White Creole culture, politics, and identity during the age of abolition
"David Lambert presents a much-needed account of the historical development and expression of white colonial identities, exploring the political and cultural articulation of white creole identity in the British Caribbean colony of Barbados during the age of abolition (c. 1780-1833). This was the period in which the British antislavery movement emerged, to attack first the slave trade and then the institution of chattel slavery itself. Supporters of slavery in Barbados and beyond responded with their own campaigning, which resulted in a series of debates and moments of controversy that were both localised and trans-Atlantic in significance. These debates exposed tensions between Britain and its West Indian colonies, and raised questions about whether white slaveholders could be classed as fully 'English' and whether slavery was compatible with 'English' conceptions of liberty and morality. By exploring these controversies, the book considers what it meant to be a white colonial subject in a place that Barbadians saw as a vital and loyal part of the empire, and yet which was subject to increasing metropolitan attack because of the existence of slavery."--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©2005
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ©2005