Sweet liberty : the final days of slavery in Martinique / Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schloss, Rebecca Hartkopf, 1970-

Series:

Early American studies.

Early American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Martinique--History.

Slavery.

Enslaved persons--Martinique--History.

Enslaved persons.

Martinique--History.

Martinique.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (311 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From its founding, Martinique played an integral role in France's Atlantic empire. Established in the mid-seventeenth century as a colonial outpost against Spanish and English dominance in the Caribbean, the island was transformed by the increase in European demand for sugar, coffee, and indigo. Like other colonial subjects, Martinicans met the labor needs of cash-crop cultivation by establishing plantations worked by enslaved Africans and by adopting the rigidly hierarchical social structure that accompanied chattel slavery. After Haiti gained its independence in 1804, Martinique's economic importance to the French empire increased. At the same time, questions arose, both in France and on the island, about the long-term viability of the plantation system, including debates about the ways colonists-especially enslaved Africans and free mixed-race individuals-fit into the French nation.Sweet Liberty chronicles the history of Martinique from France's reacquisition of the island from the British in 1802 to the abolition of slavery in 1848. Focusing on the relationship between the island's widely diverse society and the various waves of French and British colonial administrations, Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss provides a compelling account of Martinique's social, political, and cultural dynamics during the final years of slavery in the French empire. Schloss explores how various groups-Creole and metropolitan elites, petits blancs, gens de couleur, and enslaved Africans-interacted with one another in a constantly shifting political environment and traces how these interactions influenced the colony's debates around identity, citizenship, and the boundaries of the French nation.Based on extensive archival research in Europe and the Americas, Sweet Liberty is a groundbreaking study of a neglected region that traces how race, slavery, class, and gender shaped what it meant to be French on both sides of the Atlantic.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction. Sweet Liberty: The Final Days of Slavery in Martinique

Chapter one. "That Your Hearts Will Blossom and Again Become French": The Early Napoleonic Period

Chapter two. "Happy to Consider Itself an Ancient British Possession": The British Occupation of Martinique

Chapter three. "Your French and Loyal Hearts": The First Decade of the Restoration

Chapter four. "In the Colonies, It Is Impossible That a White Would Align Himself with Slaves": Shifts in Colonial Policy

Chapter five. "To Ensure Equality Before Those Laws to Free Men, Whatever Their Color": Changing Ideas of French Citizenship

Chapter six. "Amelioration of the White Race" and "The Sacred Rights of Property": The End of Slavery in the French Atlantic

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812222272

081222227X

9781283890540

1283890542

9780812203561

0812203569

OCLC:

802052848