A historical study of women in Jamaica : 1655-1844 / Lucille Mathurin Mair ; edited and with an introduction by Hilary McD. Beckles and Verene A. Shepherd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mair, Lucille Mathurin.

Contributor:

Beckles, Hilary, 1955-

Shepherd, Verene.

University of the West Indies (Cave Hill, Barbados). Centre for Gender and Development Studies.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Jamaica--History.

Women.

Enslaved women--Jamaica--History.

Enslaved women.

Slave labor--Jamaica--History.

Slave labor.

History.

Jamaica.

Physical Description:

xxxi, 496 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Kingston, Jamaica : University of the West Indies Press : Centre for Gender and Development Studies, 2006.

Summary:

In 1974 Lucille Mathurin Mair defended her dissertation, which has since become a classic work in Caribbean historiography and influenced generations of scholars. Through extensive archival work with estate records, legal records, family papers and private correspondence, she sought out the women of Jamaica's past during slavery, women of all classes, all colours, black, brown and white. The work stands as a convincing exposure of women as agents of history-a path-breaking achievement at a time when Caribbean historiography ignored women. From her meticulous research emerged a powerful statement that has shaped subsequent understandings of gendered and cultural relations in Jamaican society: the white woman consumed, the coloured woman served and the black woman laboured.

Over three decades Mair's dissertation became the most sought after unpublished work among students and scholars of Caribbean history and culture. Now available as a published monograph, the work will be more widely available to a new generation of scholars concerned with Atlantic history, slavery, culture and gender. The editors have provided a useful and informative introduction, and the original bibliography in the dissertation is now supplemented by bibliographies detailing Mathurin Mair's subsequent publications, subsequent UWI theses on women or gender, and books, articles and papers on Caribbean gender issues since 1974. Co-published with the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 The Female Arrivants, 1655-1770

Chapter 1 The Arrivals of White Women 3

Chapter 2 The Arrivals of Black Women 41

Chapter 3 The Growth of the Mulatto Group 79

Part 2 Creole Slave Society, 1770-1834

Chapter 4 The White Woman in Jamaican Slave Society 101

Chapter 5 The White Woman: Legal Status, Family, Philanthropy and Gender Constraints 149

Chapter 6 The Black Woman: Demographic Profile, Occupation and Violent Abuse 190

Chapter 7 The Black Woman: Agency, Identity and Voice 234

Chapter 8 The Mulatto Woman in Jamaican Slave Society 268

Part 3 Postscript, 1834-1844

Chapter 9 The Beginnings of a Free Society, 1834-1844 297

Afterword: Recollections into a Journey of a Rebel Past 318

Appendix Population: St James Parish 329.

Notes:

Based on the author's 1974 Ph.D. dissertation.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 426-474) and index.

ISBN:

9766401780

9789766401788

OCLC:

80772746