Bridget Brereton – författare

The first history of Trinidad and Tobago written at this level. Give students a foundation in the history of Trinidad and Tobago and prepare them for their study of the wider Caribbean and other parts of the world.

In this study of the development of a colonial Caribbean territory in the late nineteenth century the diverse peoples of Trinidad - Europeans, white Creoles of French, Spanish and English descent, Africans, Creole blacks, Venezuelans, Chinese and Indian immigrants - occupy the centre stage. They formed a society deeply divided along lines of race, skin colour, economic position and educational level. Dr Brereton looks at how the white elite, both European and Creole, was able to control the society, largely unchecked by the Imperial power and its agents in Trinidad, and then investigates the emergence of a group which would challenge that control: the coloured and black middle class. This book makes an important contribution to the history of the West Indies, and especially to the history of Trinidad, still largely unresearched. It will interest historians and sociologists concerned with the development of post-emancipation Caribbean societies and with race relations in the Americas after slavery.

The Caribbean history provides a rich study of the different forms of labour systems that have historically marked the politics of the coloniser and the colonised. It further provides the basis for an essential study for discourses on colonialism and capitalism. This interdisciplinary volume bridges the gap between historiography and the present-day diasporic communities, which emerged from the slave trade and indenture. Through case studies from the Caribbean context, the volume demonstrates how the region’s historical labour mobility remains central to performances and negotiations of collective memory and identity.Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This fourth volume in the Caribbean Heritage series presents the texts of two short plays, first written in Trinidad in 1832 and 1852–53. The author of Martial Law in Trinidad was E.L. Joseph, an English-born long-time resident of Trinidad, who later published a novel, Warner Arundell: The Adventures of a Creole, and the first history of the island. The author of Past and Present is not known, but may have been G.N. Dessources, a mixed-race Trinidadian who probably wrote Adolphus, a Tale around the same time. (Annotated editions of Warner Arundell and Adolphus, a Tale have been republished as part of the Caribbean Heritage series.) These plays shed considerable light on the social evolution of Trinidad in the crucial decades just before and after the end of slavery in the 1830s. Their publication also contributes to our understanding of the early emergence of theatre, and a local indigenous literary tradition, in Trinidad – and by extension, in the British Caribbean – during this period. This scholarly edition includes a preface by the Trinidadian novelist Lawrence Scott, a biographical note on E.L. Joseph, contextual introductions to each play, a note on language usage and explanatory annotations to the plays.