The Children of Africa in the Colonies: Free People of Color in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)

337 Pages·2008·1.1 MB·English

by  Melanie J. Newton

atlantic world history
n The Children of Africa in the Colonies
e
w
political disenfranchisement. While some wealthy men When a small group of free men
t
of color gained political influence as a result of emanci- o of color gathered in 1838 to celebrate the
n
pation, the absence of fundamental change in the distri- Free PeoPle oF end of apprenticeship in Barbados, they
bution of land and wealth left most men and women of spoke of emancipation as the moment of freedom for all
T
color with little hope of political independence or social Color in BArBAdos colored people, not just the former slaves. The fact that
mobility. h many of these men had owned slaves themselves gives
Mining a rich vein of primary and secondary sources, “A clearly written, provocative, and politically sophisticated examination of a free e in The Age a hollow ring to their lofty pronouncements. Yet in The

Newton’s study elegantly describes how class divisions colored population and its struggles to define itself within a colonial and racist soci- C Children of Africa in the Colonies, Melanie J. Newton dem-
oF emAnCiPATion
and disagreements over labor and social policy among ety before and after emancipation. Newton makes a major contribution to the under- onstrates that simply dismissing these men as hypocrites
h
free and slave black Barbadians led to political unrest ignores the complexity of their relationship to slavery.
standing of free people of color in the British Caribbean, and provides a detailed and
i
and devastated the hope for an entirely new social struc- l Exploring the role of free blacks in Barbados from 1790
nuanced discussion of the complex interplay among ‘race,’ gender, and class in one of d
ture and a plebeian majority in the British Caribbean. to 1860, Newton argues that the emancipation process
Britain’s oldest plantation-slave colonies.” r
transformed social relations between Afro-Barbadians
e
—jerome handler,
n melanie J. newton and slaves and ex-slaves.
author of A Guide to Source Materials for the Study of Barbados History, 1627–1834
Free people of color in Barbados genuinely wanted
o
Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World f slavery to end, Newton explains, a desire motivated in

R. J. M. Blackett and James Brewer Stewart, series editors A part by the realization that emancipation offered them
significant political advantages. As a result, free people’s
“Melanie Newton argues successfully for the importance and centrality of the free f goals for the civil rights struggle that began in Barbados
r
Afro-Barbadian population during slavery and also after emancipation. This is a very in the 1790s often diverged from those of the slaves, and
i
c
well-written and thoroughly researched book and will be a vital addition to the lit- the tensions that formed along class, education, and gen-
a
melanie j. newton is an erature on the free people of color in the Americas.” der lines severely weakened the movement. While the
i populist masses viewed emancipation as an opportunity
assistant professor of Caribbean —gad heuman, n
to form a united community among all people of color,
and Atlantic world history at the author of The Caribbean: Brief Histories
t wealthy free people viewed it as a chance to better their
University of Toronto. h
position relative to white Europeans.
e
To this end, free people of color refashioned their
C
identities in relationship to Africa. Prior to the 1820s,
Newton reveals, they downplayed their African descent,
o
l emphasizing instead their legal status as free people and
studio cabral o their position as owners of property, including slaves. As
n
the emancipation debate in the Atlantic world reached
i
ss e its zenith in the 1820s and 1830s and whites grew in-
e
pr s creasingly hostile and inflexible, elite free people allied
y
louisiAnA sTATe universiTy Press sit themselves with the politics of the working class and the
r
e
Baton rouge 70808 niv slaves, relying for the first time on their African heritage
u
www.lsu.edu/lsupress ate louisiAnA sTATe universiTy Press and the association of their skin color with slavery to
t openly challenge white supremacy.
printed in u.s.a. na s Baton rouge 70808 After emancipation, free people of color again rede-
a
si
jacket illustration by philip moore, Old Gods Cannot oui fined themselves, now as loyal British imperial subjects,
Die Young (1991) 008 l IìS<B(Ns 9k7)8k-0(-=8b0d71d-c3g32c6< -2+ ^ -Ä - U -Ä-U casting themselves in the role of political protectors of
jacket design by amanda mcdonald scallan © 2 > their ex-slave brethren in an attempt to escape social and
The Children of Africa in the Colonies
ANTISLAVERY, ABOLITION, AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD
r. j. m. blackett and
james brewer stewart
Series Editors
The Children of Africa in the Colonies
FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN BARBADOS
IN THE AGE OF EMANCIPATION
Melanie J. Newton
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS BATON ROUGE
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2008 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
designer: Amanda McDonald Scallan
typeface: Whitman and AIKoch Antiqua
typesetter: J. Jarrett Engineering, Inc.
printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Newton, Melanie J., 1974–
The children of Africa in the colonies : free people of color in Barbados in
the age of emancipation / Melanie J. Newton.
p. cm. — (Antislavery, abolition, and the Atlantic World)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-3326-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Free blacks— Barbados—
History—19th century. 2. S laves—E mancipation—S ocial aspects—
Barbados. I. Title.
F2041.N49 2008
972.981′00496—dc22
2007042882
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guide-
lines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. >
For keir, lily, alex, and nico

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
PART ONE
slaves, subjects, and citizens:
People of African Descent in Barbadian Slave Society
1. Defi ning Freedom in the Interstices of Slave Society 23
2. Race and Politics in an Age of Insurrection 57
3. Racial Segregation and Public Life during the Amelioration Era 87
4. New Publics: Afro- Barbadian Oppositional Politics 114
PART TWO
ties of consanguinity, suffering, and wrong:
Apprenticeship and Its Aftermath
5. Discipline and (Dis)Order: Apprenticeship and the Meaning of Freedom 141
6. Men of Property, Character, and Education: The Afro- Barbadian Bourgeois
Public Sphere 174
7. Between Africa and the Empire: Diasporic Consciousness
in Postemancipation Society 196
PART THREE
the limits of freedom
8. The Emigration Debate and Postemancipation Politics 225
9. Hard Times and African Dreams 256
epilogue: The Living Past 283
Bibliography 291
Index 309

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Growing up in Barbados, away from the Caribbean’s major centers of radical state
and social experimentation, there was no escaping the excitement of the region
in the 1970s and early 1980s. The very air was charged with a sense of possibility
that a more humane and people- centered socialist or social democratic path could
be forged. In an echo of Grenada’s Fedon Rebellion of 1795, the Grenada Revolu-
tion of 1979–1983 brought the turbulence of the age almost next door to Barba-
dos. I had a children’s book extolling the virtues of the revolution, and I thought
Maurice Bishop and Fidel Castro extremely handsome and swashbuckling fellows,
whereas Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Eugenia Charles, Edward Seaga, and
Jean- Claude Duvalier were the devil incarnate. I remember newspaper reports of
the fi nal bloody weeks of the People’s Revolutionary Government; the mass kill-
ing of one faction of its leadership, including Bishop; and the humiliating U.S. in-
vasion of Grenada on October 25, 1983, when about six thousand U.S. troops occu-
pied a country of one hundred thousand people. Even as a child I experienced an
acute sense of embarrassment at the fact that the government of B arbados—m y
government— provided the regional base from which the invasion was launched.
The invasion seriously undermined the regional and intellectual cohesiveness of
challenges to the new forms of North American and European imperialism assert-
ing themselves in the era of Britain’s formal exit from much of the region.
These memories of the Grenada R evolution—a nd the relationship of Barbados
and Barbadians to i t—i nspired this study of the impact of the Haitian Revolution
and transatlantic abolitionism on Afro- Barbadian politics and community forma-
tion in the age of emancipation. This book is about Barbados, a country that still
bears (somewhat uncomfortably) the nickname Little England for its perceived
topographical similarities and steadfast imperial loyalty to the former metropole.
Like England, Barbados has been somewhat insulated from the tides of revolu-
tion that periodically have swept its neighbors. Instead, it has been an island from
which imperial i nvasions—w hether of Spanish Jamaica in 1655, Grenada in 1983,
or Haiti in 1994—often have been launched. And yet I grew up with a very strong
sense that Barbadians had a far more ambivalent relationship with empire than
the moniker Little England would allow. The study is an effort to make sense of
my country’s complicated place within the former British Empire, the Caribbean,
and the Atlantic world. Questions I have always had about the social forces that