Early African Caribbean Newspapers as Archipelagic Media in the Emancipation Age

Johanna Seibert received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the Obama Institute at the University of Mainz in 2021. The same year, she co-edited a special issue on “Black Editorship in the Early Atlantic World” with Atlantic Studies. Recently, she joined the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

• AcknowledgementsNotes on the TextList of IllustrationsIntroduction: Mediating Emancipation: The Weekly Register and The Jamaica Watchman as Archipelagic Agents of Communication1 Imaginations of Early Caribbean Newspapers2 Periodical Studies and the Archipelago3Sites of Editorship and Periodical Materiality1 The Business of Communication1Newspaper Markets under Archipelagic Conditions2Island Communities and the Local Ties of the Register3The Watchman and the Periodical Infrastructures of White Humanitarianism2 Formats and Layouts in Motion1Materiality and the Insignificant Significance of the Register2The Transformative Designs of the Watchman3Newspaper Formats and Archive Building3 Personhood and the Poetry Column1Poems and Periodical Cultures in the British Caribbean2Christmas Book Poems3Concubinage and Sentimental Verse4West Indian Worthies: Richard Hill and John Boyd5Satirical Interjections4 Recording the Cycles of Black Rebellion1Miscellanies of Haiti: “Madame Christophe” and the Logic of the Final Page2Sketching Independent Haiti: Richard Hill’s Multi-Mode Auto-Ethnography3Editorial Voices on the Turner Rebellion4Corresponding Samuel Sharpe’s ConfessionsConclusion: The Trajectories of African Caribbean PeriodicalsWorks CitedIndex