The Fight To Own Land In Jamaica

On August 1st, 1838, Jamaica, alongside the rest of the countries in the British West Indies, achieved full emancipation and thus all enslaved Black people on the island, gained their freedom. Immediately after, the topic of land became a major issue. For even though freedom day come for all Black persons, a series of laws & taxes were created, effectively blocking Blacks people & in some English speaking - Caribbean countries, Indians, from owning land. A history that countries are still reckoning with today.

Additional Knowledge

BOOKS

  • Democracy and Slavery: Black, Publics and Pesant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica by Mimi Sheller

  • Between Black and White: Race, Politics, and the Free Coloreds in Jamaica, 1792-1865 by Gad Heuman

  • Jamaican Place Names by B.W. Higman and B.J. Hudson

  • Troubling Freedom: Antigua and the Aftermath of British Emancipation by Natasha Lightfoot

  • Political and Social Disturbance In The West Indies by Frank Cundall

  • Rebecca's Children: A Study of Rural Society, Crime and Protest by David J. V. Jones

  • Ties that Bind: The Black Family in Post-Slavery Jamaica, 1834-1882 by Jenny M. Jemmott

  • The Killing Time: The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica by Gad Heuman

  • The Rebecca Riots by David Williams

  • Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony, 1830-1865 by Philip D. Curtin

ACADEMIC PAPERS

  • Aspects of the Development of the Peasantry by Woodville Marshall

  • British Colonial Policy and the Problems of Establishing a Free Society in Jamaica, 1838-1865 by Graham Kno

  • Christianity and Slavery in the British West Indies 1750-1865 by Michael Craton

  • From Slave Rebellions to Morant Bay: The Tradition of Protest In Jamaica by Dr. Gad Heuman

  • Linstead Market before Linstead? Eighteenth–century Yabbas and the Internal Market System of Jamaica by Mark Hauser

  • Notes on Peasant Development in the West Indies Since 1838 by Woodville K. Marshall

  • Paternalism and Rural Protest: The Rebecca Riots and the Landed Interest of South-West Wales by Lowri Ann Rees

  • Race, Class, and Resistance: The 1858 Riots and the Aftermath of Emancipation in Antigua by Natasha Lightfoot

  • The Name of the Father: Women, Paternity, and British Rule in Nineteenth-Century Jamaica by Persis Charles

  • Their Coats were Tied Up like Men’: Women Rebels in Antigua's 1858 Uprising by Natasha Lightfoot

ARTICLES

PODCAST

  • Lest We Forget: And The Women Shall Lead Them: Antigua's 1858 Uprising

  • Lest We Forget: Bonus Episode with Dr. Natasha Lightfoot on The Antiguan Riot of 1858

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The Salt 'Plantations' of the Caribbean