Hidden Stories from a Caribbean Plantation

In the colonial era, thousands of letters and ledgers passed between England, the Americas and the Caribbean, some lost to seas and time, some landing in archives or libraries, including a significant collection of the Codrington family papers. Hidden among these remnants of correspondence, drawings and private documents are the stories of ordinary people who were bound together in the British Empire’s system of transatlantic slavery. Travelling back to the eighteenth century, this book explores the lives of an enslaved doctor, an indentured orphan, an illegitimate son, a scheming botanist, a family of plantation owners, cynical land agents and independent women taking a leap for freedom. It also traces the complicated history of the abolition of slavery as it affected the lives of those on the Eastern Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda. Documented here are the small daily acts of resistance, pushing the boundaries of empire while navigating the waters of sweeping generational change. These fragments of thought and action shine a light on an era which continues to resonate and affect us today.