West Indian plantation slavery has four important components that provide a basic overview of its importance both historically and in relation to literature.
European Colonization
· The area that is known today as the Caribbean was first discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492
· After his discovery, the Indians of the Caribbean land were now enslaved to the Spanish crown – all traces of the former life on this land were erased by the Spanish rule
Emergence of the Slave Trade
· New plantations were created, requiring an army of human hands to work them
· By the 17th century the majority of the original inhabitants of the West Indies had been wiped out by a combination of European diseases and physical exploitation – black slaves were brought in bondage from Africa
·
Slave Treatment
Duties:
· The cultivation of crops and tending of the animals
· Serving their “owners” in any way possible
· Sixteen to eighteen hours of work per day, and during the season of sugarcane harvest most slaves got only four hours of sleep
· Severe punishment for disobeying orders
· Etc.
Slave Compensation
It wasn’t until the mid 1800’s that the Emancipation Act of 1838 freed the slaves of the West Indies, however the unequal system still continued. The owners of these slaves were paid compensation by the British government, applying to the British colonies in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, Mauritius, and Cape Colony (South Africa).
West Indian Slavery and Literature
Slavery is a recurring theme in the literature of the Caribbean. Many writers feel the need to attempt a vocalization of all that was denied under the brutal system. Writers such as Derek Walcott in Omeros, and George Lamming in In the Castle of my Skin talk about the difficulty of moving forward from the feelings of injustice inspired by the slave system and the lack of improvement of life after slavery.
Video
This video sums up the main points about West Indian plantation slavery, outlining its emergence, purpose, and conditions:
Video – “The Caribbean: Colonial Past”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/640195/West-Indies/54384/Plantation-slavery
Other useful resources:
European Colonization (Christopher Columbus)
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/columbus.htm
(Columbus's journal appears in Olson, Julius, The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 (1926); Dyson, John, Columbus: for Gold, God, and Glory (1991); Morrison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942); )
Slave Compensation Claims – The Emancipation Act
http://compensations.plantations.bb/
Slavery and the Caribbean – Literature
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/carib/slavery.htm
West Indian Plantation Slavery and Jane Eyre
As mentioned, once Columbus took over the Caribbean new culture and traditions were established to replace the original customs and way of life. This can be immediately related back to Jane Eyre and how she was almost forced to go to Lowood. Jane is taken over by the reforms and rules placed upon her by Lowood. Her choices are limited and her life is regulated harshly. Like slaves relocated from Africa, she was taken from a place she knew and relocated to a cold, unrecognizable place. On page 103 Jane is interviewed by a women who seems kind enough and says “She hoped I would be a good little child” “and dismissed me”. Although this women is kind enough to Jane. The girls, especially Helen are subject to other unfairness in the classroom picked on for simple and unrealistic things. They have less then standard food, live in below par housing and have unsatisfactory food. When Mr. Brocklehurst comes to the school he can be compared to a plantation owner. The girls must live in these horrible conditions and Mr. Brocklehurst continues to subject the girls to tyrannical rules: cutting the girls hair, limiting their clean clothes and proper food. He also separates Jane from the rest of group and subjects her to humiliation in order to make her loose self esteem.
As mentioned - in the 17thC majority of the inhabitants had been wiped out from disease and physical exploitation. At Lowood, Jane explains how semi starvation and neglected colds (caused by poor conditions) had killed many of the girls. Their deaths are hidden, like they aren’t human - which is the same treatment slaves received.
Lowood was not the only place in which Jane was subject to slave like treatment. In Thornfield Jane was still considered an outcast, as she was not a servant but not a person of higher status. She is lucky, in the fact that some governesses had worse treatment during this time. As part of the Slave treatment they would have to “Serve their owners”, and this could be applied to governess’s at the time, who would be disgraced and out of jobs. When she leaves Thornfield she lives in poverty and starvation as many freed slaves had to do after the emancipation act, unsure of what they could do with their lives or where they could go.When telling her cousin St. John about their relationship Jane speaks about the relationship as if he is trying to control and own her. He tries to make her feel guilty about moving to India without being married.
Also, see page 607 on “Race, Empire, and the West Indies”
Showing posts with label West Indian Plantation Slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Indian Plantation Slavery. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
West Indian Plantation Slavery - Cody and Julia
Hello everyone!
We are presenting this week on West Indian plantation slavery. You can click on the links along the way to go back to the source of the information, and learn more about each topic. To begin, we will provide some background information on the broader topic of colonization, which also applies to the readings for this week. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines colonialism as “a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.” It further explains that colonialism can not be pin-pointed to a particular place or time. However, it was the sixteenth century when technological changes in Europe intensified colonial exploits (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/. ).
In the 17th century Europeans began to establish settlements in the Americas. The land was divided into smaller units and was under private ownership, these lands became known as the plantation system. Beginning in Virginia, the system spread to the New England colonies. European immigrants who had gone to America to own their own land were reluctant to work for others. In order to accommodate this, convicts were sent over from Britain to provide labour, but this was short lived as convicts were in short supply. Planters then began to purchase slaves, first coming from the West Indies but quickly coming directly from Africa by the 18th century, these slave markets were established in Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans. Slaves were in the fields from sunrise to sunset, and during harvest time would work an eighteen hour day. They grew the following crops in the plantations: tobacco, rice, sugar cane, cotton.
The death rate amongst slaves was high. In order to replace their losses, plantation owners ‘encouraged’ the slaves to have children. Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and women were expected to have four or five children by the age of twenty.
HYPERLINK "http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASplantation.htm"
HYPERLINK "http://blog.mailasail.com/beezneez/230"
From the 17th century to the 19th century, approximately twelve million Africans were brought to the Americas. Africans were sold to traders by other Africans, and eventually forced into slavery by men with guns. Slaves were then placed aboard ships to be taken across the Atlantic on a voyage that was eventually coined “the middle passage.”
HYPERLINK "http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/slave_trade/slave_trade.html"
HYPERLINK "http://blog.mailasail.com/beezneez/230"
HYPERLINK "http://www.east-buc.k12.ia.us/00_01/ca/sla1.htm"
Slaves were controlled through various methods:
Divide and Rule – members of the same tribe were separated on different plantations to prevent communication.
Religion – slaves were not allowed to practice their own religions, they were however turned towards Christianity and many were converted.
Class system – Field slaves were the lowest group, factory slaves (who worked in the sugar boiling process) were higher, artisan slaves (blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, etc.) were even higher, and the highest was a house slave, servants to their masters and even held contempt over other slaves.
Colour – mixtures occurred through the birth of children, and slaves with white fathers or white relatives were placed in higher positions than pure African.
HYPERLINK "http://www.guyana.org/features/guyanastory/chapter26.html"
HYPERLINK "http://blog.mailasail.com/beezneez/230"
This is a definition of “White Man’s Burden” to read before tackling the readings: “the supposed responsibility of the white race to provide care for their non-white subjects” (Wordnetweb.princeton.edu).
1) The White Man’s Burden, Rudyard Kipling (p. 966)
The Broadview Anthology of British Literature states that Rudyard Kipling was a strong proponent of imperialism, and “believed it was Britain’s duty to govern and civilize colonized lands” (962). This background helps us understand the imperialist mentality behind this poem. It takes on a grandiose tone with the strong iambic tetrameter and rhyme scheme, that supports much of the colonialist discourse found in the poem with regards to human superiority, British capitalism, and slavery.
2) Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, Thomas Carlyle (p. 982)
Here we see the blatant dehumanization of slaves in the West Indies, often reducing them to that of horses, with the sole purposes of breeding and hard labour. We also see that a culture’s internal diversity is ignored, as Carlyle refers to the Black people as “Quashee.”
3) The Negro Question, John Stuart Mill (p. 984)
This text can be seen as a critical response to the previous texts. Mill points out the types of discourse we should be aware of in colonialist texts, re-evaluates the way we view the ‘work’ that slaves do, and criticizes teleological views of colonized cultures.
4) Minute on Indian Education, Thomas Babington Macaulay (p. 978)
Here we see further rhetoric on cultural superiority by the British belief that the English language was superior to all others and should become the lingua franca in Indian native cultures, as their native language lacks the complexity to communicate “literary nor scientific information” (978)
5) Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong’O (p. 1477)
This text can be seen as a response to Macaulay. Written by an African man (which adds a new dimension as opposed to the White European authors of the other texts), this book advocates the importance of native African language. He explains that language plays a role in communication and cultural transmission, and because of the coerced use of English, many Africans face identity crises because they are trying to understand themselves through the eyes of another (the English language).
For further reading, we have posted a link to a book called “West Indian Culture” by Michael Garfield Smith. Especially on pages 5-6, the author addresses the effects of slavery and post-colonialism on the West Indies, as well as the “cultural identity” crisis that Thiong’O addresses in Decolonizing the Mind.
Works Cited:
Black, Joseph, et al. “Race, Empire, and a Wider World.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press 2007. Print.
Blog.mailasail.com. 22 April 2009. Beez Neez. Web.
Carlyle, Thomas. “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2007. 1849. Print.
Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press 2007. 1899. Print.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington. “Minute on Indian Education.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2007. 1835. Print.
Plato.standord.edu. 9 May, 2006. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.
Scholar.library.miami.edu. n.d. Slave Resistance: A Caribbean Study. Web.
Simkin, John. Spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk. n.d. Spartacus Educational. Web.
Stuart Mill, John. “The Negro Question.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press 2007. 1850. Print.
Smith, Michael Garfield. The Plural Society in the British West Indies. London, England: U of California P 1974. 11 Mar. 2011. http://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=pdNi0h3l4D0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=West+Indian+Plantation+Slavery&ots=fn_H6S8WLj&sig=QoaRFOhvx8E6S7LHWs8022Ykkno#v=onepage&q=West%20Indian%20Plantation%20Slavery&f=false. Web.
Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. “Decolonising the Mind.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Concise Edition, Volume B. Joseph Black et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press 2007. 1986. Print.
Wordnetweb.princeton.edu. 2011. Princeton University:WordNet: A Lexical Database for English. Web.
www.east-buc. n.d. The Slave Trade. Web.
www.guyana.org. n.d. Slavery on the Plantation. Web.
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