Tropical Leviathan : slavery, society, and security in Jamaica, 1770-1840 / Aaron Graham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Graham, Aaron, 1984-2023, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jamaica--History--18th century.

Jamaica.

Jamaica--History--19th century.

Slavery--Jamaica--History--18th century.

Slavery.

Slavery--Jamaica--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"Planters in Jamaica, as in other slave societies, faced formidable problems of security. This study is the first to examine the role of the colonial fiscal-military state, the ‘tropical leviathan’, in the slave society of Jamaica during the age of revolutions between 1770 and 1840. Bringing together separate historiographies of state formation and slavery, it offers for the first time the study of a complete early modern fiscal-military state which recognizes the interactions between its different components, and the role of political structures in regulating this process and in mediating between the state and colonial society. Building on new models of the economy and politics of Jamaica under slavery, it argues that planters and other interests created a colonial state that successfully addressed their terror of slave resistance and their need for security by sowing fear among the Black population. Looking at policing, contracting, and the use of force, it shows how new structures were developed to fight a ‘tropical way of war’ in the interior, and to control the influx of White and Black refugees and prisoners of war after the Haitian Revolution in 1791, and the fiscal and financial expedients that were required as spending grew beyond precedent. Engaging with recent work on the end of slavery, it concludes that this process eventually bankrupted the island, bringing about the fall of the colonial state and triggering emancipation in the British empire in 1833"-- Oxford Academic.

'Tropical Leviathan' examines the political and economic history of the colonial state of Jamaica in the age of revolution and abolition. It analyses the ways in which Jamaica's economy attempted but eventually failed to secure the colonial state against enslaved opposition and explains how this led to near-state bankruptcy and emancipation.

Contents:

Introduction : ‘When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid’

The purposes of power : society and fear

The levers of power : politics and legislation

The sinews of power : taxation and the economy

Intermezzo I : ‘The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold’

Imperial military : defending the indefensible

Colonial military : the tropical way of war

Supplies : public service and private profit

Intermezzo II : ‘His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal’

Fiscal : the limits of the fiscal constitution

Public credit : a colonial financial revolution

Currency : unintended consequences

Conclusion : ‘He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood’.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from digital title page (Oxford Academic, viewed January 5, 2026).

Other Format:

Print version: Graham, Aaron, 1984-2023. Tropical Leviathan

ISBN:

9780191859779

019185977X

9780192550958

0192550950

OCLC:

1483251243

Publisher Number:

CIPO000184009

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license