Demographic trends in late-slavery Jamaica, 1817-32
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3371996 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J R Ward (0000-0003-3726-9217, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 60-86 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ehr.13168 |
| OpenAlex | W4281778870 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 41 |
Early nineteenth-century demographic trends on sugar estates in Jamaica, the most important British Caribbean colony, are examined through the 1817-32 public slave registers. We seek evidence regarding the background to the island's 1831-2 popular insurrection, the immediate cause of the London parliament's vote in 1833 to abolish colonial slavery. Some historians argue that the revolt occurred as 'political' effect from a sudden upsurge of metropolitan anti-slavery activism in 1830-1. They believe the uprising broke out despite improvement in enslaved people's material welfare, favoured by many slaveholders to secure population increase after the closure of the British transatlantic slave trade in 1808. Alternative 'economic' assessments judge that increasing workloads had been aggravating popular unrest before the revolt. Commercial pressures, and the imminent likelihood of emancipation, allegedly outweighed welfare concerns. The excess of slave deaths over births widened between 1817 and 1832. However, the registers show that demographic deficits resulted mainly from the ageing of the last Africa-born cohorts. Jamaica-born enslaved people became self-reproducing. There was no general pre-1831 regime deterioration. Most slaveholders sought to maintain their Jamaican assets for the long term through pro-natalist measures, and did not expect emancipation. The revolt's causes were thus more 'political' than 'economic
Colonialism · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Emancipation · Parliament · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Unrest · Welfare · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Cuban History and Society · Demography · History · Law
Testing the chains
Capitalism and Slavery
Searching for the invisible man
Capitalism and Antislavery
The Politics of Reproduction
British Slave Emancipation
Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement
A Tale of Two Plantations
Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834
Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic
Slaves and Missionaries
Slavery and the Enlightenment in the British Atlantic, 1750–1807
Doctors and Slaves
A Jamaican Plantation
Contested Bodies
Abolition
In Response
The Colonial Sinews of Imperial Power
Island on Fire
Two Jamaicas
Coerced Care
The West India Sugar Crisis and British Slave Emancipation, 1830–1833
Economic change and contract labor in the British Caribbean
Slavery and the British Empire
The Price of Emancipation
Final Passages
The Abolition of Negro Slavery and British Parliamentary Politics 1832–3
No Bond but the Law
Gold versus Life
Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies
The Jamaica Slave Rebellion of 1831
The amelioration of British West Indian slavery
Merchants and Planters
The Problem of Freedom
Free Jamaica, 1838-1865, An Economic History
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 1988 - 2026 (39) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |