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Unlike the earthquakes and hurricanes that have influenced Caribbean history, the region's fires have almost always been caused by humans. Geographer Bonham C. Richardson explores the effects of fire in the social and ecological history of the British Les
Contact and clash, amalgamation and accommodation, resistance and change have marked the history of the Caribbean islands. It is a unique region where people under the stress of slavery had to improvise, invent and literally create forms of human association through which their pasts and the symbolic interpretation of their present could be structured.Caribbean Transformations is divided into three major parts, each preceded by a brief introductory chapter. Part One begins with a look at the African antecedents of the Caribbean, then discusses slavery and the plantation system. Two chapters deal with slavery and forced labor in Puerto Rico and the history of a Puerto Rican plantation. Part Two is concerned with the rise of a Caribbean peasantry--the erstwhile slaves who separated themselves from the plantation system on small plots of land. This creative adaptation led to the growth of a class of rural landowners producing a large part of their own subsistence but also selling to and buying from wider markets. Mintz first discusses the origins of reconstructed peasantries, and then proceeds to the specifics of the origins and history of the peasantry in Jamaica. Part Three turns to Caribbean nationhood--the political and economic forces that affected its shaping and the social structure of its component societies. A separate chapter details the case of Haiti. The book ends with a critique of the implications of Caribbean nationhood from an anthropological perspective, stressing the ways that class, color and other social dimensions continue to play important parts in the organization of Caribbean societies.Caribbean Transformations--lucidly written and presenting broad coverage of both time and space--is essential reading for anthropologists, sociologists, historians and all others interested in the Caribbean, in black studies, in colonial problems, in the relationships between colonial areas and the imperial powers, and in culture change generally.
A Concise History of the Caribbean presents a general history of the Caribbean islands from the beginning of human settlement about seven thousand years ago to the present. It narrates processes of early human migration, the disastrous consequences of European colonization, the development of slavery and the slave trade, the extraordinary profits earned by the plantation economy, the great revolution in Haiti, movements toward political independence, the Cuban Revolution, and the diaspora of Caribbean people. Written in a lively and accessible style yet current with the most recent research, the book provides a compelling narrative of Caribbean history essential for students and visitors.
A “wide-ranging, vivid” narrative history of one of the most coveted and complex regions of the world: the Caribbean (The Observer). Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson offers a panoramic view of the region from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba and its rich, important history. After that fateful landing in 1492, the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and even the Swedes, Scots, and Germans sought their fortunes in the islands for the next two centuries. These fraught years gave way to a booming age of sugar, horrendous slavery, and extravagant wealth, as well as the Haitian Revolution and the long struggles for independence that ushered in the modern era. Gibson tells not only of imperial expansion—European and American—but also of life as it is lived in the islands, from before Columbus through the tumultuous twentieth century. Told “in fluid, colorful prose peppered with telling anecdotes,” Empire’s Crossroads provides an essential account of five centuries of history (Foreign Affairs). “Judicious, readable and extremely well-informed . . . Too many people know the Caribbean only as a tourist destination; [Gibson] takes us, instead, into its fascinating, complex and often tragic past. No vacation there will ever feel quite the same again.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopold’s Ghost
The primary aim of Listening to the Caribbean: Sounds of Slavery, Revolt, and Race is quite ambitious: to open up the Caribbean to a “sound studies” approach, and to thereby effect a shift in Caribbean studies away from the predominantly visual biases of most scholarly works and towards a fuller understanding of early Caribbean societies through listening in to the past. Paying close attention to auditory elements in written accounts of slavery and revolts allows us to unlock the sounds that are registered and recorded there, so that not only does one gain a more sensorially full understanding of the society, but also to a considerable extent, the voices and subjectivities of the enslaved are brought out of the silence to which they have been largely consigned. Reading texts in this way, listening to the sounds of language, work, festivity, music, laughter, mourning, and warfare, for example, allows one to know better the lives of the enslaved people, and how, counter to the largely visual power of the planters, the people developed a highly sophisticated auditory culture that in large part ensured their survival and indeed their final victories over the institution of slavery.
Unlike the earthquakes and hurricanes that have influenced Caribbean history, the region's fires have almost always been caused by humans. Geographer Bonham C. Richardson explores the effects of fire in the social and ecological history of the British Lesser Antilles, from the British Virgin Islands south to Trinidad. Focusing on the late nineteenth century, leading to the 1905 withdrawal of British military forces from the region, Richardson shows how fire-lit social upheavals served as forerunners of political independence movements. Drawing on Caribbean and London archives as well as years of fieldwork, Richardson examines how villagers used, modified, and contemplated fire in part to vent their frustrations with a savage economic depression and social and political inequities imposed from afar. He examines fire in all its forms, from protest torches to sugarcane fires that threatened the islands' economic staple. Richardson illuminates a neglected period in Caribbean history by showing how local uses of fire have been catalysts and even causes of important changes in the region.
Provides a clear and readable account ofa formative period in the history of the region. The text is divided into two halves: the first half looks at the structure of society and covers issues of race, class and wealth, while the second half looks at four particular aspects of community life - religion, the family, education and festivals...
This collection of eleven essays is designed to highlight some important new voices who have been doing research on the general subject areas of the history and culture of the Caribbean. The essays in this volume also address a number of themes which are critical to developing an understanding of current scholarly work on the two broad subject areas. Among the themes examined are colonialism, slavery, and the involvement of the Christian Church in both colonial rule and enslavement. The essays also analyze the pre-independence and post-independence periods of the twentieth century, with examinations on topics that include prostitution, departmentalization, education, visual art, and the musical form known as Reggae. The purpose of this book is to stimulate discussion around these important topics based on the perspectives of a number of new scholars. The book is also designed as a teaching device, principally for courses focusing on Caribbean society, whether in the past or the present.
"The Roots of Caribbean Identity has as its central elements race, place and language. The book presents a movement from a European construction of Caribbean identity towards a more Caribbean construction. The ways in which the identity of the Caribbean region and the identities of the separate islands within the region were shaped are set out in a chronological sequence, starting from the time of the European encounters with the Amerindians and finishing at the end of the nineteenth century."(extrait de la 4ème de couv.).