How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean

How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean PDF Author: Hilary MCD Beckles
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789766408695
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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How Britain Underdeveloped the West Indies (with Apologies to Walter Rodney).

How Britain Underdeveloped the West Indies (with Apologies to Walter Rodney). PDF Author: Virgil Henry Storr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 11

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Book Description
Britain's colonial adventures in the West Indies lasted almost five centuries. "Slavery...and the overarching experience of colonialism," as De Barros, et al (2006, xi) write, "have in many ways defined the...Caribbean." Similarly, as Thompson (1997: 11) described, the Caribbean is "the most thoroughly colonized area in the world." This raises at least two interesting questions: (a) What's the legacy of British colonialism in the West Indies? and (b) How much did Britain benefit from her imperial exploits in the region? In this article, I will attempt to address the first but will largely ignore the second question.

Britain's Black Debt

Britain's Black Debt PDF Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: University of the West Indies Press
ISBN: 9789766402686
Category : Black people
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Since the mid-nineteenth-century abolition of slavery, the call for reparations for the crime of African enslavement and native genocide has been growing. In the Caribbean, grassroots and official voices now constitute a regional reparations movement. While it remains a fractured, contentious and divisive call, it generates considerable public interest, especially within sections of the community that are concerned with issues of social justice, equity, civil and human rights, education, and cultural identity. The reparations discourse has been shaped by the voices from these fields as they seek to build a future upon the settlement of historical crimes. This is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the reparations discussion in the Caribbean. Written by a leading economic historian of the region, a seasoned activist in the wider movement for social justice and advocacy of historical truth, Britain's Black Debt looks at the origins and development of reparations as a regional and international process. Weaving detailed historical data on Caribbean slavery and the transatlantic slave trade together with legal principles and the politics of postcolonialism, Beckles sets out a solid academic analysis of the evidence. He concludes that Britain has a case of reparations to answer which the Caribbean should litigate. International law provides that chattel slavery as practised by Britain was a crime against humanity. Slavery was invested in by the royal family, the government, the established church, most elite families, and large public institutions in the private and public sector. Citing the legal principles of unjust and criminal enrichment, the author presents a compelling argument for Britain's payment of its black debt, a debt that it continues to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is at once an exciting narration of Britain's dominance of the slave markets that enriched the economy and a seminal conceptual journey into the hidden politics and public posturing of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. No work of this kind has ever been attempted. No author has had the diversity of historical research skills, national and international political involvement, and personal engagement as an activist to present such a complex yet accessible work of scholarship.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa PDF Author: Walter Rodney
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788731204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The classic work of political, economic, and historical analysis, powerfully introduced by Angela Davis In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the west and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the abiding repercussions of European colonialism on the continent of Africa has not only informed decades of scholarship and activism, it remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

Inside Slavery

Inside Slavery PDF Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher: Canoe Press (IL)
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Contains lectures presented at Cave Hill from 1987-93 to honour the memory of Elsa Goveia, a highly regarded Caribbean historian. Themes and topics include Thistlewood's Journals (Douglas Hall), slave conditions in Barbados and other islands (Richard Sheridan), slavery and freedom in Brazil and Louisiana.

Capitalism and Slavery

Capitalism and Slavery PDF Author: Eric Williams
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469619490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

The First Black Slave Society

The First Black Slave Society PDF Author: Hilary Beckles
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789766405854
Category : Barbadians
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Book describes the brutal Black slave society and plantation system of Barbados and explains how this slave chattel model was perfected by the British and exported to Jamaica and South Carolina for profit. There is special emphasis on the role of the concept of white supremacy in shaping social structure and economic relations that allowed slavery to continue. The book concludes with information on how slavery was finally outlawed in Barbados, in spite of white resistance.

Race, War and Nationalism

Race, War and Nationalism PDF Author: Glenford D. Howe
Publisher: Ian Randle Publishers
ISBN: 976637063X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Glenford Howe's social history of the soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment assesses the impact of World War One on West Indian history and reveals the true nature of military relations and the gradual decline in morale.

Persistent Underdevelopment

Persistent Underdevelopment PDF Author: Jay R. Mandle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415593649
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
First published in 1996, this insightful and informative text examines the post-emancipation and recent economic history of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Jay R. Mandle offers an explanation of the regionâe(tm)s continuing underdevelopment. Through the use of an analytical framework derived from the works of Marx and Kuznets, the book focuses attention on technological change as the driving force behind economic modernization. Persistent Underdevelopment begins by exploring how plantation agriculture had a limiting effect on industrial growth. Ultimately, plantation dominance receded; technological stagnation continued, however, and, under British colonial policy the Caribbean failed to modernise. The post-World War II era brought new efforts at modernisation through the economic policies of the left regimes of Manley, Burnham and Bishop. The concluding chapters point the way to policies that would enable the Caribbean to escape its current poverty and become an effective participant in world markets, finally achieving the goal of modern economic development.

Britain and the United States in the Caribbean

Britain and the United States in the Caribbean PDF Author: Mrs. Mary (MacDonald) Proudfoot
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description