Settler Jamaica in the 1750s : a social portrait / Jack P. Greene.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greene, Jack P., author.

Series:

Early American histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History.

Economic conditions.

Social conditions.

Jamaica--Social conditions--18th century.

Jamaica.

Jamaica--Economic conditions--18th century.

Jamaica--History--18th century.

Economic history.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 288 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2016.

Summary:

By the mid-eighteenth century, observers of the emerging overseas British Empire thought that Jamaica--in addition to being the largest British colony in the West Indies--was the most valuable of the American colonies. Based on a unique set of historical lists and maps, along with a variety of other contemporary materials, Jack Greene's study provides unparalleled detail about the character of Jamaica's settler society during the decade of the 1750s, as the first century of British settlement drew to a close. Greene's sources facilitate a close examination of many aspects of the island's development at a particularly critical point in its history. Analysis of the data generated from this material permits a fine-grained account of patterns of landholding, economic activity, land use, social organization, and wealth distribution among Jamaica's free population during a period of sustained demographic, economic, social, and cultural expansion. Calling attention to local variations, the study puts special emphasis on the complexity and vitality of Jamaica's settler population, the island's economic and social diversity, the ubiquity and adaptability of slavery, the character and size of settler households, the range of urban professions, the value of urban housing, and the gender and racial dimensions of wealth holding. Greene's detailed analyses amplify and enrich these subjects, offering the most refined portrait to date of Jamaican society at a crucial juncture in its formation and providing scholars a quantitative base for analyzing Jamaica's political economy in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Contents:

Jamaica at midcentury: a social and economic profile

Patterns of landholding

Distribution of economic settlements

St. Andrew: patterns of land use and production in a core parish

St. Andrew: patterns of labor distribution and productivity in a core parish

Spanish town: an urban profile of property, wealth, and population

Spanish town: an urban profile of structures of office holding and occupations

Kingston: an urban profile of property and wealth

St. James: property, families, and households in a peripheral parish.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780813938318

0813938317

9780813933887

0813933889

9780813933917

0813933919

OCLC:

926312865