “The spirit of rebellion” “The iron bar is broken” Coda Part 4 The Road from Morant Bay 9. Political Economy and Race: Peasants in the Age of Empire The Irish Analogy: New Political Economy, Old Political Order “A Beneficent Despotism”: Race, Labor, and Jamaican Politics 10. The Making of the Jamaican Working Class The Banana Trade and the Rise and Fall of the Peasantry The Sugar Industry: Revival and Reorganization Epilogue: “Better Must Come”: The Problem of Freedom in the Twentieth Century Development versus Democracy “Freedom is a constant struggle” Appendix 1. Sources for and Analysis of Landholding and Migration Appendix 2. Sources for and Analysis of the Jamaica Assembly Notes List of Works Cited Index