WEST INDIES

Why did the British West Indies fail tosupport the American revolt?

Viewpoint: The British West Indies were far too dependent on the mothercountry economically, socially, and militarily to join the American War of Inde-pendence.

Viewpoint: The white inhabitants of the British Caribbean had more conserva-tive views of the English constitution and Empire than those held by Americans.

Great Britain possessed twenty-six colonies in the Americas, but onlythe thirteen mainland colonies rebelled against the mother country in 1775.Why? The refusal of the British West Indies to support the American rebel-lion is puzzling, especially considering that the sugar islands had closesocial and economic ties with the mainland colonies and shared many ofthe essential preconditions of the American Revolution (1775-1783). Asearly as 1651, for example, Barbadians denied Parliament's right to taxthem on the grounds that legislation without representation was a violationof their rights as Englishmen. Thirty years later Jamaica's assembly suc-cessfully established its right to legislate in all domestic matters. Like theirmainland counterparts, the island colonists during the eighteenth centurysought increasing control over internal taxation, the local militia, the islands'defenses, the administering of governmental expenditures, the appointmentof local officials, and the executive-decision-making process. The republi-can ideology of the American Revolution and Britain's attempt to subdue theAmericans by force intensified these political contests and created a politi-cal and constitutional crisis on some Caribbean islands. Local assembliesmade claims of coequality with the House of Commons and usurped execu-tive powers, while some island colonists refused to pay taxes and perse-cuted government officials determined to uphold the Crown's prerogative.Some West Indians even drank to the American Revolution and openlycalled for their own rebellion. In short, the American Revolution severelytested the ties between the British Caribbean and the mother country.

Traditionally, historians have focused on military, economic, social, anddemographic factors in answering the question of why the British WestIndies refused to join the American War of Independence. They point outthat the island colonies needed royal protection against foreign attacks andslave revolts; that the sugar islands were dependent on the British marketfor their leading export staple; and that the relatively high percentage ofabsentee landlords, many of whom resided in Britain, not only increasedtheir attachment to the mother country but also inhibited the development ofan incipient nationalism throughout the Caribbean.

Recently, historians have given a more nuanced explanation of why theBritish sugar islands did not join the American rebellion. Some scholarsassert that the British Caribbean remained loyal because of fundamentaldifferences between the island and mainland colonies. While acknowledg-ing that the military, economic, social, and demographic factors mentionedabove were important, they maintain that the West Indians and Americans

310 held different views of the English constitution and Empire. Unlike the main-

land colonists, Caribbean leaders believed in obedience to authority and the concept of Parlia-mentary sovereignty. Their protests against imperial taxation, for example, derived more frompractical and commercial purposes than constitutional ones. Also undermining island support forthe American cause was the illicit trade in molasses between North America and the French WestIndies. Indeed, American leaders suspected the powerful West Indian lobby of pushing throughParliament the post-1763 measures designed to bridle this illegal trade, which enriched Americanmerchants but cut into the profits of Caribbean sugar planters. Finally, the British Caribbeanlacked a large underclass of small landowners and artisans who could have provided as muchmomentum to a rebellion as their counterparts did on the mainland.

Despite the different explanations for the British Caribbean's refusal to support the AmericanWar of Independence, a study of the sugar islands during this period is important for a more com-plete understanding of both the causes and consequences of the American Revolution. After all,these islands provided more revenue to the Crown's coffers than did the mainland colonies, andthus they received special consideration from Whitehall. The sugar islands' economic importanceto Britain, as well as their "passivity toward colonial reforms," affected imperial policy toward NorthAmerica. Indeed, the British government devoted enormous resources toward defending theirWest Indian possessions during the Anglo-American conflict, expenditures that contributed to itsfailure to quell the American revolt. Finally, the division between North America and the BritishWest Indies following the Revolution significantly impacted the institution of slavery and the econ-omies of both regions.

Viewpoint:The British West Indies were far toodependent on the mother countryeconomically, socially, and militarilyto join the American Warof Independence.

Scholars recently have focused much atten-tion upon the unwillingness of the British WestIndian colonists to support the American Revo-lution (1775-1783). Historians correctly haverecognized that the Caribbean settlers, althoughideologically similar to their North Americancounterparts, responded differently to metro-politan attempts at bureaucratic centralizationprimarily because of their peculiar economicand military dependence on the mother coun-try. What scholars have failed to notice, how-ever, are the diverse reasons for thatdependence. They have thought of the BritishWest Indies (Antigua, Barbados, Dominica,Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts,St. Vincent, Tobago, and Tortola) as havingmore homogeneity than was the case, and thusthey have not been aware of the special factors inthe islanders' resistance to independence.Although common motives existed, the WestIndian planters' decision to remain within theBritish Empire was based most of all on theirdesire to guard their interests on each island.They were guided neither by great loyalty to theBritish Crown nor by a sense of corporate iden-tity with the British West Indies.

Certainly all of the British West Indian col-onists shared in the plantation economics of theseventeenth and eighteenth century. All depended

upon African slaves to supply labor; all neededBritish capital and markets; and all required Brit-ish naval and military protection. Yet, a variety ofpolitical, geographical, and economic factorsdetermined that the planters of the respectiveislands would establish their own particular rela-tionships to the Empire. Although English set-tlers of the seventeenth century "first-phase"colonies—Barbados, Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis,St. Kitts, and Jamaica—nurtured a flourishingeconomy based upon sugar, those of the "second-phase" colonies—the Ceded Islands of Grenada, St.Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago (all acquired in1763)—of necessity had to rely upon other cropsas well. Nor did the same colonial regulations,types of government, or laws pertain to all theBritish West Indies. Even the ethnic mix of theislands varied considerably. In the second-phasesettlements, for example, there were manyFrench residents who had remained after thetransfer of the Ceded Islands from France toGreat Britain.

From the mid seventeenth to the late eigh-teenth century, West Indian planters were themost prominent and influential colonists withinthe British Empire. They were the primary bene-ficiaries of a closed market system that guaran-teed them a monopoly of British markets. Totheir benefit, Parliament maintained sugar andrum prices that were among the highest inEurope. This arrangement especially promotedthe success of elite planters who established mul-tiple estates, built sophisticated sugar factories,and purchased large numbers of slaves. Almostfrom the outset of British colonization in theWest Indies, highly successful planters were ableto retire in Britain. Once in the mother countrythey purchased massive estates, arranged advan-

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tageous marriages for their offspring, and gainedseats in Parliament. Their success was spectacu-lar, especially when compared to the vicissitudesof North American colonists who increasinglycomplained that Parliament ignored their con-cerns. In London, the well-connected WestIndian planters regularly lobbied and enticedBritish officials to act on their behalf, unlike thediscouraged Bostonians, Philadelphians, or NewYorkers who found little redress.

While West Indians benefited from theirspecial relationship with Britain, they were tiedto English financial institutions. Imperial credi-tors and merchants extended the necessary capi-tal for purchasing estates, machinery, andlaborers. Together with the planters they con-structed a plantation system that was central tothe transatlantic economy. This "plantation com-plex," as historian Philip Curtin has labeled it,depended upon European capital and manage-ment as well as the continual supply of coercedlabor from the British slave trade. In exchangefor multiple benefits, West Indian planters sur-rendered to overseas economic and politicalauthority while retaining almost absolute con-trol over their estates.

The dependence upon metropolitan bankerswas especially pronounced in newer colonies wheresettlers sought to build impressive estates in a singlegeneration. These costly enterprises ensured contin-ued reliance on contacts with the Old World.

Throughout the West Indies, planters mortgagedtheir estates to obtain necessary credit, and the lureof metropolitan financing proved stronger thanaccess to North American markets. Although dur-ing the American Revolution the West Indianplanters complained mightily once they lost theability to purchase cheap North American goodsand sell their products to Yankee traders, theirdependence on metropolitan banks ensured thatthey would oppose any rebellion that meant sever-ing ties with Great Britain.

The predominance of sugar cultivation alsoconnected the Caribbean colonies to Britain, eventhough recent scholars have identified several pre-conditions to revolution that West Indians sharedwith the North Americans. By 1775 planters inthe first-phase colonies were especially loyal to theCrown because of the triumph of sugar monocul-ture, which so dominated islands such as Barba-dos and Antigua that the populations thereneglected subsistence agriculture and importedbasic food supplies. Sugar planters were rigidlycommitted to this staple because of the substan-tial capital investments they had made to establishtheir plantations. Once they began to acquireprofits, planters expanded production of sugarrather than diversifying their agriculture. After acentury of customary dependence upon sugar andits place in the British-controlled transatlanticeconomy, they had little desire to support theAmerican Revolution.

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Colonists in the second-phase settlementswere much more flexible agriculturists, however,than their counterparts in Barbados, the LeewardIslands, and Jamaica. A variety of geographical andeconomic factors ensured that planters in Grenada,St. Vincent, Tobago, and Dominica were muchmore willing to avoid crop specialization. WhileGrenadian planters became the second-largest sugarproducers in the British Caribbean by the Ameri-can Revolution, they continued growing impres-sive quantities of coffee, cocoa, and cotton. Therugged topography of Dominica prohibited exten-sive sugar cultivation, which flourished in flat ter-rain. The arid climate and sandy soil of much of theGrenadines, meanwhile, proved especially favorableto cotton cultivation. During the late eighteenthcentury, islands such as Carriacou and Mustiquewere some of the primary colonial cotton produc-ers. During the American Revolution the economyof the Ceded Islands was also much less maturethan that of the sugar colonies, in part becausesugar monoculture never took hold. Ceded Islandplanters were therefore more responsive to changesin market conditions than the first-phase colonists,although they still depended upon the British forcapital and trade.

Largely because of their particular economicinterests, planters in the first- and second-phase set-tlements confronted crucial issues of the AmericanRevolutionary era much differently. For instance,while Jamaicans and Barbadians supported theSugar Act (1764), the plantocracy of the CededIslands successfully challenged the imposition ofsugar duties. In 1774, Chief Justice Lord Mansfieldruled in favor of planters in the Ceded Islands inthe landmark case Campbell v. Hall. In this suit theGrenadian planter and assemblyman AlexanderCampbell sued the local British customs official,challenging the Crown's prerogative to levy the cus-tomary 4.5 percent sugar duty in the CededIslands. Lord Mansfield ruled in favor of Camp-bell, contending that in the charter establishing thegovernment for the Ceded Islands, the Crown hadindeed surrendered the right to levy taxes to thenewly created Ceded Island assemblies.

The Campbell v. Hall case demonstrates thatscholars have overemphasized West Indian passivityto imperial administration. In fact, it was not passiv-ity but confrontation that might have served toallay revolutionary sentiment. The Grenadians wereactually opposed to the growth of imperial author-ity. The British concessions to Campbell's suitbrought satisfaction to the Ceded Island colonists.

The foremost objective of West Indian plant-ers was to establish and maintain a hierarchical soci-ety that recognized social inequities. The WestIndian system itself was built upon slavery, andCaribbean planters aggressively struggled to build aworld of privilege. West Indian law recognized theenslaved person as chattel, or movable property,

and saw him or her as an extension of the master'swill. The primary wealth of the elite planters wascomposed of slaves and land, and local legislaturesworked to guard planters and their property rights.The establishment and maintenance of the plantoc-racy, however, meant that elite planters had to bevigilant within their communities while seekinghelp from the metropolis. At times their attentionswere divided, and some often left for London tolobby for their interests, leaving the management oftheir estates to lawyers, kin, or other overseers.

In the pursuit of their selfish concerns andeven in their confrontations with the Crown, theplanters were hardly rebels against the Empire.Planters demanded autonomous legislatures thatreflected their demands as property holders. Forexample, the government of the SouthernCharibbee Islands, which administered the CededIslands of Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, andTobago, fell apart almost as soon as it was orga-nized in 1763. It was dismembered as planters andmerchants in each island insisted upon indepen-dent governors and local assemblies, and they alsorequired island registries to maintain legal records.Colonists in the Leeward Islands also resisted Brit-ish attempts to create a centralized government asthey successfully demanded their own lieutenantgovernors and local assemblies in Antigua, Mont-serrat, Nevis, and St. Kitts. Because autonomouslegislatures represented the demands of the localplanters, they survived, even though there wereoften few Europeans to fill vacant positions. TheBritish concessions to local autonomy proved wise.Under the circumstances, if West Indian plantershad yoked themselves to the thirteen North Ameri-can colonies, they would have jeopardized theirown independence.

Perhaps the most important factor ensuringWest Indian loyalty to the British Empire was theirmilitary dependence upon imperial troops to pro-tect the islands from foreign invasion. BecauseEuropean settlements were in close proximity, thethreat was real. Historian Richard Dunn contendsthat French invasions and occupations of the Lee-ward Islands slowed the rate of development inthose islands during the seventeenth century. Simi-larly, French reoccupation of the Ceded Islandsduring the Revolutionary War stultified the Britishplantations. The problem was most acute inTobago, which remained under French rule untilthe end of the eighteenth century. Barbados wasthe only British Caribbean possession to escapeoccupation, and it benefited accordingly. Through-out the Caribbean, sugar planters needed stabilityand the assurance that their estates, crops, andslaves could be protected from French and perhapsother forces.

The planters also sought British protectionfrom internal threats. Since small communities ofelite planters held tenuous sway over thousands of

HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 313

enslaved African and Creole slaves, they sometimeswere easily overwhelmed, and slave rebellions werefrequent. In islands such as Jamaica, Dominica, andGrenada, bands of maroons waged war againstlocal plantations and often reduced nearby planta-tions to turmoil. The problem was most acute onislands with vast interiors or in colonies whereplantation communities were not firmly estab-lished. In Grenada and Dominica, British plantersfeared their French counterparts who also ownedextensive land tracts. Anglo-French ethnic tensionsrose to their highest during times of hostilitiesbetween France and Britain. Also, on St. Vincent,Carib Indians prevented the territorial expansionof West Indian planters until their eviction in thefinal years of the eighteenth century. Not surpris-ingly, elites throughout the Indies were dependentupon imperial troops to intimidate internal ene-mies. Securing internal stability was a task evenmore monumental than safeguarding individualislands from foreign invasion.

Undoubtedly, many West Indians sympa-thized with their North American neighbors dur-ing the American Revolution. Planters in theCeded Islands had already challenged Britishattempts to impose duties without the support oflocal assemblies. With their large numbers of slaves,however, West Indian planters could not support arebellion that challenged hierarchical rule. The live-lihood of elite planters depended upon British lawto justify their privileges and to protect their prop-erty. It was Parliament and the Crown, the forcesthat the thirteen North American coloniesopposed, that undergirded the West Indian systemand ensured its privileged position within theEmpire. As the American Revolution progressed, itexposed essential problems of the West Indianplanters, primarily their dependence upon inexpen-sive, unfinished North American goods. Yet, Carib-bean planters could not join the revolutionwithout giving up their local autonomy or destroy-ing their vital economic, social, and military linksto the British Empire.

-MARK S. QUINTANILLA,BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY

Viewpoint:The white inhabitants of the BritishCaribbean had more conservativeviews of the English constitutionand Empire than those held byAmericans.

The Thirteen Colonies represented onlyhalf of the provinces of British America in 1775.The majority of the rest, and indeed the wealthi-

est, were in the Caribbean: Antigua, Barbados,Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis,St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Tobago, and Tortola.These colonies shared to a large degree the essen-tial preconditions of the American Revolution,but they did not rebel. They shared similar polit-ical developments and a similar political ideologyto North America and were closely associatedwith the mainland colonies by their proximityand trade. Their plantation system was analo-gous to the Southern mainland colonies, espe-cially South Carolina. In a period when mostBritish colonists in North America lived lessthan two hundred miles inland and the major cit-ies were often situated along the coast, the oceanoften acted as a highway between the islands andthe mainland rather than a barrier. Yet, when rev-olution came, the majority of the white islandcolonists did not side with their compatriots onthe mainland.

In 1775 there was no republican shift in thepolitical ideology of the British Caribbean.Planters continued to think of liberty in tradi-tional hierarchical terms. They defined rightsnarrowly as privileges associated with propertyand corporations; they preferred a traditionalrhetoric of customary rights and privileges ratherthan universal abstract rights; they avoided dis-cussion of natural rights and equality; they didnot appropriate the republican language of vir-tue to claim moral superiority over the corrup-tion of the mother country; they did not attemptto widen the franchise; they did not try to dis-establish the Anglican Church; they did notexpand their concept of education to advocatebroader opportunities, even among the whitepopulation; and they exhibited no sudden wishto change or to improve their societies.

The divergence of the British West Indiesand North America at the time of the Declara-tion of Independence (1776) was anticipated inthe 1760s. West Indians not only supported theSugar Act, the first direct imperial tax, but alsocampaigned for higher duties after 1764.Although the Stamp Act (1765) imposed agreater fiscal burden on the Caribbean than onNorth America, Jamaica and Barbados paidstamp duties in contrast to all the thirteenmainland colonies. The mainland Patriotsmocked the submission of these islands becausethey regarded any payment of imperial duties asan acknowledgment of Parliamentary authorityto tax the colonies and therefore as a fatal prece-dent. Stamp Act riots occurred in St. Kitts andNevis, but these events happened only afterthreats of what amounted to an economic boy-cott by the mainland Patriots. The LeewardIslands had little choice but to resist becausethey imported most of their food from NorthAmerica. They risked a famine and the associ-

314 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

GOOD WISHES OF THE FRIENDSOF LIBERTY

In late December 1774 the assembly in Jamaica sent apetition to King George III w behalf of the thirteen main-land colonies. Although this attempt at mediation in thegrowing Anglo-American crisis failed, the Continental Con-

MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN OFTHE ASSEMBLY OF JAMAICA,

We would think ourselves deficient In ourduty, If we suffered this Congress to passover, without expressing our esteem for theassembly of Jamaica.

Whoever attends to tie conduct of thosewho have been entrusted with the administra-tion of the British affairs, during these lasttwelve years, will discover in it, a deliberateplan to destroy, in every part of the empire,the free constitution, for which Britain hasbeen so long and so justly famed....

An appeal to the justice and humanity ofthose who had injured us, and who werebound to redress our Injuries, was ineffectual:we next resolved to make an appeal to theirinterests, though by doing so, we knew wemust sacrifice our own, and (which gave usequal uneasiness) that of our friends, who hadnever offended us, and who were connectedwith us by a sympathy of feel ings, underoppressions similar to our own. We resolvedto give up our commerce that we might pre-serve our liberty. We flattered ourselves, thatwhen, by withdrawing our commercial inter-course with Britain, which we had anundoubted right either to withdraw or continue,her trade should be diminished, her revenues

impaired, and her manufactures unemployed,our ministerial foes would be Intfuotd by inter-est, or compelled by necessity, to depart fromthe plan of tyranny Which they had so long pur-sued, and to substitute in its place, a systemmore compatible with the ftitctom of America,and justice of Britain. That this scheme of non-importation andrK>n*eKp0rtettofi«il̂ itbe pro-ductive of the desired effects, we were obligedto Include the Islands In It Prom ttws necessity,and from this necessity alone, hts oyr conducttowards them procetdtA By converting yoursugar plantations Into fields of grain, you cansupply yourselves with the necessaries of We:While the present unhappy struggle shall con-tinue, we cannot do more-

But why shoutd we make any apology tothe patriotic assembly of Jamaica, whoknows so well the value of liberty; who art sosensible of the extreme danger to which oursis exposed; and Mo foresee how certainlythe destruction of ours must be followed bythe destruction of their own?

The peculiar situation of your Island for-bids your assistance. But wt have yow goodwishes. From the good wishes of the friendsof liberty and mankind, we thai! alwaysderive consolation.

Source: "Address to the Assembly of Jamaica, July25,7775/'/n Journals of the Continental Congress,1774-1779, wtM&y W^n^$tomm®w Fore?(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,1905), Um Avalon Project at Yale Law School web-site <http://www.yale,edu/lawweb/avalon/contcong/07*25*7S,Mm>,

ated danger of a slave rebellion if they compliedwith the Stamp Act.

After the repeal of the act in 1766, the Brit-ish West Indies remained aloof from the grow-ing imperial crisis until the eve of theRevolutionary War. Parochial disputes aboutthe corporal privileges of the island assembliestranscended the larger imperial crisis in theBritish Caribbean until the eve of the Revolu-tionary War. Unlike North America, tensionsdid not mount to a climactic breakdownbetween the legislatures and the governors inthe 1770s. On the contrary, unusual harmonyexisted. West Indians conspicuously failed tojoin the pamphlet campaign against Britain.

Their silence contrasts with the torrent of litera-ture they produced in the post-war abolitiondebate. They did not set up extraparliamentaryopposition groups like the Sons of Liberty, thenonimportation associations, and the commit-tees of correspondence. No radical leaderbecame prominent in the Caribbean in opposi-tion to the Stamp Act and Townshend duties(1767). The islands made no attempt at federa-tion like the Stamp Act Congress (1765). Therewas no appeal to limit trade with Britain, andthere was no denunciation of luxury and cor-ruption against the mother country.

The colonists of the British West Indieswere less strident in their ideology than the

HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 315

grass thanked the jamaicans for theat effortrs

mainland Patriots. Like the American Loyalists,they objected to imperial taxes, but theybelieved in obedience to authority. Further-more, they preferred to stress commercial andpractical rather than constitutional objectionsto imperial policies. West Indians shared morein common with the contemporary politicalleaders in Ireland than those in North America.They sought to direct the internal affairs oftheir colonies and to obtain local autonomywithin the British Empire. They specificallydenied claims of coequality between theirassemblies and Parliament. They affirmed theirbelief in Parliamentary sovereignty. Bermudasent delegates to the First Continental Con-gress (1774), but the example was not imitatedby any of the British West Indies. It was signifi-cant that Congress never bothered to offer theWest Indies the option of signing the Articlesof Confederation (1781), but left open a provi-sion for Canada.

On the eve of the American Revolution,the British West Indies were unlikely to find aconspiracy theory on the part of the Crowncredible. They escaped some of those imperialpolicies whose cumulative logic convinced themainland Patriots of a deliberate plan of tyr-anny by Britain. West Indians welcomed thepresence of the British Army, which was nosymbol of tyranny but an instrument of whitehegemony over the black majority and essentialprotection against European enemies. Between1763 and 1775 their dependence on metropoli-tan security was highlighted by the increasedfrequency of slave conspiracies and the rearma-ment of neighboring European colonies. Whenthe Army became the chief symbol of tyranny inNorth America in the year of the Boston Massa-cre (1770), the British West Indies petitionedfor more troops to police their slaves and toprovide defense against foreign attack.

The Jamaican assembly finally petitionedthe King in 1774 in words and sentiments thatwere almost indistinguishable from the Patriotsin North America. This protest was a spontane-ous reaction to the threat of losing their tradewith North America, together with the associ-ated fear of a slave rebellion, in response to theeconomic boycott of the First Continental Con-

gress. It was not the result of a cumulativeopposition movement.

-ANDREW J. O'SHAUGHNESSY,UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AT OSHKOSH

References

Selwyn H. H. Carrington, "The American Revo-lution and the Sugar Colonies, 1775-1783," in A Companion to the American Rev-olution, edited by Jack P. Greene and J. R.Pole (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000), pp.515-522.

T. R. Clayton, "Sophistry, Security, andSocio-Political Structures in the AmericanRevolution; Or Why Jamaica Did NotRebel," Historical Journal, 29 (1986): 9-44.

Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance toSlavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982).

Philip Cur tin, The Rise and Fall of the PlantationComplex: Essays in Atlantic History (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of thePlanter Class in the English West Indies,1624-1713 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1972).

Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided:The American Revolution and the British Car-ibbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-vania Press, 2000).

Mark S. Quintanilla, "British Colonization andSettlement of the Ceded Islands, 1763-1777," Historian (forthcoming, 2004).

Quintanilla, "The World of Alexander Campbell:An Eighteenth-Century Grenadian Planter,"Albion (forthcoming, 2003).

Richard Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Eco-nomic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1973).

J. R. Ward, British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834: The Process of Amelioration (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1988).

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