Hilary Beckles
Biographic Data
| ID | 198140 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hilary Beckles |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hilary |
| FAMILY NAME | Beckles |
| SIGNATURE | BECKLES H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the West Indies |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 107 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 50 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Reparations for Caribbean slavery and the potential impact on human well-being
The reparations movement has emerged as a critical global force addressing the historical injustices of slavery, colonialism and underdevelopment. Grounded in the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the movement has gained momentum through regional bodies like the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission (CRC). This article examines the intersection of colonialism, enslavement and contempora…
Reparations and distributive justice in global health
box Reparations are a global health imperative
University consortium to address public health priorities and research capacity building in the Caribbean
The State University of New York (SUNY) – University of the West Indies (UWI) Health Research Consortium (HRC) was implemented in 2015 by the SUNY Global Health Institute (GHI) and the SUNY-UWI Center for Leadership and Sustainable Development. The goal was to advance public health in the Caribbean through collaborative research and education among faculty and students at SUNY and UWI. The Consortium is now a dynamic matrix addressing health prio…
The Economic Origins of Black Slavery in the British West Indies, 1640-1680
According to Jordan, at ‘the start of English settlement in America, no one had in mind to establish the institution of Negro Slavery’. This chapter offers an economic explanation for the timing and dialectics of this transition from white indentured labour to African slave labour in the English West Indies during the mid-seventeenth century—a transition which is generally associated with the rise of the sugar industry in the late 1640s. Contrary…
The Economics of Transition to the Black Labor System in Barbados, 1630-1680
In recent years there has been an expansion of academic interest in the nature of the transition from white indentured servitude to black slavery as the dominant labor base of the English New World colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1627, William Courteen and Associates, a London merchant company, began the colonization of Barbados. During 1641/42, both cotton and indigo prices fell sharply on the London market, and plan…
How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean
“The modern Caribbean economy was invented, structured and managed by European states for one purpose: to achieve maximum wealth extraction to fuel and sustain their national financial, commercial and industrial transformation.” So begins How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe’s Legacy of Plunder and Poverty as Hilary McD. Beckles continues the groundbreaking work he began in Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations fo…
End of Pan-Africanism
Taking liberties
Chattel slavery, the dominant social institution, was thoroughly gendered in its designs and functions. A principal task of Lucille Mair's was to add women to the historical narrative, and to locate their anti-slavery contributions firmly within the vanguard of the political project of nation-building. Throughout the slavery period evidence indicates that enslaved women had extended their resistance network into bio-social zones associated with m…
King Cuffee’s Stool, General Bussa’s Horse and Barrow’s Plane
(2017). King Cuffee’s Stool, General Bussa’s Horse and Barrow’s Plane. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 63, Imperialism, Neocolonialism, Cultural Resistance, pp. 7-28
The First Black Slave Society
In this remarkable exploration of the brutal course of Barbados’s history, Hilary McD. Beckles details the systematic barbarism of the British colonial project. Trade in enslaved Africans was not new in the Americas in the seventeenth century – the Portuguese and Spanish had commercialized chattel slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the 1500s – but in Barbados, the practice of slavery reached its apotheosis. Barbados was the birthplace of British slave…
Caribbean racisms
Caribbean racisms: connections and complexities in the racialization of the Caribbean region." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(3), pp. 524–525
Britain's Black Debt
Since the mid-nineteenth-century abolition of slavery, the call for reparations for the crime of African enslavement and native genocide has been growing. In the Caribbean, grassroots and official voices now constitute a regional reparations movement. While it remains a fractured, contentious and divisive call, it generates considerable public interest, especially within sections of the community that are concerned with issues of social justice, …
The Archaeology of Antislavery Resistance
Bonds of Empire
Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness From Victoria to Decolonization." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(7), pp. 1338–1339
OS DOMáNios DO PRAZER
O artigo traduzido discute a exploração sexual da mulher escravizada em Barbados emambiente rural e urbano, durante as últimas décadas do século XVIII e primeiras décadas do século XIX.Explorando a documentação primária referente ao fenômeno, o autor identifica o trabalho de prostituiçãoe concubinage, seus agentes e clientes, entre negras(os), mulatas(os) e brancas(os) e sua inserção dentroda estrutura econômica e social de Barbados
The Wilberforce Song
“An Unfeeling Traffick”
This chapter discusses how stakeholders of the plantation system were divided after 1807 with respect to its economic condition, viability, and responsiveness to meaningful social reform. The enslaved population also took the opportunity to press its opinions and emerged as a major focus of policy formulation. In some instances slaves successfully challenged slaveowners' rights by protesting relocation proposals. In this regard, they welcomed the…
Historicising Conversations with Michael Manley
Just cricket
1999). Just cricket: black struggles for racial justice and equality. African Studies: Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 171-189
A Spirit of Dominance
The essays in this volume are the revised texts of an eight-part public lecture series on West Indian cricket history and culture organized by the Centre for Cricket Research at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. An introductory essay by the editor, an interview with Viv Richards and two commentaries are also included. "Together they represent a tribute to Viv, as well as a substantial contribution to the historiography of West Indies …
Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718-1868
Journal Article Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718–1868. By Caryn Cossé Bell. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. xviii, 325 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-8071-2096-0.) Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles University of the West Indies Bridgetown, Barbados Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 84, Issue 4, Mar…
Creolisation in Action
L'A. considere la relation entre la creolisation des esclaves, la differenciation sociale resultant du processus de creolisation, et la politique et les strategies antiesclavagistes mises en oeuvre par les esclaves. Il emet l'hypothese que le processus de creolisation a produit une elite parmi les esclaves, qui est entree dans un processsus de dialogue et de negociation avec les proprietaires des plantations, plutot que dans une resistance violen…
Historicizing Slavery in West Indian Feminisms
This paper traces the evolution of a coherent feminist genre in written historical texts during and after slavery, and in relation to contemporary feminist writing in the West Indies. The paper problematizes the category 'woman' during slavery, arguing that femininity was itself deeply differentiated by class and race, thus leading to historical disunity in the notion of feminine identity during slavery. This gender neutrality has not been suffic…
Caribbean freedom
This reader of nearly 60 articles covers major events in the Caribbean struggle for freedom from emancipation to the present - from Toussaint's Haiti to the more recent revolutions in Cuba, Grenada and the Dominican Republic. The range of coverage is comprehensive calling attention to the variety of post-slavery experiences in the Spanish, Dutch, English and French Caribbean. Three broad themes are identified: the slow disintegration of the slave…
Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World
Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean
(1992). Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 38, Caribbean Quincentennial, pp. 1-124
Capitalism, Slavery and Caribbean Modernity
Capitalism, Slavery, and Caribbean Modernity Hilary McD Beckles (bio) C.L.R. James' 1938 seminal text, The Black Jacobins, and Eric Williams' 1944 tour de force, Capitalism and Slavery, constitute much more than foundational works in West Indian nationalist historiography. 1 Both authors, born in colonial Trinidad and writing Caribbean history within its Atlantic context, made significant contributions to development discourse within the traditio…
The Archaeology of Antislavery Resistance
An economic life of their own
Plantation Production and White “Proto-Slavery”
Two dominant features of agricultural history in the English West Indies are the formation of the plantation system and the importation of large numbers of servile labourers from diverse parts of the world—Africa, Europe and Asia. In Barbados and the Leeward Islands, the backbone of early English colonisation of the New World, large plantations developed within the first decade of settlement. The effective colonisation of these islands, St. Chris…
"A "riotous and unruly lot
S EVENTEENTH-CENTURY English planters in the West Indies, like their mainland counterparts, established plantations with white indentured servants.' Like them, they had to control or suppress the unruly behavior of disgruntled servants and landless ex-servants, or freemen. Historians of seventeenth-century English America have identified and explained patterns of social conflict and protest that contributed to the instability of settler communiti…
Social protest and labour bargaining
Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718-1868
Journal Article Revolution, Romanticism, and the Afro-Creole Protest Tradition in Louisiana, 1718–1868. By Caryn Cossé Bell. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. xviii, 325 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-8071-2096-0.) Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles University of the West Indies Bridgetown, Barbados Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 84, Issue 4, Mar…
White Women and Slavery in the Caribbean
Journal Article White Women and Slavery in the Caribbean Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 36, Issue 1, AUTUMN 1993, Pages 66–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/36.1.66 Published: 01 October 1993
The Economics of Transition to the Black Labor System in Barbados, 1630-1680
System in Barbados, I630-I680 In recent years there has been an expansion of academic interest in the nature of the transition from white indentured servitude to black slavery as the dominant labor base of the English New World colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Studies by Galenson, Menard, Gray and Wood, Gemery and Hogendorn, and Bean and Thomas have explained in detail this change in the labor systems of the Chesapeake ar…
Black men in white skins’
(1986). ‘Black men in white skins’: The formation of a white proletariat in West Indian Slave society. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 5-21
On the backs of blacks
Free‐coloured groups were to be found in most West Indian societies during the eighteenth century. Whereas most academic research has concentrated on the social status, legal rights and economic achievements of the free‐coloureds, this paper examines their political responses in Barbados at the time of the 1816 slave rebellion. Relations between slaves and free‐coloured groups were full of tension and this was reflected both at the time of the ri…
Caribbean racisms
Caribbean racisms: connections and complexities in the racialization of the Caribbean region." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(3), pp. 524–525
Creolisation in Action
L'A. considere la relation entre la creolisation des esclaves, la differenciation sociale resultant du processus de creolisation, et la politique et les strategies antiesclavagistes mises en oeuvre par les esclaves. Il emet l'hypothese que le processus de creolisation a produit une elite parmi les esclaves, qui est entree dans un processsus de dialogue et de negociation avec les proprietaires des plantations, plutot que dans une resistance violen…
End of Pan-Africanism
Historicizing Slavery in West Indian Feminisms
This paper traces the evolution of a coherent feminist genre in written historical texts during and after slavery, and in relation to contemporary feminist writing in the West Indies. The paper problematizes the category 'woman' during slavery, arguing that femininity was itself deeply differentiated by class and race, thus leading to historical disunity in the notion of feminine identity during slavery. This gender neutrality has not been suffic…
Discovering the Women in Slavery
Journal Article Discovering the Women in Slavery: Emancipating Perspectives on the American Past. Ed. by Patricia Morton. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. xii, 320 pp. Cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-8203-1756-X. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-82031757-8.) Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal…
Bonds of Empire
Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness From Victoria to Decolonization." Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(7), pp. 1338–1339
The Wilberforce Song
Just cricket
1999). Just cricket: black struggles for racial justice and equality. African Studies: Vol. 58, No. 2, pp. 171-189
From land to sea
(1985). From land to sea: Runaway Barbados slaves and servants, 1630–1700. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 6, Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the New World, pp. 79-94
Black rebellion in Barbados
On the backs of blacks
Free‐coloured groups were to be found in most West Indian societies during the eighteenth century. Whereas most academic research has concentrated on the social status, legal rights and economic achievements of the free‐coloureds, this paper examines their political responses in Barbados at the time of the 1816 slave rebellion. Relations between slaves and free‐coloured groups were full of tension and this was reflected both at the time of the ri…
From land to sea
(1985). From land to sea: Runaway Barbados slaves and servants, 1630–1700. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 6, Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the New World, pp. 79-94
Plantation Production and White “Proto-Slavery”
Two dominant features of agricultural history in the English West Indies are the formation of the plantation system and the importation of large numbers of servile labourers from diverse parts of the world—Africa, Europe and Asia. In Barbados and the Leeward Islands, the backbone of early English colonisation of the New World, large plantations developed within the first decade of settlement. The effective colonisation of these islands, St. Chris…
Black men in white skins’
(1986). ‘Black men in white skins’: The formation of a white proletariat in West Indian Slave society. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 5-21
Social protest and labour bargaining
The Economics of Transition to the Black Labor System in Barbados, 1630-1680
System in Barbados, I630-I680 In recent years there has been an expansion of academic interest in the nature of the transition from white indentured servitude to black slavery as the dominant labor base of the English New World colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Studies by Galenson, Menard, Gray and Wood, Gemery and Hogendorn, and Bean and Thomas have explained in detail this change in the labor systems of the Chesapeake ar…
Panama Money in Barbados, 1900-1920
Black over white
By the end of slavery in 1838, a white proletariat, not infrequently lower in the social scale than free non‐whites, had developed in Barbados slave society from the descendants of the indentured servants who had preceded the black slaves. This article analyses the position of this anomalous group in the social and economic structure of slave society and the views of members of the white elite on what was widely regarded as the ‘poor‐white’ probl…
The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655-1796
Journal Article The Maroons of Jamaica, 1655–1796: A History of Resistance, Collaboration, & Betrayal. By Mavis C. Campbell. (Granby, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey, 1988. vii + 296 pp. $39.95.) Get access Hilary Beckles Hilary Beckles University of the West Indies, Barbados Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 76, Issue 2, September 1989, Page 579, https://doi.org/10.2307/1908007 Pu…
White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627-1715
Journal Article White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627–1713. By Hilary McD. Beckles. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. xviii + 218 pp. $34.95.) Get access Franklin W. Knight Franklin W. Knight Johns Hopkins University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 77, Issue 3, December 1990, Pages 988–989, https://doi.org/10.2307/2079014 Published: 01 Decemb…
"A "riotous and unruly lot
S EVENTEENTH-CENTURY English planters in the West Indies, like their mainland counterparts, established plantations with white indentured servants.' Like them, they had to control or suppress the unruly behavior of disgruntled servants and landless ex-servants, or freemen. Historians of seventeenth-century English America have identified and explained patterns of social conflict and protest that contributed to the instability of settler communiti…
White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627-1715
An economic life of their own
Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838
Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean
(1992). Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 38, Caribbean Quincentennial, pp. 1-124
A History of Barbados
This book is the first general history of Barbados written by a professional historian. Using a vigorous and unbiased approach to the collective experience of all the island's inhabitants, the author traces the events and ideas that shaped contemporary society. He examines the influences of the Amerindians, European colonisation, the sugar industry, the African slave trade, emancipation, the civil rights movement, independence and nationalism. Dr…
Caribbean Slave Society and Economy
Caribbean freedom
This reader of nearly 60 articles covers major events in the Caribbean struggle for freedom from emancipation to the present - from Toussaint's Haiti to the more recent revolutions in Cuba, Grenada and the Dominican Republic. The range of coverage is comprehensive calling attention to the variety of post-slavery experiences in the Spanish, Dutch, English and French Caribbean. Three broad themes are identified: the slow disintegration of the slave…
White Women and Slavery in the Caribbean
Journal Article White Women and Slavery in the Caribbean Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 36, Issue 1, AUTUMN 1993, Pages 66–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/36.1.66 Published: 01 October 1993
The colours of property
Providence Island, 1630-641
Discovering the Women in Slavery
Journal Article Discovering the Women in Slavery: Emancipating Perspectives on the American Past. Ed. by Patricia Morton. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. xii, 320 pp. Cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-8203-1756-X. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 0-82031757-8.) Get access Hilary McD. Beckles Hilary McD. Beckles University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal…
Capitalism, Slavery and Caribbean Modernity
Capitalism, Slavery, and Caribbean Modernity Hilary McD Beckles (bio) C.L.R. James' 1938 seminal text, The Black Jacobins, and Eric Williams' 1944 tour de force, Capitalism and Slavery, constitute much more than foundational works in West Indian nationalist historiography. 1 Both authors, born in colonial Trinidad and writing Caribbean history within its Atlantic context, made significant contributions to development discourse within the traditio…
Robinson and Worrell
Caribbean history, culture, and politics (38 works) · History (32 works) · Political science (28 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (23 works) · History (22 works) · Law (19 works) · Geography (15 works) · Ethnology (14 works) · Cuban History and Society (13 works)