The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938 (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture) - Softcover

Holt, Thomas C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801842913 ISBN 13: 9780801842917

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991

Synopsis

The Jamaican slave revolt of 1831-32 precipitated the abolition of slavery throughout the British colonial empire. A century later, the labor rebellion of 1938 marked the beginning of that empire's end. Each event embraced a particular form of emancipation: at issue in the first revolt was the freedom of the individual slave; at issue in the second was the freedom of the society itself. The century that separated these watersheds in British colonial history was one of extraordinary transformations in British ideology, in economic and social policy, and in the lives of Jamaican freed people and tehir descendants. In The Problem of Freedom, Thomas C. Holt offers an intriguing analysis of this period, exploring the meaning and reality of freedom in the context of slave emancipation in Jamaica―the largest West indian colony of the nineteenth century's major world power.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas C. Holt is the James Westfall Thompson Professor of American History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction.

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801842913
• ISBN 13: 9780801842917
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 552