Contesting Freedom Control and Resistance in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean
Editors: Gad Heuman
and David V. Trotman
Reviewer: Barbara Nelson
Publisher: MacMillan Caribbean
Obeah was an important part of Afro-Caribbean culture. It was the name Europeans gave to all aspects of Caribbean popular belief that they found alien and threatening. The beliefs and practices labelled obeah and myalism provided another means of pursuing conflict and responding to harm and wrong. It held out the possibility of gaining redress even in conflicts with people of superior status including planters. Obeah was "an empowering phenomenon, a discourse and practice concerning rights, crime and punishment and varying forms of domination and resistance." Many obeah practitioners were women.
This information forms part of the paper Popular and official justice in post-emancipation Jamaica presented by Diana Paton in the volume Contesting Freedom - a collection of studies concerned with exploring some of the many issues faced by Caribbean societies as they grappled with the problems generated by the end of slavery.
In fact, the dismantling of the slave systems of the Caribbean began with the heroic success of the enslaved and the oppressed affranchise of St. Domingue (1791-1804). In 1822 they liberated the enslaved people of neighbouring Santo Domingo.
The second stage and the beginning of the post-emancipation period involved the legislated abolitions of slavery in the British (1838) French (1848), Danish (1848) and Dutch (1863) colonies.
The final stage in the story is the case of the Hispanic Caribbean which involves Santo Domingo (1822) Puerto Rico (1873) and Cuba (1863).
The experiences of the post-slavery period make the Caribbean a less homogenous area of study than the slave period, where the commonalities are more obvious and compelling. For example some of the formerly enslaved people expected that emancipation would allow them to use the range and diversity of skills and talents they brought from Africa. On the other hand, the former slave owners expected changes but hoped that the spirit of the old order would remain.
Emancipation had to mean that the former slaves had increased control over their labour and its products. However, the elites used political power to restrict access of the emancipated to own land and encouraged the immigration of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers from India and China.
major area of conflict
A major area of conflict loomed with the possibility of the emancipated that were born in Africa reconstructing some aspects of their ancestral traditions in the Caribbean.
The contributors to this volume address all of these themes and others as well. They also pay special attention to the mechanisms of control used by former masters to ensure their continued dominance after emancipation.
The central concerns in Contesting Freedom are the issues of conflict, control and resistance. The 12 essays in the volume originated in shorter pieces presented at a workshop held at the University of Warwick in June 2000.
The workshop was a joint project of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick (CCS) and the Nigerian Hinterland Project at York University, Canada. The editors are Gad Heuman Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Caribbean studies at the University of Warwick and David V. Trotman who teaches Caribbean History at York University in Canada.
There are three sections in Contesting Freedom.
Section 1: Aspects of Justice and Control,
Section 2: Patterns of Resistance.
Section 3: Cultural Conflicts.
In the post-emancipation period colonial officials turned to the military, the police, local militias and even imperial forces to subdue freed people who planned riots. A variety of repressive measures were introduced. Among these measures were reformatories such as the Onderneeming School in British Guiana and corporal punishment. On the issue of corporal punishment Sheena Boa notes that "the way to discipline and reform the minds of the poor across the Caribbean was through punishing their bodies - largely through flogging."
Boa writes that "among females, reformation was linked to humiliation. Among males, reformation was linked to work ... throughout the history of slavery in the Caribbean, the whip symbolised the control, humiliation and subjugation of slaves ... it remained the chosen form of punishment in many islands, particularly for young male offenders Jamaica reintroduced the whip for serious offences in 1850 and in 1865, Eyre also argued for the reintroduction of corporal punishment for cases of larceny."
history of terror and abuse
The treadmill also had a history of terror and abuse within the Caribbean.
Contesting Freedom allows the reader to realise that the ex-slaves did not passively accept the attempts to limit their freedom. The freed people used a variety of tactics - their feet, riots, protests, and the practice of obeah to help resolve conflicts.
As far as their cultural practices were concerned the ex-slaves demonstrated strong cultural resistance against the pressures of the elite. For example, Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson look at attitudes to conjugality in Jamaica, 1865 -1920 in 'Married but not parsoned'. They write: "Despite the promulgation of the ideal and the benefits which were allegedly attendant on the state of legal marriage, the majority of the Jamaican people continued to avoid the institution and chose, instead, to live and love in non-legal relationships labelled 'concubinage', causing untold consternation to the cultural elite who encouraged them, or else tried to coerce them, into 'civilised behaviour'.
The writers add that: "Within a society built on the precepts of racial difference and deference, race also presented a substantial obstacle to marriage. Whereas there were sexual relationships between whites and blacks, marriages were rare ... in part for fear on the part of the white man of ostracism by fellow whites."
Contesting Freedom opens up new insights into the struggles of the ex-slaves and will, no doubt, contribute greatly to the understanding of the diverse post-emancipation experiences in the Caribbean.
