Life and Death on the Plantations: Selected Jesuit Letters from the Caribbean

From the first half of the seventeenth century, missionaries of the Society of Jesus ministered to the free and enslaved populations of the French Caribbean colonies. Amongst their number were Jean Mongin (1637-1698) and Claude Breban (1695-1735), whose letters vividly depict the experience of the evolving colonial world. Writing from Martinique, and Saint Kitts (Saint-Christophe), Mongin describes his attempts to convert Protestants, his ministry to the populations of slaves and their mistreatment by colonists, as well as concerns with unorthodox spiritualities. Breban depicts the rhythms of life in the burgeoning slave colony of Saint-Domingue, with the distinctive cultural and linguistic practices - and cruelty - of its plantation environment. Mongin and Breban's letters reflect debates about the transatlantic slave trade, and the nature of human and racial difference, and testify to the cultural and social environment of early Creole societies. Their perspectives call into question the idea of a unified, homogenous, 'colonial' discourse.

The letters in this volume are an unrivalled source of information about the lives of enslaved people in the early modern French Caribbean. Transcriptions of manuscripts in French are accompanied by facing-page translations into English and notes.