A Narrative of Events, Since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams, an Apprenticed Labourer in JamaicaDuke University Press, 2001 M07 23 - 141 páginas This book brings back into print, for the first time since the 1830s, a text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain’s colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican “apprentice” (former slave), came to Britain in 1837 at the instigation of the abolitionist Joseph Sturge. The Narrative he produced there, one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves, became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for effecting the immediate end to the system of apprenticeship that had replaced slavery. Describing the hard working conditions on plantations and the harsh treatment of apprentices unjustly incarcerated, Williams argues that apprenticeship actually worsened the conditions of Jamaican ex-slaves: former owners, no longer legally permitted to directly punish their workers, used the Jamaican legal system as a punitive lever against them. Williams’s story documents the collaboration of local magistrates in this practice, wherein apprentices were routinely jailed and beaten for both real and imaginary infractions of the apprenticeship regulations. In addition to the complete text of Williams’s original Narrative, this fully annotated edition includes nineteenth-century responses to the controversy from the British and Jamaican press, as well as extensive testimony from the Commission of Enquiry that heard evidence regarding the Narrative’s claims. These fascinating and revealing documents constitute the largest extant body of direct testimony by Caribbean slaves or apprentices. |
Contenido
ADVERTISEMENT | 3 |
A REPORT OF EVIDENCE TAKEN AT BROWNSTOWN AND ST ANNS BAY IN THE PARISH OF ST ANNS UNDER A COMMISSION FROM ... | 45 |
ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS | 95 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 131 |
139 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
A Narrative of Events, since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams ... James Williams Vista previa limitada - 2001 |
A Narrative of Events, Since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams ... James Williams Vista de fragmentos - 2001 |
A Narrative of Events, Since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams ... James Williams Vista de fragmentos - 2001 |
Términos y frases comunes
Abolition abolitionist Adam Brown African Amelia Lawrence Ann Bell Ann's Bay Apprenticed Labourer apprentices apprenticeship Atkinson August Baptist Missionary breadnut British Brown's Town busha Caribbean church Colonial Office constable Creole dance the mill Daughtrey deponent Dillon Drake driver dungeon edition Falmouth Post Finlayson flog freedom Friday gave evidence Gilbert Senior give Henry James Hiattsfield House of Correction inquiry Jamaican Creole James Finlayson James Williams James Williams's Narrative Jenkins John Clark Joseph Lawrence Joseph Sturge Kingston Knapdale Labourer in Jamaica letter Lionel Smith London Major Light massa master morning named Narrative of Events Narrative's Negro never night penal gang Penshurst plantation planters prison punishment Rawlinson Sarah Senior sent sentence shins slave narrative slave registration returns Slavery Spanish Town Special Magistrate stipendiary magistrate Sturge's sworn tell told took treadmill University Press William Dalling woman women workhouse