-Caribbean History

"When Emancipation came in 1938, Blacks in Barbados imagined that the terms of their everyday lives would undergo radical change. Instead, an unrelenting landless freedom would be violently imposed upon a community whose conditions of life and work remained largely unchanged, on plantations that produced more sugar with less labour for below subsistence wages. It was the rule of the Great House that subverted the promise of Emancipation. This is the story of the post-Emancipation betrayal of 83, 000 Blacks in Barbados; it is also a narration of how these Blacks prepared for persistent resistance and civil war as the only means to effectively break the rule of the Great House and establish preconditions for genuine Emancipation. The battles over progress were fought on the plantations, in the streets, in the courts, in the Legislative Councils and wherever Blacks recognised sites to effect change. This chain of organised rebellion was linked to produce the 1876 rebellion. Against this background of 19th century popular protest and workers agitation, the modern labour movement, the anti-colonial campaign and the agitation for democratic governance came to maturity by the 1920s. The final breach in the walls of the structure of white supremacy was achieved in 1937 when, under the ideological leadership of Clement Payne, workers took to the streets and fields with arms. Professor Beckles argues that this unbroken chain of protest and political activity from 1838 to the 1937 Riots constitute the Hundred Year War against Great House Rules. It had taken a full century of struggle after emancipation to see, even at a distance, the freedom that was promised by the abolition of slavery legislation. Written in a clear, discourse style, the author succeeds in presenting the text as an accessible document for public consumption, rather than a dense academic work. "

This is a collection of essays which further Professor Nettleford's exploration of Commonwealth Caribbean cultural identity and the quest for intellectual and cultural independence. Written at different times over the past two decades, the essays are presented with recurring themes which endeavour to explain in part the Caribbean's chequered past, define certain aspects of the current crisis and point directions towards a tolerable future. Collectively, the essays constitute a cultural statement with an historical perspective, and should provide essential reading for native West Indians, students of the Caribbean and of the African diaspora, and those interested in the issues of post-colonial cultural practices and cultural studies generally. The collection also reflects current European discussions and the extensive dialogue in the USA on multi-culturalism. Other books by Rex Nettleford include "Mirror Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica", "Manley and the New Jamaica", "Caribbean Cultural Identity", "Dance Jamaica: Cultural Definition and Artistic Discovery", "Rastafarians in Kingston, Jamaica" (with M.G. Smith and F.R. Augier) and "The University of the West Indies: A Caribbean Response to the Challenge of Change" (with Peter Sherlock).

This is a record of over 2000 manuscript sources for the study of the West Indies and its history. The major focus is on the collections of the Nation Library of Jamaica but other entries relate to manuscript sources in repositeries elswhere in Jamaica, the United States, Canada and Britain.

Who are we? How did the world become what it is today? What paths did humanity traverse along the way?

Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, is a comprehensive and engaging survey of humanity's past three million years. It brings together theories and archaeological examples to pose questions about who we are and the means by which humanity evolved into what it is today.
Ideal for introductory courses in world prehistory and origins of complex societies, Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, offers a unified and thematic approach to the four great transformations--or patterns--that characterize humanity's past: the origins and evolution of culture; the origins of modern humans and human behaviors; the origins of agriculture; and the origins of complex societies, civilizations, and pre-industrial states. Integrating theoretical approaches with archaeological data from the Middle East, Mesoamerica, North and South America, Egypt, China, the Indus Valley, and temperate Europe, Patterns in Prehistory, Fifth Edition, reveals how archaeologists decipher the past. It demonstrates how theory and method are combined to derive interpretations and also considers how interpretations evolve as a result of accumulating data, technological advances in recording and analyzing data sets, and newer theoretical perspectives.

This new edition of Patterns in Prehistory provides:

* Fresh insights with the addition of coauthor Deborah Olszewski, who has carefully reviewed and revamped the material with an eye toward making the text clearly understandable to today's students
* Updated discussions throughout, including expanded information on post-processual archaeology, current methodologies, and technological advances
* Approximately 250 illustrations and maps, more than half of which are new to this edition
* Groundbreaking research on new discoveries of hominin fossils, genetic research, prehistoric migrations, the peopling of the Americas, and theories of the origins of agriculture and the origins of complex societies
* Timelines for all relevant chapters as well as an overarching timeline for the entire book to help students place events in context
* Extensively updated chapter bibliographies and chapter endnotes

This work provides a detailed analysis of the phenomenon of return migration to the English-speaking Caribbean. Return migration has been studied primarily for the Hispanic Caribbean but little exists for the English-speaking region. The co-edited work brings together the scholarship of ten social scientists, many of them from the Caribbean, whose research is focused on the process. The phenomenon is discussed from several theoretical perspectives and includes indepth studies of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and St Lucia. It includes renowned scholars in the field such as Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, Margaret Byron and George Gmelch as well as younger scholars such as Frank Abernaty and Godfrey St Bernard.

In 1791, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, the slaves of San Domingo rose in revolt. Despite invasion by a series of British, Spanish and Napoleonic armies, their twelve-year struggle led to the creation of Haiti, the first independent black republic outside Africa. Only three years later, the British and Americans ended the Atlantic slave trade.

TheCaribbean Exodus is a welcome study of the historical, cultural, geographic, and economic forces behind migrations from the Caribbean. Examining many regions, the contributors compare similarities and differences of the migrant experiences, both in their original countries and upon reaching their destinations.

Book describes the brutal Black slave society and plantation system of Barbados and explains how this slave chattel model was perfected by the British and exported to Jamaica and South Carolina for profit. There is special emphasis on the role of the concept of white supremacy in shaping social structure and economic relations that allowed slavery to continue. The book concludes with information on how slavery was finally outlawed in Barbados, in spite of white resistance.

This magisterial survey of the historical geography of the West Indies is at bottom concerned with the causes and consequences of three complex and inter-related phenomena: the rapid and total removal of a large aboriginal population; the development of plantation agriculture and the arrival of enforced labour, in the form of many thousands of African slaves; and the environmental, ecological and cultural changes that resulted. Dr Watts shows how the initial European vision of a land of plenty has been replaced by an awareness of the geographic and ecological fragiliaty of the area, and explains how the exploitative agricultural systems of the colonial and recent West Indies have not adjusted to the demands of the environment. An enormous array of historical, biological and literary sources are marshalled in support of Dr Watts' analysis, which is likely to remain the standard work on the subject for many years to come.