Unyielding Spirits: Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and JamaicaThis comparative study uncovers the differences and similarities in the experiences of Black women enslaved in colonial Canada and Jamaica, and demonstrates how differences in the exploitation of women's productive and reproductive labor caused slavery to falter in Canada and excel in the Caribbean. The research suggests that while the majority of Black women enslaved in early Canada were domestics, the majority of Jamaican women were field laborers, often performing some of the most labor-intensive work on the sugar plantations. While the efforts of the planter class to increase the number of children born to Jamaican women were not completely successful, reproduction seems to have been less of a concern in Canada where many Black women were often sold or freed because there was no use for them. The Canadian slave context seems to have allowed a broader range of material comfort as well. Despite obvious labor differences, Black women in Canada and Jamaica rejected their chattel status and condition, and resisted slavery similarly. This study is unique in its desire and ability to place Black Canadian slave women at the center of research, and then contextualize it with a Caribbean model. |
Contents
Making Black Women | 21 |
Black Women and Jamaican | 43 |
Production Reproduction | 69 |
The Spectrum of Resistance | 101 |
In the Space of Freedom | 133 |
Race and Gender Considerations | 165 |
Index | 185 |
Common terms and phrases
abolition abolitionist African American Angélique Atlantic slave trade Bertley Black Canadian Black Loyalists Black slave women Blacks in Canada British Canada Brunswick Canada and Jamaica Canada Gazette Canadian Caribbean chattel status climate Code Noir Collins colonial Canada Consolidated Act Craton culture domestic early Canada enslaved Blacks escape female slaves field labor forms of resistance freedom fugitive slaves gang gender Greaves Higman history of Black House of Assembly Ibid identified institution Jamaica Jamaican House Jamaican slave Jehu Jones Jeune Journal Lewis Lower Canada Marie Marguerite Rose Maroons marronage microfilm MG 15 Montreal NAQM narrative Negro noted Nova Scotia Ontario overseers percent plantation economy Pooley Pooley's Quebec Gazette records regime reproductive labor residents Riddell sexual slave law slave owners slave population slavery in Canada Subsistence and Regulation sugar suggests Toronto University Press Upper Canada William Winks woman women in Canada women in Jamaica Worthy Park York
References to this book
Anglophone Caribbean Poetry, 1970-2001: An Annotated Bibliography Emily A. Williams No preview available - 2002 |
Blacks in the American West and Beyond--America, Canada, and Mexico: A ... George H. Junne No preview available - 2000 |