The Last Caribbean Frontier, 1795-1815 (Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies)

The Southern Caribbean was the last frontier in the Atlantic world and the most contested region in the Caribbean during the Age of Revolution. As well as illuminating this little-understood region, the book seeks to complicate our understanding of the Caribbean, the role of 'free people of colour' and the nature of slavery. The Southern Caribbean was the last frontier in the Atlantic world and the most contested region in the Caribbean during the Age of Revolution. The three British colonies of Grenada, Trinidad and Demerera were characterized by insecurity and personified by the high mobility of people and ideas across empires; it was a part of the Caribbean that, more than any other region, provided an example of the liminal space of contested empires. Because of the multiculturalism inherent in this part of the world, as well as the undeveloped protean nature of the region, this was a place of shifting borderland communities and transient ideas, where women in motion and free people of colour played a central role. In illuminating this little understood frontier region, largely unrepresented in the meta-narratives of the Americas, Kit Candlin seeks to complicate and add nuance to our understanding of the Atlantic world Front Matter....Pages i-xxvi What Became of the Fedon Rebellion?....Pages 1-23 The Queen of Demerara....Pages 24-50 Paper Tigers and Crooked Dispositions....Pages 51-74 The Planter and the Governor....Pages 75-95 Poison, Paranoia and Slavery on the Verge of Empire....Pages 96-117 The Torture of Louisa Calderon....Pages 118-137 That Business of Rosetta Smith....Pages 138-156 The Importunate Revolution on the Main....Pages 157-176 Back Matter....Pages 177-247 'It is a very long time since I read such an interesting, original - and extremely well-written manuscript from a young scholar. This is a book of great originality, written with terrific verve and historical imagination - and on a topic which has oddly eluded many others working on the Caribbean.' - Professor James Walvin, Professor of History Emeritus, University of York