Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica

Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica is among the first Slavery Studies books - and the first in Art History - to juxtapose temperate and tropical slavery. Charmaine A. Nelson explores the central role of geography and its racialized representation as landscape art in imperial conquest. One could easily assume that nineteenth-century Montreal and Jamaica were worlds apart, but through her astute examination of marine landscape art, the author re-connects these two significant British island colonies, sites of colonial ports with profound economic and military value. Through an analysis of prints, illustrated travel books, and maps, the author exposes the fallacy of their disconnection, arguing instead that the separation of these colonies was a retroactive fabrication designed in part to rid Canada of its deeply colonial history as an integral part of Britain's global trading network which enriched the motherland through extensive trade in crops produced by enslaved workers on tropical plantations. The first study to explore James Hakewill's Jamaican landscapes and William Clark's Antiguan genre studies in depth, it also examines the Montreal landscapes of artists including Thomas Davies, Robert Sproule, George Heriot and James Duncan. Breaking new ground, Nelson reveals how gender and race mediated the aesthetic and scientific access of such - mainly white, male - artists. She analyzes this moment of deep political crisis for British slave owners (between the end of the slave trade in 1807 and complete abolition in 1833) who employed visual culture to imagine spaces free of conflict and to alleviate their pervasive anxiety about slave resistance. Nelson explores how vision and cartographic knowledge translated into authority, which allowed colonizers to 'civilize' the terrains of the so-called New World, while belying the oppression of slavery and indigenous displacement. -- Amazon.com Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of illustrations 12 Acknowledgments 16 Introduction 20 Slavery studies and its absences 21 Contesting the erasure of black Canada and Canadian slavery 23 Postcolonial geography: Understanding landscapes as racialized 27 The case of two islands: Comparing Montreal and Jamaica 32 Societies-with-slaves vs. slave societies 34 Montreal and Jamaica: Colonized landscapes 36 The chapters 43 Terminology 48 1 Colonialism and art: Landscape and empire 60 Critical geography and art history: Of landscape representation, imperialism, and power 60 Art-making as empire-making: Whiteness, travel, and imperial vision 62 Montreal and Jamaica: Imperial connections 67 Transoceanic art 71 Maps, landscape painting, and topographical landscapes 73 2 A tale of two empires: Montreal slavery under the French and the British 78 A transition of power: From French to British slavery 78 Liminal bodies: “Loose” women, drunken soldiers, and vagrancy 81 Adapting slavery under the British 94 Situating Montreal’s black minority 98 The face of slave ownership in Montreal: James McGill 105 3 Representing the enslaved African in Montreal 130 Portraiture and slavery 130 Geographical alienation and the hierarchy of enslavement 135 Marie-Thérèse-Zémire, revolutionary St Domingue, and the politics of flight 138 Critiquing Canadian museum practice: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ installation of Portrait of a Haitian Woman 144 The conditions of African enslavement in eighteenth-century Montreal and St Domingue 145 Life after François: “Portrait” of a Montreal slave mistress 147 Minuets of the Canadians and African cultural survivals 152 The tambourine 159 Connecting black Canadian music to the African diaspora 162 4 Landscaping Montreal 176 Montreal as British military stronghold 176 Re-imagining Montreal as a colonial trade and slave port 189 St Helen’s island 196 5 Landscaping Jamaica 214 John Seller’s Atlas Maritimus: Jamaica in the early modern British imagination 214 Sloane’s natural history 218 The Beckfordesque landscape tradition 219 Beckford, slavery, and sugar cultivation 222 The picturesque and Beckford’s debt to European landscape (painting) 224 The planter’s vantage point: The tropical picturesque 226 6 Imaging slavery in Antigua and Jamaica: Pro-slavery discourse and the reality of enslavement 236 William Clark’s Antigua 236 The tropical picturesque as pro-slavery discourse 242 Thomas Thistlewood and Vineyard Pen 254 White male sexual exploitation of black women 259 Thomas Thistlewood, Agostino Brunias, and cross-racial sexual relations in the Caribbean 264 The price of excess: White male promiscuity and the spread of venereal disease 266 The state of Jamaican Slavery 268 7 James Hakewill’s Picturesque Tour: Representing life on nineteenth-century Jamaican sugar plantations 296 Sugar cane or slaves: Representing and sublimating labour 296 William Clark’s labouring slaves 304 Animalizing slaves, humanizing animals 310 James Hakewill’s white women 315 “I am the only woman”: Politeness and the erasure of black and coloured women 329 Riding side-saddle: White femininity, modernity, and privilege 336 8 Beyond sugar: James Hakewill’s vision of Jamaican settlements, livestock pens, and the spaces between 360 Caretaking animals: Identity and penkeeping 360 The limits of mobility and the pervasiveness of surveillance: Exploring wainage 368 “Other” whites: Representing British soldiers in the Caribbean 374 White anxiety: Cross-racial mixing and coloured populations 386 Conclusion: Deception in the life and art of the white Jamaican creole planter class 414 Index 426 Plates 436 Chapter Introduction -- chapter 1 Colonialism and art: Landscape and empire Critical geography and art history: Of landscape representation, imperialism, -- chapter 2 A tale of two empires: Montreal slavery under the French and the British -- chapter 3 Representing the enslaved African in Montreal -- chapter 4 Landscaping Montreal -- chapter 5 Landscaping Jamaica John Seller's Atlas Maritimus: Jamaica in the early modern -- chapter 6 Imaging slavery in Antigua and Jamaica: Pro-slavery discourse and the reality of enslavement 217 William Clark's Antigua -- chapter 7 James Hakewill's Picturesque Tour: Representing life on nineteenth-century Jamaican sugar plantations -- chapter 8 Beyond sugar: James Hakewill's vision of Jamaican settlements, livestock pens, and the spaces between