Martha Brae's two histories
Subtitle: European expansion and Caribbean culture-building in Jamaica
By: Jean Besson ; foreword by Sidney W. Mintz
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 393
Subjects: Blacks -- Land tenure -- Jamaica -- Trelawny, Parish of -- History; Martha Brae (Jamaica) -- History; Trelawny, Parish of (Jamaica) -- History; Peasantry -- Jamaica -- Trelawny, Parish of -- History
Other titles: Two histories
Description: Based on historical research and more than thirty years of anthropological fieldwork, this wide-ranging study underlines the importance of Caribbean cultures for anthropology, which has generally marginalized Europe's oldest colonial sphere. Located at the gateway to the New World in the plantation heartlands of the Americas, the settlement of Martha Brae, Jamaica, has witnessed the unfolding of two distinct yet interrelated histories. Exploring the significance of Martha Brae as a European Caribbean slaving port in the eighteenth century, Jean Besson simultaneously uncovers the neglected tale of Martha Brae's gradual appropriation by ex-slaves and its transformation into an African Caribbean free village, bringing the story right up to the present day.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-376) and index
Table of contents: title: Caribbean controversies and anthropological theory; title: Martha Brae's Euro-Caribbean history; title: The origins of Martha Brae's Afro-Caribbean history; title: The free village of Martha Brae; title: Martha Brae's free-village oral tradition; title: Elaborations of the peasant economy; title: The Baptist church, revival ideology, and Rastafarian movement; title: Households, marriage, kinship, and descent