The Unappropriated People Freedmen in the Slave Society of Barbados |
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| Author:
| Handler, Jerome S. |
| ISBN: | 978-976-640-218-1 |
| Publication Date: | Apr 2009 |
| Publisher: | University of the West Indies Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $27.00 |
Book Description:
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This classic examination of the freedmen in the slavesociety of Barbados was first published in 1974 and has not been widelyavailable for years. Reissued now with a new introduction by Melanie Newtonthat places the work in the context of the historiography of studies ofCaribbean free-coloured populations, this classic is now available to a newgeneration of scholars and students. The work remains the only treatment of thefree people of colour of Barbados from...
More Description
This classic examination of the freedmen in the slavesociety of Barbados was first published in 1974 and has not been widelyavailable for years. Reissued now with a new introduction by Melanie Newtonthat places the work in the context of the historiography of studies ofCaribbean free-coloured populations, this classic is now available to a newgeneration of scholars and students. The work remains the only treatment of thefree people of colour of Barbados from the earliest periods of the slavesociety to emancipation in 1834 and provides the most detailed discussion ofthe manumission process for any British West Indian society.
Allowed certain rights and privileges not extended toslaves but denied others reserved for whites, the social status of the freepeople was ambiguous. Thus there was wide latitude for varying interpretationsof what their position should be, but Handler shows how the freedmen=s strugglefor civil rights was a collective effort to maximize their free status and toavoid a position of permanent intermediacy between white and enslaved.
Using the petitions and addresses written by thefreedmen themselves, Handler contends that they neither challenged the notionof a class society nor attempted to deny the upper stratum those privilegescommensurate with its rank. They argued that a hierarchically organized societyshould be based on that set of social and economic criteria that whites used indrawing distinctions among themselves. It was evident, however, that as long asthe slave society continued to exist, the freedmen of Barbados would remain an "unappropriatedpeople", neither enslaved nor entirely free.