Slaveholders in Jamaica: Colonial Society and Culture During the Era of Abolition: Colonial Society and Culture during the Era of Abolition (Empires in Perspective)

Explores the social composition of the Jamaican slaveholding class during the era of the British campaign to end slavery, looking at their efforts to maintain control over local society and considering how their economic, cultural and military dependency on the colonial metropole meant that they were unable to avert the ending of British slavery. At the end of the 18th century the Jamaican slave economy was crucial to Britain's lucrative colonial enterprise. This book looks at the lives of British West Indian slaveholders and their efforts to defend and justify an institution that has cast a dark shadow over modern notions of race, cultural authority and freedom