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     Tonya "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Tonya Post Number: 6030 Registered: 07-2006 Rating: |
Book review - Good exposé of slavery, culture & gender published: Sunday | June 24, 2007  Title: A Historical Study Of Women In Jamaica 1655 - 1844 Author: Lucille Mathurin Mair Edited by: Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd Reviewer: Barbara Nelson Lucille Mathurin Mair's doctoral dissertation submitted in October 1974 became the "most sought-after unpublished work among students and scholars of Caribbean history and culture," say editors Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd in the introduction to the book "A Historical Study Of Women In Jamaica 1655-1844," the seminal work now transformed from thesis to a published book. Lucille Mathurin Mair, well-known historian, author, teacher, activist and diplomat, concluded from her extensive research that, "the white woman consumed, the coloured woman served and the black woman laboured." She creatively used less familiar records of estates, family papers and private correspondence of individuals who were involved in slavery to support her thesis. Interesting chapters Part 1 chapters 1 to 3 deal with the Arrivals of White Women, the Arrivals of Black Women and the Growth of the Mulatto group. Part 2 chapters 4 to 8 focus on the period of plantation construction and mature capitalism and the creation of a racist creole society. Part 3 postscript, 1834-1844. Chapter 9 The Beginnings of a Free Society, 1834-1844 Afterword - Recollections into a Journey of a Rebel Past Appendix population: St. James Parish. Page 332 to 494 notes, author's bibliography, editors' selected bibliography, index and about the author In the author's preface written at Mona in 1974 she notes that the "virtual destruction of the indigenous Jamaican people under Spanish occupation made it possible, by the seventeenth century, for English invaders and developers to mould the island's demographic contours in accordance with their economic needs." Black women, imported from Africa, were brought to provide labour and they "suffered the acutest forms of multiple oppression." Most white women came in trickles. The first colonial "women of quality" were the wives of the commissioned officers, the island's first governing class." But there were also white servants who were contracted to work for a specified period in early Jamaican households. Jamaica, at that time, was not a healthy place for white people and many of them, especially women died from fevers and fluxes, in childbirth and infancy. African women were among the original victims of European slave trading. Imported as a worker, many black women assumed the role of rebel. The black woman was also tacitly expected to be always available for her master's pleasure. In the 1730s, Leslie spoke of the established custom of black/white concubinage and of the black female favourites "of young squires, who keep them for a certain use." In chapter 3 The growth of the Mulatto group, the author exposes what may be a little known fact to non-historians that the first Portuguese traders/explorers mated with African women, both free and slave, in parts of Africa and produced mulatto families." The author explains in great detail the peculiarities and consequences of the relationships between whites and blacks, the status of concubines - "marrying white was almost too much for the brown woman to aspire to; she settled for the role of concubine" - the position of women in the process of upward mobility. The mulatto "in a crisis could be relied on to throw her lot in with the white interest, which always promised promotion, which accommodated, albeit uneasily, the brown skin, as long as it wore its white mask." Violence against black women was facilitated both by law and custom. It was not until 1826 that the female slave was granted protection from sexual attack. Magistrates in slave courts regularly ordered flogging. Moreover delinquent female slaves were also flogged, and "neither age nor pregnancy exempted women" from corporal punishment. Beginning of a free society In chapter 9: The Beginnings of a Free Society the author looks at Missionary Activities and English Values in Free Society noting that the first decade of free Jamaica coincided with the advent of Victorian England, on whose manners and morals the Jamaican upper and middle classes predictably modelled themselves. Further on she looks at Moral Objectives of White Immigration; the Freed Women's Actions During and After Apprenticeship; Mary Seacole: The Mulatto Woman after Slavery. "It is not surprising," Mair, writes, "that it is the mulatto, Mrs. Seacole, who has been lifted out of the pages of history as the embodiment of the Creole success story, enshrined as a model of and for Jamaican womanhood. "The black woman presented free Jamaica with the great challenge of lifting her oppression and releasing her considerable creativity and resourcefulness for the better ordering of the whole society. The challenge is yet to be met." This is a meticulously researched work. As a published book it will now be more widely available to those who are concerned with Atlantic history, slavery, culture and gender. Copyright Jamaica-Gleaner.com http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070624/arts/arts4.html | ||
| Libralind2 Veteran Poster Username: Libralind2 Post Number: 867 Registered: 09-2004 Rating: N/A |
Hey anyone on this board from Jamaica..I need some coffee..  LiLi..who LOVES Blue Mountain |
