Gender, Family, Race, and the Colonial State in Early Nineteenth-Century Jamaica

What is it about?

What was the status of white women and children in the racist slave regimes of the early nineteenth century British Caribbean? This article uses a new set of sources - the records of a pension scheme set up for the families of white clergymen in Jamaica in 1797 - to answer this question. It argues that women and children were expected to be chaste, respectable and demure, but that ultimately they were instruments for the reinforcement of white power, and were ignored when the colonial state had more important priorities.

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