The slave's economy : independent production by slaves in the Americas : [proceedings of the conference held in 1989 at the University of Maryland on "Cultivation and culture, labour and shaping slave life in the Americas"

Slaves achieved a degree of economic independence, producing food, tending cash crops, raising livestock, manufacturing furnished goods, marketing their own products, consuming and saving the proceeds and bequeathing property to their descendants. The editors of this volume contend that the legacy of slavery cannot be understood without a full appreciation of the slaves' economy. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Introduction 8 The Caribbean 36 An Economic Life of Their Own: Slaves as Commodity Producers and Distributors in Barbados 38 Provision Ground and Plantation Labour in Four Windward Islands: Competition for Resources during Slavery 55 Une Petite Guinée: Provision Ground and Plantation in Martinique, 1830–1848 75 Slave Workers, Subsistence and Labour Bargaining: Amity Hall, Jamaica, 1805–1832 99 Subsistence on the Plantation Periphery: Crops, Cooking and Labour Among Eighteenth-Century Suriname Maroons 114 Mainland North America 136 As ‘A Kind of Freeman’?: Slaves’ Market-Related Activities in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860 138 The Internal Economy of Slavery in Rural Piedmont Virginia 177 Independent Economic Production by Slaves on Antebellum Louisiana Sugar Plantations 189 Notes on Contributors 216 Index 218 Slaves achieved a degree of economic independence, producing food, cash crops, livestock, manufacturing furnished goods, marketing their own products, saving the proceeds and bequeathing property to their descendants. This volume contends that the legacy of slavery cannot be understood without a full appreciation of the slaves' economy. Edited By Ira Berlin And Philip D. Morgan. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.