Women propped up the largest slave society in the British Empire. Jamaica Ladies is the first systematic study of the free and freed women of European, Euro-African, and African descent who perpetuated chattel slavery and reaped its profits in the British Empire. Their actions helped transform Jamaica into the wealthiest slaveholding colony in the Anglo-Atlantic world. Starting in the 1670s, a surprisingly large and diverse group of women helped secure English control of Jamaica and, crucially, aided its developing and expanding slave labour regime by acquiring enslaved men, women, and children to protect their own tenuous claims to status and independence.
We are delighted to welcome Christine Walker to talk to us on her new book about this fascinating subject. Christine is assistant professor of history at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.
Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press
TO ORDER THE BOOK
U.K. customers:
Eurospan: https://www.eurospanbookstore.com/jamaica-ladies-294876.html
U.S. customers:
Visit www.uncpress.org or call 1-800-848-6224.
