In this text the author sets forth and then evaulates the images of slave women accumulated in published sources and folklore.

For review see: Bridget Brereton, in Slavery and Abolition : a journal of comparative studies, vol. 13, nr. 2 (August 1992); p. 86-96.

A groundbreaking study of slavery and power in the British Caribbean that foregrounds the struggle for survival Atlantic slave societies were notorious deathtraps. In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another. Grounded in the nineteenth-century British colony of Berbice, one of the Atlantic world's best-documented slave societies and the last frontier of slavery in the British Caribbean, Browne argues that the central problem for most enslaved people was not how to resist or escape slavery but simply how to stay alive. Guided by the voices of hundreds of enslaved people preserved in an extraordinary set of legal records, Browne reveals a world of Caribbean slavery that is both brutal and breathtakingly intimate. Field laborers invoked abolitionist-inspired legal reforms to protest brutal floggings, spiritual healers conducted secretive nighttime rituals, anxious drivers weighed the competing pressures of managers and the condition of their fellow slaves in the fields, and women fought back against abusive masters and husbands. Browne shows that at the core of enslaved people's complicated relationships with their enslavers and one another was the struggle to live in a world of death. Provocative and unflinching, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean reorients the study of Atlantic slavery by revealing how differently enslaved people's social relationships, cultural practices, and political strategies appear when seen in the light of their unrelenting struggle to survive.

Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848 Bernard Moitt Examines the reaction of black women to slavery. In Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635–1848, Bernard Moitt argues that gender had a profound effect on the slave plantation system in the French Antilles. He details and analyzes the social condition of enslaved black women in the plantation societies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and French Guiana from 1635 to the abolition of slavery in the French colonial empire in 1848. Moitt examines the lives of black women in bondage, evaluates the impact that the slave experience had on them, and assesses the ways in which women reacted to and coped with slavery in the French Caribbean for over two centuries. As males outnumbered females for most of the slavery period and monopolized virtually all of the specialized tasks, the disregard for gender in task allocation meant that females did proportionately more hard labor than did males. In addition to hard work in the fields, women were engaged in gender-specific labor and performed a host of other tasks. Women resisted slavery in the same ways that men did, as well as in ways that gender and allocation of tasks made possible. Moitt casts slave women in dynamic roles previously ignored by historians, thus bringing them out of the shadows of the plantation world into full view, where they belong. Bernard Moitt is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Previously, he taught at the University of Toronto and at Utica College of Syracuse University. Educated in Antigua (where he was born), Canada, and the United States, he has written on aspects of francophone African and Caribbean history, with particular emphasis on gender and slavery. Blacks in the Diaspora—Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey, Jr., David Barry Gaspar, general editors June 2001 256 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append. cloth0-253-33913-8$44.95 L / £34.00 paper0-253-21452-1$19.95 s / 15.50

An “illuminating” survey of Caribbean history from pre-Columbian times to the twenty-first century (Los Angeles Times). Combining fertile soils, vital trade routes, and a coveted strategic location, the islands and surrounding continental lowlands of the Caribbean were one of Europe’s earliest and most desirable colonial frontiers. The region was colonized over the course of five centuries by a revolving cast of Spanish, Dutch, French, and English forces, who imported first African slaves and later Asian indentured laborers to help realize the economic promise of sugar, coffee, and tobacco. The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples offers an authoritative one-volume survey of this complex and fascinating region. This groundbreaking work traces the Caribbean from its pre-Columbian state through European contact and colonialism to the rise of U.S. hegemony and the economic turbulence of the twenty-first century. The volume begins with a discussion of the region’s diverse geography and challenging ecology and features an in-depth look at the transatlantic slave trade, including slave culture, resistance, and ultimately emancipation. Later sections treat Caribbean nationalist movements for independence and struggles with dictatorship and socialism, along with intractable problems of poverty, economic stagnation, and migrancy. Written by a distinguished group of contributors, The Caribbean is an accessible yet thorough introduction to the region’s tumultuous heritage which offers enough nuance to interest scholars across disciplines. In its breadth of coverage and depth of detail, it will be the definitive guide to the region for years to come. Praise for The Caribbean “The editors of this volume have successfully assembled a survey of historical and contemporary issues which serves as an excellent introductory text for newcomers to the region, as well as a resource for more experienced researchers searching for a concise reference to any historical period.” —Journal of Caribbean History “This collection provides an engaging introduction to the history of a region defined by centuries of colonial domination and popular struggle. In these essays readers will recognize the Caribbean as a garden of social catastrophe and a grim incubator of modern global capitalism, as well as of people’s continuous attempts to resist, endure, or adapt to it. Scholars and students will find it to be a very useful handbook for current thinking on a vital topic.” —Vincent Brown, professor of history and of African and African American studies, Duke University

A Concise History of the Caribbean offers a comprehensive interpretation of the history of the Caribbean islands from the beginning of human settlement to the present. It narrates processes of early human migration, the disastrous consequences of European colonisation, the development of slavery and the slave trade, the extraordinary profits earned by the plantation economy, the great revolution in Haiti, movements towards political independence, the Cuban Revolution, and the diaspora of Caribbean people. In this second edition, Higman covers the political, social, and environmental developments of the last decade, offering sections on insular politics, Cuban communism, earthquakes, hurricanes, climate change, resource ecologies, epidemics, identity and reparations. Written in a lively and accessible style, and current with the most recent research, the book provides a compelling narrative of Caribbean history essential for students and visitors.