THE ARTS JOURNAL

HIGHLIGHTS FROM VOLUME 3 NUMBERS 1 & 2 - March 2007


WEST INDIAN SLAVE NARRATIVES: ‘WRITING’ ABOLITION AND RESISTANCE
Nicole Aljoe
“These compelling narratives of experience not only “spoke,” and communicated narrative descriptions, but they also justified the abolition of the slave trade.”

“We All Thought the King Was On Our Side”: VOICES OF THE ENSLAVED IN THE POST-SLAVE TRADE ABOLITION ERA IN JAMAICA
Verene Shepherd
Slave narratives have been under-utilized as sources, particularly in the case of resistance in the Caribbean. She uses the narratives to obtain “voices of the rebels-especially of the rank and file- as they sought to explain their role (or lack thereof) in this war from their own perspectives.”

FREEDOM REGAINED: THE TESTIMONY OF A SLAVE NARRATIVE- Maureen Warner-Lewis
Archibald’s life story demonstrates a quest for honour lost in childhood, and honour regained through commitment to a spiritual cause.. Despite the generalized conformity of Archibald and the majority of persons in his condition, there are indications that enslaved individuals sought ways and means of fashioning lives that subverted “that sense of debasement inherent in having no being except as an expression of their masters.”


ABOLITION AND EXAGGERATION: A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL COMMENT ON THE ABOLITION ACT AND THE ‘REFORM MOVEMENT IN THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN
John Campbell
“ This Act then, through its written clauses and the preamble of its framers, was not really intended to begin the process of liberation of the enslaved people as a part of some larger reform movement… the historiographical prominence afforded to humanitarians for their role in the 1806 Abolition Act has been, ultimately, “exaggerated. ”

THE TRINIDAD QUESTION AND BRITAIN’S FIRST SLAVE-TRADE ABOLITION LEGISLATION
Claudius Fergus
“The reality of war and of revolutionary emancipationism” made the Trinidad Question  an extension of the Haitian Question and  “centre stage” in the abolition discourse. The first abolition resulted from the desire to prevent “revolutionary abolitionism”


VISUAL EXPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION 1700-1834
Editha (Nancy) Jacobs
“The systematic manipulation of images illustrating aspects of the slave trade created an image of Black people as dependent on the humanitarians for their liberation- at the same time creating a self image of White independence and supremacy. Abolitionist art focused largely on the partially nude, Black male, presented in various attitudes of physical and mental helplessness.


THE IMPACT OF RESTRICTION AND ABOLITION OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ON DEMERARA -ESSEQUIBO, 1805-1831.
Winston Mc Gowan
In Demerara-Essequibo, “The abolition of the Atlantic traffic greatly affected the size, composition and effectiveness of the slave population. The slaves were also affected by the reactions of planters…”

 BRITISH GUIANA AND THE 1807 ACT FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Aubrey Thompson
“The activities of humanitarians and missionaries and the passing of the Abolition act generated such tensions that elicited resistance activities from both planters and enslaved… it was the rebellion of the enslaved which ultimately affected the final decision to bring the slave system to an end.”


‘STRANGEBEDFELLOWS: ANTI-SLAVE -TRADING ALLIANCES IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES
Melisse Thomas-Bailey Ellis
 “In the British West Indies, the issue of the foreign slave trade remained live throughout the nineteenth century…”

POST - ABOLITION TRINIDAD-VENEZUELA RELATIONS: THE EXPERIENCE OF MANUMISOS AND APRENDIZAJES
Michael Toussaint
“The problem was the kidnapping of free British Afro-West Indian subjects from Trinidad and their enslavement n Venezuela as manumisos and aprendizajes.
The practice of kidnapping and enslaving Afro-British West Indian subject in Venezuela was the work of... coloured refugees from Martinique and Guadeloupe, who lived either in Venezuela or Trinidad and tended to operate as slave traders across the gulf of Paria or along the wider slave trade arena extending from St. Thomas to Curacao.”


DESPITE INDIFFERENCE: AN ANALYSISA OF THE IDEOLOGICAL TUG-OF-WAR SURROPUNDING THE COMMEMORATION OF THE JUBILEE OF EMANCIPATION IN BARBADOS
Marcia Burrowes
 “Once again, and more tragically at the time of the Jubilee of emancipation, the oligarchy of the island had used their power to ensure that slavery and its memory were of economic benefit to their cause.”


FILMIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Jean Antoine Dunn And Bruce Paddington
“ There is a small body of work that looks at enslavement and the plantation system from a Caribbean perspective…Caribbean film… has been forged as a result of… subversions, revolutionary processes as well as the interactions and negotiations that are an integral part of Caribbean history and existence.”

 

 BLACKENED FIGURES: ART AND POLITICS IN THE PAINTINGS OF CARLISLE HARRIS.
Kenwyn Crichlow
 “His symbolic human figures continue to evoke the radiant presence of exemplary young black men… The dancer is… a figure founded in his anxieties about misrepresentations of Black and African cultural practices in the western world.”


ON THE PLANE FROM LONDON TO PARIS, I THINK OF MY DEAD GRANDFATHER’S FACE
Christian Campbell
In this poem, Campbell reflects on the genealogy of his family and of the Caribbean:

“Of the Campbells who left Scotland
For the plantations of the Caribbean
One to Barbados, one to Belize,
One to Jamaica, one to Antigua
One to St. Vincent, One to Grenada
One to Trinidad”

THINGS FALL APART: ABOLITION, THE SLAVE TRADE AND ENSLAVEMENT
Heather Cateau
From the 1780s there was“…a series of official and unofficial developments which…alerted planters in the Caribbean to the possibility that there would be changes in the system of labour management that they had used for centuries…. Ultimately, the single most important factor affecting the management of the enslaved on plantations was the growing realization among the planter class by the final decades of the eighteenth century that abolition was inevitable.”

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