Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica

'Charmaine A. Nelson's compelling and innovative reading of British Caribbean marine landscapes in Montreal and Jamaica (1760-1820) expands slavery studies and the visual culture of slavery to consider for the first time a second Middle Passage between the Caribbean and Canada. She thus expands the traditional slave trade triangle to now include Great Britain, the West Indies, and Canada. Her erudite and rich analysis of visual culture combined with postcolonial feminist theory is a major contribution to readers in a myriad of fields.' - Vivien Green Fryd, Vanderbilt University, USA 'Charmaine Nelson's keen analysis reveals her sharp intellect as she addresses the realities of racism in Canada and the Caribbean: the absences, the distortions and the erasures that stifled black voices suffering the opprobrium of slavery. Canada somehow, willfully, disappeared from Atlantic slavery, from the shameful, painful collective history that encompassed all of us. This is a "big book", and though its focus is visual arts, it is multidisciplinary and universal in its scope.' - Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA 'Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica is a deeply researched and complex book. ...[Nelson's] comparative project signals her position as scholarly activist and practitioner of a hybrid art history that incorporates a close attending to the visuals, a concern for what is seen and not seen, and a self-reflexivity concerning how the author positions herself. Throughout the book, one senses her outrage and indictment of the slavery complex as well as her commitment to telling a new story about the visualization and imaginings of slavery, geography, and empire in the nineteenth-century colonial world of Montreal and Jamaica.' - RACAR 'In this prolific and compelling study, Nelson draws from an impressive body of visual and textual sources to argue for a deeply entrenched set of geopolitical, commercial, and social connectivities between two key colonial ports of the British Atlantic....Nelsons study works to interrupt dominant narratives of place and nationhood, and its address to an expansive range of geographies, images, texts, and histories should provide myriad openings for future studies on slavery and empire across disciplines.' - CAA Reviews

Charmaine A. Nelson is Professor of Art History, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Canada.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Slavery studies and its absences Contesting the erasure of black Canada and Canadian slavery Postcolonial geography: Understanding landscapes as racialized The case of two islands: Comparing Montreal and Jamaica Societies-with-slaves vs. slave societies Montreal and Jamaica: Colonized landscapes The chapters Terminology 1 Colonialism and art: Landscape and empire Critical geography and art history: Of landscape representation, imperialism, and power Art-making as empire-making: Whiteness, travel, and imperial vision Montreal and Jamaica: Imperial connections Transoceanic art Maps, landscape painting, and topographical ,landscapes 2 A tale of two empires: Montreal slavery under the French and the British A transition of power: From French to British slavery Liminal bodies: "Loose" women, drunken soldiers, and vagrancy Adapting slavery under the British Situating Montreals black minority The face of slave ownership in Montreal: James McGill 3 Representing the enslaved African in Montreal Portraiture and slavery Geographical alienation and the hierarchy of enslavement Marie-Thrse-Zmire, revolutionary St. Domingue, and the politics of flight Critiquing Canadian museum practice: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts installation of Portrait of a Haitian Woman The conditions of African enslavement in eighteenth-century Montreal and St. Domingue Life after Franois: "Portrait" of a Montreal slave mistress Minuets of the Canadians and African Cultural Survivals The tambourine Connecting black Canadian music to the African diaspora 4 Landscaping Montreal Montreal as British Military Stronghold Re-Imagining Montreal as a Colonial Trade and Slave Port St. Helens Island 5 Landscaping Jamaica John Sellers Atlas Maritimus: Jamaica in the early modern British imagination Sloanes natural history The Beckfordesque landscape tradition Beckford, slavery, and sugar cultivation The picturesque and Beckfords debt to European landscape (painting) The planters vantage point: The tropical picturesque 6 Imaging slavery in Antigua and Jamaica: Pro-slavery discourse and the reality of enslavement William Clarks Antigua The tropical picturesque as pro-slavery discourse Thomas Thistlewood and Vineyard Pen White male sexual exploitation of black women Thomas Thistlewood, Agostino Brunias, and cross-racial sexual relations in the Caribbean The price of excess: white male promiscuity and the spread of venereal disease The state of Jamaican slavery 7 James Hakewills Picturesque Tour: Representing life on nineteenth-century Jamaican sugar plantations Sugar cane or slaves: Representing and sublimating labour William Clarks labouring slaves Animalizing slaves, humanizing animals James Hakewills white women "I am the Only Woman": Politeness and the erasure of black and coloured women Riding side-saddle: White femininity, modernity, and privilege 8 Beyond Sugar: James Hakewills vision of Jamaican settlements, livestock pens, and the spaces between Caretaking animals: Identity and penkeeping The limits of mobility and the pervasiveness of surveillance: Exploring wainage "Other" whites: Representing British soldiers in the Caribbean White anxiety: Cross-racial mixing and coloured populations Conclusion: Deception in the life and art of the white Jamaican creole planter class