Sweet Liberty

The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique

AvRebecca Hartkopf Schloss

Häftad, Engelska, 2012

Del i serien Early American Studies

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Beskrivning

From its founding, Martinique played an integral role in France's Atlantic empire. Established in the mid-seventeenth century as a colonial outpost against Spanish and English dominance in the Caribbean, the island was transformed by the increase in European demand for sugar, coffee, and indigo. Like other colonial subjects, Martinicans met the labor needs of cash-crop cultivation by establishing plantations worked by enslaved Africans and by adopting the rigidly hierarchical social structure that accompanied chattel slavery. After Haiti gained its independence in 1804, Martinique's economic importance to the French empire increased. At the same time, questions arose, both in France and on the island, about the long-term viability of the plantation system, including debates about the ways colonists-especially enslaved Africans and free mixed-race individuals-fit into the French nation.Sweet Liberty chronicles the history of Martinique from France's reacquisition of the island from the British in 1802 to the abolition of slavery in 1848. Focusing on the relationship between the island's widely diverse society and the various waves of French and British colonial administrations, Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss provides a compelling account of Martinique's social, political, and cultural dynamics during the final years of slavery in the French empire. Schloss explores how various groups-Creole and metropolitan elites, petits blancs, gens de couleur, and enslaved Africans-interacted with one another in a constantly shifting political environment and traces how these interactions influenced the colony's debates around identity, citizenship, and the boundaries of the French nation.Based on extensive archival research in Europe and the Americas, Sweet Liberty is a groundbreaking study of a neglected region that traces how race, slavery, class, and gender shaped what it meant to be French on both sides of the Atlantic.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2012-09-13
Mått:152 x 229 x 23 mm
Vikt:516 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Early American Studies
Antal sidor:312
Förlag:University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN:9780812222272

Utforska kategorier

Slaveri inom Historia och arkeologi
Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi

Mer om författaren

Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss is Associate Professor of History at Texas AandM University.

Recensioner i media

"A much-needed contribution to scholarship on the imperial and cultural history of the French Atlantic." (Gender and History) "This engaging and beautifully researched book illuminates the world of nineteenth-century Martinique, demonstrating the ways in which debates about race and sexuality shaped cultural and political life in the colony. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the important history of the French Caribbean and the French Atlantic more broadly." (Laurent Dubois, Duke University) "A major contribution to a field dominated in recent years by scholarship on Saint Domingue and the Haitian Revolution." (John Savage, American Historical Review) "Sweet Liberty is the first detailed English-language study of the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution in the French Atlantic. . . . Using government archives, the records of the Sisters of Saint-Joseph, and the extraordinary diary of the planter Pierre Dessalles, [Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss] describes how elite families struggled with each other, metropolitan administrators, and subalterns to protect their social position." (French Studies)

Innehållsförteckning

IntroductionSweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique1. "That Your Hearts Will Blossom and Again Become French": The Early Napoleonic Period2. "Happy to Consider Itself an Ancient British Possession": The British Occupation of Martinique3. "Your French and Loyal Hearts": The First Decade of the Restoration4. "In the Colonies, It Is Impossible That a White Would Align Himself With Slaves": Shifts in Colonial Policy5. "To Ensure Equality Before Those Laws to Free Men, Whatever Their Color": Changing Ideas of French Citizenship6. "Amelioration of the White Race" and "The Sacred Rights of Property": The End of Slavery in the French AtlanticConclusionList of AbbreviationsNotesIndexAcknowledgmentsIllustrations follow page 108