Description
Book SynopsisDescribing the hard working conditions on plantations and harsh treatment of apprentices unjustly incarcerated, this book argues that apprenticeship actually worsened the conditions of Jamaican ex-slaves: former owners, no longer legally permitted to directly punish their workers, used the Jamaican legal system as a punitive lever against them.
Trade Review“This is simply a fabulous compilation of materials. Paton carefully addresses an impressive range of historical and literary contexts that allow the contemporary reader to fully appreciate the importance of Williams’s narrative.”—Sandra Gunning, author of
Race, Rape, and Lynching: The Red Record of American Literature, 1890–1912“Williams’s narrative contributes a distinctive dimension to our understanding of the development of ‘Black Atlantic’ writing. His is a rare account of a slave’s transition to freedom under the conditions of the British emancipation program in Jamaica. The rich historical and social texture provided by Paton enhances this striking narrative’s import.”—William L. Andrews, coeditor of
The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave NarrativesTable of Contents"A Narrative of Events, since the 1st of August, 1834, by James Williams, an Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica": minutes of proceedings at Browns Town, St. Ann's - evidence of: Edward Lawrence; Mary Ann Bell; John Patterson; William Dalling; Adam Brown; William Dalling (recalled); Peter William Atkinson; William Mills; Joseph Lawrence; Amelia Lawrence; Gilbert Senior; Eliza Finlayson; Ann Campbell; Susan White; Maria Henderson; Jane Shaw Pennock; Alexander Mills; Janette Saunders; Mary James; John Clarke (formerly overseer at Knapdale); James Kinlayson; Catherine Bayley; Mary Jane Kidson, Joseph Isaacs, Margaret Jane Campbell, Eliza Nathan, Maria Henderson (recalled); Julian Morrison; John Clarke (Baptist missionary); James Brown; Samuel Pink; Lavinia Reynolds; Eleanor Howell; Elizabeth Bartley; Bella Richards; Richard Hemming; James Thomas; Israel Lemon;, and Martin Brown. Additional documents: letters from Joseph Sturge; letters and affidavits of and enclosed by Gilbert William Senior and Sarah Jane Keith; senior articles in British and Jamaican newspapers.
