The Children of Africa in the Colonies
Subtitle: Free People of Color in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: June 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780807133262
Subjects: Caribbean & West Indies - General; History; History - General History; History: World
Description: "When a small group of free men of color gathered in 1838 to celebrate the end of apprenticeship in Barbados, they spoke of emancipation as the moment of freedom for all colored people, not just the former slaves. The fact that many of these men had owned slaves themselves gives a hollow ring to their lofty pronouncements. Yet in The Children of Africa in the Colonies, Melanie J. Newton demonstrates that simply dismissing these men as hypocrites ignores the complexity of their relationship to slavery. Exploring the role of free blacks in Barbados from 1790 to 1860, Newton argues that the emancipation process transformed social relations between Afro-Barbadians and slaves and ex-slaves."--BOOK JACKET.