Slavery in Jamaica, Tacky's Revolt, and the Declaration of Independence

00:00:09: He has kept among us, in times of peace standing armies without the consent.

00:00:35: A group of enslaved people in a British colony met in secret, In order to plan a rebellion that they hoped would lead their freedom and independence from Great Britain.

00:00:50: These enslaved Africans had been soldiers themselves back in Africa but were captured at battle then sold as slaves on plantations far away on the other side of The Atlantic.

00:01:01: Indeed leader of these rebels was the chief of his African village.

00:01:06: He knew how to plan a military strategy, How To Organize Troops and How To Rally People To Support A Common Cause.

00:01:15: So on one quiet morning in April of seventeen sixty The African Chief And His Men Summoned Their Courage And Descended Upon A Nearby Plantation Overwhelming the White Overseers Before Moving On To Capture Weapons & Gunpowder At British Fort Close By Everything seemed to be going well as they gathered more support and supplies, and liberated more enslaved people.

00:01:38: However soon the resistance of white colonists and British army stiffened.

00:01:44: The British summoned their own militia black Africans to help quash revolt.

00:01:48: And perhaps African rebels were surprised to see African men on other side of lines fighting with their white enslavers against them.

00:01:59: Eventually, the war turned in favor of British settlers with their African supporters.

00:02:04: Within days many of the rebels had been captured some were executed summarily others faced trial and were sentenced to death burnt at stake or hung in iron cages until they died of exposure or starvation.

00:02:22: This War for Freedom and Independence from Great Britain had failed but the spirit of this rebellion against the horrors of slavery lived on.

00:02:31: You might be thinking that the events I'm describing happened in the North American colonies, But they did not happen in Virginia or the Carolinas where Africans were also enslaved in large numbers.

00:02:43: These events happened on the island of Jamaica which was both very similar and different to other slave-holding colonies.

00:02:52: So today we'll discuss Jamaica Tacky's Rebellion, and the Declaration of Independence.

00:02:59: What were the similarities and differences between Jamaica in the other thirteen North American colonies?

00:03:05: How did this rebellion which we call Tackies' Rebellions led by Tackie, The African Chief... how does this rebellion affect continental plantation owners...?

00:03:17: Why do some Africans support white

00:03:18: planters?...

00:03:20: And how does learning more about the history of Jamaica help us understand The Declaration Of Independence?

00:03:36: sixteen

00:03:39: seventy through seventeen seventy

00:03:48: six

00:03:51: and a thoroughbred nation making America at the racetrack, seventeen ninety one to nineteen hundred.

00:04:00: And she is also working on book about absentee West Indian planters in later Georgian London.

00:04:07: so Natalie you began with this quotation this grievance from The Declaration of Independence.

00:04:13: He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

00:04:19: I always interpreted this to be about standing armies and North America, but obviously there's something more to this.

00:04:26: so you chose this because it helps us understand Jamaica on the role that Jamaica played in The American Revolution.

00:04:32: So why did you choose that quotation?

00:04:35: I selected it because It goes against a lot of what we think about.

00:04:40: the relationship between Britain's colonies in the Americas, and The British Metropole were used to the idea of British soldiers.

00:04:49: In North America being referred too as the Redcoats and seen as you know deeply unwelcome even obviously before the outbreak Of the American Revolution And Obviously much more so afterwards As invaders as Unwelcome people.

00:05:07: You Know Even People Who Did Not Actually support the American Revolution did not really like having British soldiers around.

00:05:15: They found them personally arrogant and unpleasant, they complained that British soldiers, or at least the enlisted men in their off hours took part-time work that should have gone to local people.

00:05:28: They claimed probably accurately they sexually harassed women and girls.

00:05:40: for any infraction.

00:05:42: To North American colonists, whipping was something that a white person did to a person of color not that one person did too another White Person even a person much lower status.

00:05:55: So generally the so-called red coats were very unpopular and indeed One of the complaints That ended up in The Declaration Of Independence came from so-called Boston Tea Party, Britain sent regular British troops to the port of Boston to keep this city in order.

00:06:15: And you know, Boston was already The Rebel City and so the British soldiers were especially unwelcome there even among the cities elites.

00:06:25: but in colonies like Jamaica their response to the arrival of regular British troupes is very different indeed.

00:06:33: Throughout the eighteenth century, we see many desperate appeals on the part of the governors and legislatures of the British colonies.

00:06:42: And especially Jamaica begging Britain to send regular troops and being deeply disappointed if they don't get them to arrive.

00:06:51: so The idea that you know all colonists hated the British military is not accurate because by The seventeen sixties or seventeen seventies, at least away from the frontier settlers in British North America did not feel that they needed to be protected.

00:07:10: They didn't feel that.

00:07:18: But in places like Jamaica, the percentage of the population that was white adult and male Was tiny compared to the overall population most of which consisted of enslaved Africans or Afro-Jamaicans.

00:07:34: So not only were White people overwhelmingly outnumbered In a way that they never were in North America but also you're talking about quite small islands, with places where enslaved people can not only run away to get off the plantation but can establish small redoubts from which it's basically impossible to retrieve them and from which they can prey on the plantations.

00:08:02: And if there is an uprising who was going rid of, you know in numerical terms the white women and the white children.

00:08:12: And The White Elderly?

00:08:13: there simply are not going to be very many white adult males who're gonna be able do this work?

00:08:19: By the seventeen sixties rebel enslaved people are seen as absolutely a fearsome opponent that they are not easily put down.

00:08:30: so what you really want if your Jamaican plantation owner is train soldiers from Britain who you can call upon in times of danger, such as at the outbreak

00:09:01: what Jamaica was like before it was colonized, how the plantation economies started and basically the role in Jamaica and the wider British Empire.

00:09:16: And then we'll get to The Slave Rebellions.

00:09:20: Britain takes over Jamaica in the sixteen fifties.

00:09:23: Jamaica had been colonized by Spain but Cromwell sends an expedition known as the Western design.

00:09:35: In the course of that, Jamaica becomes English and then later British.

00:09:42: And this is by far the biggest island that The British have taken over in the Caribbean.

00:09:49: so already people who have been experimenting with sugar-and-slavery in colonies such as Barbados and Antigua are very keen to this new land available that has already been divided up into plantations, where the Spanish have already been experimenting with sugar planting.

00:10:09: So people are very eager to go to Jamaica whether from The British Isles or elsewhere in the Caribbean.

00:10:16: and by the early eighteenth century, Jamaica is a source of immense profits.

00:10:21: it really supplants Barbados as the Sugar Planting Island.

00:10:28: So it attracts many people who want to try their luck.

00:10:32: They establish large plantations, they import endless numbers of captives from Africa because the captives tend to have a short lifespan even compared to those in other Caribbean islands or on North American plantation colonies.

00:10:50: And it's a high stakes kind of place.

00:10:52: A lot people never are able to purchase enough land, and you can't be a sugar planter on small scale If you don't have the land and the enslaved labor force to work at.

00:11:05: You're not going get anywhere.

00:11:06: But a small number do fantastically well.

00:11:11: On the eve of The American Revolution, these are the richest people in the British Empire to such an extent that some of them don't even live in Jamaica anymore.

00:11:21: They want to live somewhere they think is more socially exciting and educate their sons in Britain or establish contacts with influential people particularly in Parliament.

00:11:33: They want to marry their daughters into the landed gentry, so they turn their plantations over to managers and overseers.

00:11:41: And move often permanently to this so-called mother country which some of them have never actually visited before.

00:11:49: So Jamaica is massively rich but the wealth in land are concentrated few hands.

00:11:56: it has an immense population of enslaved people.

00:12:01: And because the enslaved have short lifespans and often do not have children or don't have children that survive to adulthood, Jamaican planters are keep buying in enslaved people usually from Africa.

00:12:15: so the Jamaican labor force remains very African In a way, for example that Thomas Jefferson's Monticello was not necessarily that African by the seventeen sixties.

00:12:29: Just because many of his enslaved people had been born in this in Virginia?

00:12:34: Yes For multiple generations would you say

00:12:37: For a couple of generations, I mean for example Sally Humming is probably the most famous enslaved person at Monticello.

00:12:43: Sally was born in Virginia.

00:12:46: Sally's mother was born In Virginia.

00:12:48: I believe Sally's grandmother had been a captive but you know in a lot of the North American plantations although people were still buying in extra enslaved People.

00:13:00: The core slave population Had already formed there where people who were enslaved whose parents had been enslaved on the same plantation, perhaps even their grandparents.

00:13:12: Whereas there's an endless influx of newly arrived Africans coming into Jamaica.

00:13:19: Natalie I want to remind this story a little bit further because i think we should remind our audience that Jamaica was not uninhabited when the British came and then brought in enslaved Africans.

00:13:32: so can you talk And how they fit into the story.

00:13:38: We don't know a lot about them and it seems that majority fled either under Spanish occupation or after British takeover of the sixteen fifties.

00:13:50: there were indigenous people kind living on edges plantation society particularly in mountainous forested areas, in center island certainly much mythologized.

00:14:04: If you talk to contemporary maroons in Jamaica who are descended from enslaved people, who ran away in the eighteenth century many of them will claim indigenous ancestry.

00:14:16: There is a narrative that enslaved Africans runaway and they went into forests or mountains And there they intermarried with Indigenous peoples.

00:14:28: I'm sure it's true but there was not a significant indigenous settlement remaining by the eighteenth century.

00:14:37: Okay, and in that explanation which is really interesting you mentioned the maroons.

00:14:42: so why don't we just unpacked that phrase?

00:14:44: because it's also an important phrase?

00:14:47: So Maroon comes from Spanish word Cimarón Which actually refers to wild horse.

00:14:54: Maroons as used in context of slavery are people who ran away from plantations and remained uncaptured.

00:15:05: And, you know in some cases... I mean we have a narrative that enslaved people.

00:15:12: if they ran away They went somewhere away from slavery.

00:15:15: That If You Were Enslaved In South Carolina You Wanted To Go To Philadelphia Or After The Expansion Of The Fugitive Slave Law In the US In Eighteen Fifty You Had to Run To Canada.

00:15:28: But in many cases, people did not want to go that far away because they still have the caret about who were enslaved and might not be able take them with especially if they are elderly or small children.

00:15:42: So many people stayed, in some cases not that far from where they had been enslaved.

00:15:48: But they found habitats where it was very difficult even for trained British soldiers to dislodge them.

00:15:56: so these were basically armed camps.

00:15:58: but there are also places where families formed and where people carried out agriculture.

00:16:05: They were a source of fascination and horror To white observers.

00:16:11: And in Jamaica, obviously you know slavery ended almost two hundred years ago but there are still so-called maroon communities.

00:16:19: There are four major maroon towns and various parts of Jamaica up in the hills.

00:16:24: I have visited one of them Charles Town Maroons and they consider themselves You Know The true African Jamaicans because They did not remain in slavery for very long have, you know interracial sexual relationships for your coerced.

00:16:43: So not only in genetic terms are they more African than the average Afro-Jamaican but also they've preserved aspects of Akan which is now Ghanaian culture that brought with them from Africa and so did not become Christians.

00:17:00: They did not take on the lifestyle that was mandated by slaveholders.

00:17:04: But at the same time, they also regard themselves as indigenous Jamaicans partly because of this somewhat mythologized connection with the largely vanished Indigenous population but also about the idea That you know...they were people who lived outside white society or free black society after the end of slavery.

00:17:27: Okay and so the maroons history is really important for Jamaica.

00:17:33: To what extent are, say planters in the Carolinas or Virginia thinking about maroons and what they would consider to be a threat of that type of culture erupting in colonies at the time?

00:17:49: Not so much in the colonies it's seen but certainly by the early nineteenth century.

00:17:55: we hear a lot maroon communities in the so-called great dismal swamp on the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia.

00:18:05: And these are mysterious because people who live there didn't want to tell people where they lived, where even just, you know moving around was quite challenging and they were very difficult to map.

00:18:24: It was even more difficult to track people into a swamp that extended for dozens of miles.

00:18:31: There are also maroons in the swamps on the edges New Orleans.

00:18:36: So basically Maroon communities exist Where The land is very unnavigable Where it will probably be more difficult To reclaim these people.

00:18:48: you know, it simply becomes not worth the effort.

00:18:51: It's going to be very challenging to retrieve them.

00:18:55: they are rumored to be armed and what is the point really of risking your life or paying people a lot of money?

00:19:03: To reclaim an individual enslaved person if you think that they've gone into a swamp for a forest or up a mountain?

00:19:10: so The Maroons are an important part of Tacky's rebellion, because you said they were living independently on the margins up in the forests and hills in Jamaica.

00:19:20: But there had some sort of like political detente with Britain right?

00:19:27: And how did that come about?

00:19:30: There were several so-called maroon wars in the course of the eighteenth century and eventually white Jamaicans decided to negotiate with the Maroons.

00:19:39: To wipe them out would have been Very difficult.

00:19:42: They might whites may not have been able to do so.

00:19:46: So they decided that they would guarantee the maroons their freedom, they would basically liberate the maroon's and Their offspring in perpetuity.

00:19:56: but The condition was that the Maroons had to act as slave catchers.

00:20:01: at the very least.

00:20:03: if a runaway made it To a maroon encampment the maroons there were supposed to return that person to their own or the authorities.

00:20:11: And in some cases, white Jamaicans actually called The Maroons out and you know, and sent them You Know To go retrieve runaways.

00:20:20: So the maroons on one hand are inspiring two enslaved Jamaicans.

00:20:24: They got they managed get free and they're going to keep Their freedom and they Are running their own lives.

00:20:30: so not living as Free people In Kingston But constantly under the surveillance of White People even if And of course, there were free people of color in Jamaica.

00:20:41: But even though they were not enslaved and some of them did actually do fairly well economically, you know?

00:20:48: They were always limited to what could be done by the fact that it was a small minority of free people or color in white-dominated society whereas maroons don't have to live this way.

00:20:58: The maroons run the maroon communities so their admirable but at same time theres the despairing sense by white authority.

00:21:10: And to what extent they comply is not always easy to tell?

00:21:14: I don't know that every maroon, if they came across a runaway would turn that person in but certainly they were expected to do so.

00:21:23: and if they simply refused then White Jamaica would have taken up its war against

00:21:28: them.".

00:21:29: That's interesting.

00:21:30: i was thinking also of the calculations pursuing an enslaved person into, say these hills and forests.

00:21:43: Balanced again since this might not be you know the maroon communities need to maintain a certain small size.

00:21:50: they can't let thousands of people in because there are not enough places where we could support big cities presumably.

00:21:58: This is a subsistence agriculture.

00:22:00: even today the community's quite small.

00:22:02: So they're, you know making probably individual decisions if an enslaved person gets up to the mountains.

00:22:08: They're trying to think like what benefit do we have of having another person versus?

00:22:13: What benefits can we get for capturing and sending them back?

00:22:17: And that kind explains in that opening vignette I gave That question why would these Africans fighting Taki and Takis supporters and Takis revolt.

00:22:29: Why are they fighting on the side of slavers?

00:22:32: So I can kind of understand why maroons would be passively, you know kinda passive about this.

00:22:37: we want to stay with ourselves And occasionally We might send someone back but why wouldn't they actively come down in quash a slave rebellion like Takis?

00:22:48: Well Takis Rebellion if your already a Maroon is very destabilizing for You.

00:22:53: what you want If you were a maroon it's to Be left alone With Your Community.

00:22:57: And what's going on, on plantations or elsewhere in the island.

00:23:02: You know ideally you want peace whether it is between The British Empire and other empires Or peace between the enslaved and the enslavers.

00:23:12: Your situation already pretty tenuous.

00:23:15: So having a lot of people, armed People running away from slavery Running into hills near where are It's going to disrupt your physical environment, it's gonna put strains on you ability to feed your community.

00:23:31: And I think that we tend assume all African or African descended people always sided with one another against white people.

00:23:44: but isn't necessarily so.

00:23:46: if were a person within slave society who managed take and be granted freedom Your first priority was making sure that you stayed free and the any descendants.

00:23:58: You had were going to stay free.

00:24:02: So, you might not necessarily feel that someone else who was of African heritage Was your ally?

00:24:10: And someone that you should defend against white dominance and remember.

00:24:15: they enslaved Who ran away and became maroons increasingly see themselves as different from other enslaved people in Jamaica, even though they may have the same racial heritage.

00:24:30: You know?

00:24:30: They're developing their own societies...they feel that they fought for freedom and don't want to do anything that is going to jeopardize it.

00:24:40: Fascinating!

00:24:41: One thing I've been thinking about as you have been talking earlier, You mentioned what life might be like for a free black person.

00:24:49: Now not in maroon community Not an enslaved person but someone say A Free Black In Kingston Jamaica.

00:24:58: What Might That Life Be Like?

00:25:01: It varied alot.

00:25:03: Most free people of color were not very well off financially But there was already who were.

00:25:08: Christine Walker has a great book called Jamaica Ladies, which looks at free women of color particularly in Kingston.

00:25:17: And I mean many of these women had had sexual relationships with white men often their owners.

00:25:24: some of them have gained there freedom or been able to purchase it Or they were the daughters such woman and some of were fairly successful business women.

00:25:34: They might be dressmakers or hospitality providers, and in some cases they themselves owned enslaved people.

00:25:43: so again the idea that all formerly enslaved are all people of African descent in Jamaica see each other as brethren and sister is not that accurate.

00:25:53: you could a free person who was also slave holder because owning enslaved is the route to, if not wealth.

00:26:03: I mean you don't see a free person of color who has a major plantation owner but you do see a lot of people who live and work in towns and have small number domestic enslaved working with them.

00:26:18: Fascinating!

00:26:19: And for men they often own small businesses or they might be fishermen.

00:26:26: there were lots of free sailors So there were occupational niches because again, the white population is very small and particularly of working class whites.

00:26:38: There just aren't that many of them.

00:26:40: And working-class whites are often seen as real scum on earth by more elite whites so they might actually have more trust in a free business person of color than they do with low income white persons.

00:26:56: Interesting.

00:26:57: Let's take the story back to Tacky's Rebellion and now, uh... seventeen sixty please.

00:27:05: Now, we all talk about Takis rebellion.

00:27:07: This is the one that's named but there were lots of rebellions going on before and after Takis Rebellion enslave people banding together because they knew up the overwhelming numerical advantage They had to rebel.

00:27:21: so can you just put sort of takis rebellion in the context?

00:27:24: Of other slave Uprising's in Jamaica?

00:27:28: and why we focus on tacky so much?

00:27:30: Well, Takis was just much bigger and more importantly it lasted so much longer.

00:27:35: There were probably countless minor rebellions on individual plantations that were quickly put down as soon as the plantation owner could get word out in a neighborhood and local white men would show up with guns.

00:27:50: you know?

00:27:50: It is rare that enslaved people had guns of their own so they could be put down fairly quickly at the threat to their own lives, and also Jamaica has quite spread out plantations.

00:28:07: So it might not be impossible for a large number of enslaved people take over as single estate but actually then spread and be harder to put down was unlikely.

00:28:20: But we remember Tacky's revolt because it wasn't actually put down for almost eighteen months, you know?

00:28:27: It started at its spread across much of the island.

00:28:32: then more enslaved people heard about The Rebellion ,the more they joined in realizing that this isn't going to a suicidal attempt That would quickly be put down.

00:28:40: but This might be moment that Afro-Jamaicans Actually liberate themselves and ideally end slavery for everybody.

00:28:50: And they do make very strategic use of the topographical features of Jamaica, so you see that it's all over the place at increasingly tacky and his adherents are going into places where It is difficult to dislodge them making raids on plantations To get supplies They're getting weaponry.

00:29:10: You know, even the psychological effect of this on white people is extreme.

00:29:17: Because as would happen a generation later in San Domingue most slave holders wanted to believe that they were humane and that enslaved might not love being enslaved but their loved ones, they had their leisure activities.

00:29:36: And as planters kept telling themselves and anyone who would listen... Their lives really were not that much worse in terms of simply labor than the average white farm laborer back in Britain.

00:29:49: So they wanted to believe there are no unhappinesses.

00:29:51: but if it was unhappy then they don't have the brain power or organization quickly put down rebellion on an individual plantation.

00:30:02: They don't know how to communicate, they don't have a strategize...they're not like soldiers.

00:30:06: so if they rebel you just want to have enough men on the plantation with guns and you can deal with it

00:30:11: yourself.".

00:30:13: But Tacky's Rebellion says no that isn't true!

00:30:17: You are getting people in and Vincent Browne book Tackies War makes this point very eloquently.

00:30:25: who were being brought in as adult men from Africa, who had been free up to that point.

00:30:30: We're a man who had a lot of military experience.

00:30:34: so they did actually know how to carry out what we would call guerrilla warfare.

00:30:39: They didn't know how strategize and use geography for their benefit.

00:30:47: So they had, at least as sophisticated knowledge probably more so than white Jamaicans did about how to keep an insurgency going.

00:30:57: In some ways I guess we can say that it's not unusual compared to say peasant resistance in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

00:31:07: You know, people weren't going to face a heavily armed trained opponent on the battlefield.

00:31:12: But they knew a lot about various kinds of insurgency that made it very difficult for the enemy no matter how well-trained... ...to

00:31:21: advance.".

00:31:23: The first thing Taki did after securing the First Plantation was get weapons from a fort and you know that clearly indicates a long-term approach to strategizing and organizing people.

00:31:38: Why do you think at the end of day, Tacky's revolt failed?

00:31:42: Was it through superior weaponry or numbers of white forces allied with the Maroons as well because they actually helped out?

00:31:54: what was final?

00:31:55: undoing this rebellion?

00:31:57: Certainly the maroons were helpful but I don't.

00:31:59: I mean, you can wear down an insurgency if you get people farther and further away from lines of supply.

00:32:08: You know they did have weaponry but their weaponry got lost or damaged.

00:32:13: They didn't have a way to easily replenish it.

00:32:16: People were going hungry And...you know..they were scattered.

00:32:19: so It was easy for them put one group on the other But....it does take getting British regular troops in.

00:32:28: This is not something that White Jamaicans or white Jamaicans with the assistance of some of them runes can put down themselves.

00:32:36: So, you know eventually it is still very one-sided.

00:32:40: tacky's followers simply don't have The resources on hand whether its more weaponry Or being able to keep themselves fed.

00:32:50: and of course It's not just adult men who are following tacky.

00:32:55: women are running away.

00:32:56: they're older people there our children.

00:32:58: so there's a non-combatant population that has to be kept safe and fed.

00:33:03: So you know eventually, people are being pushed farther and further away from places where they can resupply And they just eventually get worn down by superior force.

00:33:13: but the fact it does take eighteen months To fully subdue this rebellion You know, the white Jamaicans have to call in.

00:33:24: The British army does show that this was something quite serious and is really at the beginning of absenteeism among wealthy or White Jamaicans because they just say This place too dangerous

00:33:38: And no one's supplying tacky.

00:33:41: So when American colonists rebel They have clandestine weapons shipments from France for example.

00:33:48: Tacky is never able to find an ally outside, To help.

00:33:54: Is that correct?

00:33:55: He's pretty much totally locked into internal things happening in Jamaica.

00:34:01: Well who would help a bunch of rebel slaves?

00:34:04: Not anyone wants to undermine the British Empire

00:34:06: I suppose but even

00:34:08: a

00:34:10: lot of other whites Who might want to dislodge british planters.

00:34:17: People are scared of enslaved men with guns, and they think well we could get them to kick the British out but how were we going then subdue them?

00:34:25: You know just the idea of you know enslaved man in arms is quite terrifying.

00:34:30: So I think even other nations would think twice about wanting to give guns to rebel.

00:34:40: runaway enslaved people

00:34:42: Fascinating.

00:34:43: Let's turn our focus now back to the Thirteen Colonies, how was Tacky's Rebellion reported in The Thirteen Colonies and How Did American Colonists React?

00:34:54: What Was Going

00:34:54: On?

00:34:55: Well they read about it in newspapers.

00:34:58: a lot of people in North America had connections to Jamaica whether through family or through commerce.

00:35:05: So, you know they were horrified because there had been some minor rebellions most recently in seventeen thirty-nine and South Carolina the so called Stono Rebellion.

00:35:18: but that lasted two or three days.

00:35:21: And it was a small number of people.

00:35:25: what actually wanted to do is trying go south get into Spanish colony at Florida which whose administrators had let it be known that if enslaved people ran away from the British and came into Spanish Florida, they would be liberated.

00:35:44: So this isn't really about trying to overthrow slavery, It's about trying liberate themselves.

00:35:51: And again there have been small scale rebellions going back in the seventeenth century.

00:35:57: But This is first one where If you are a white planter You think wow They might win Or they might at least make things so difficult for white Jamaicans that, They are able to get some concessions from them.

00:36:12: You know this isn't just a few people From one plantation or One African ethnic community.

00:36:19: This is People all over the island.

00:36:22: and again you Know The belief either their not really unhappy.

00:36:26: Well maybe they aren t very happy but as people of African heritage, they don't have the intellectual capacity to plan and really think as soldiers would think.

00:36:38: You know?

00:36:39: They learn quickly... No that isn't true!

00:36:42: If you have the right people under the right circumstances they can be a very formidable foe.

00:36:48: Interesting.

00:36:49: As we now move forward towards getting closer to the Declaration of Independence, you started by talking about standing armies and I'm now beginning to see how important it is that for example in Jamaica a standing British army of regulars would be obviously welcomed but

00:37:13: enslaved rebels within an island, they've been engaged for the past hundred years with inter-imperial warfare.

00:37:21: So there's a fear of being raided by French sometimes by Dutch.

00:37:25: so you want good British naval presence you know, to patrol the seas and especially for places that are totally dependent not just for prosperity but first survival on freedom of the seas.

00:37:39: You definitely want to have a lot of British Navy ships around.

00:37:43: they're going to make your life easier.

00:37:45: so British soldiers and British sailors generally welcome presences in the island colonies But generally not welcome.

00:37:57: So, but as we're getting now closer to the Declaration of Independence individual colonies and individual North American colonists are slowly starting to sort themselves out into loyalists.

00:38:10: Into patriots a big middle ground.

00:38:15: The same policies by King George and Parliament that annoy at north american colonists Are also frustrating say Jamaican planters.

00:38:29: But as we're getting closer to the outbreak of war with The Battle of Lexington and Concord, moving further on it seems clear that a colony like Jamaica will not be joining the thirteen colonies.

00:38:46: And I just was wondering if you could help me understand how these British colonies start to diverge more and more, in how the thirteenth North American colonies see themselves as being separate.

00:38:58: They would have taken Jamaica if Jamaica joined but Jamaica certainly wasn't going to join The Rebellion.

00:39:05: Well you know Tacky's revolt really points up too white Jamaicans just how vulnerable they are If they don't have British protection.

00:39:14: They're just a small number of white people surrounded by very large black people who hate them.

00:39:22: So if enslaved people know the British army is not coming to rescue the planters, what are they going do?

00:39:33: And also economically Jamaica doesn't feed itself.

00:39:39: you know, most of its land that can be used for crops is being used for sugar or other cash crops.

00:39:46: There really isn't an agricultural sector.

00:39:49: and if Jamaica can't sell it's sugar on the British market what is going to do?

00:39:54: So there are some voices a rebellion And actually The West Indian legislators are known for being very rebellious in terms of.

00:40:04: they have a very strong sense of their value of the Empire.

00:40:08: you know, there are lots of angry words that go back and forth.

00:40:12: And imperial administrators in Britain saying oh I hate those people on the West Indian legislatures.

00:40:18: they're so arrogant!

00:40:19: They don't want to play by their rules.

00:40:21: but at some point —and I think Taki's Rebellion really shows it—the Jamaicans say okay we cannot do this alone.

00:40:28: We need to be part of The British Empire you know, the British Army and Navy to help us out.

00:40:36: Without being British we don't have anything.

00:40:40: so there are some voices of complaint... There is some sympathy for some of the complaints in North American colonies.. For example Stamp Act riots on the island of Antigua.

00:40:52: but it's pretty clear that this is not feasible.

00:40:56: for these islands to join the revolution you know, during and then after the revolution becomes a great breaking point between the two.

00:41:07: I always remind people that at the only time George Washington left North America he went to Barbados because he had cousins there.

00:41:17: for many people.

00:41:18: if you lived in South Carolina You were more likely to know people from the Caribbean than you are people who live in Massachusetts And we see this sea as barrier but it really was a highway.

00:41:29: But even though people have personal and commercial ties to the West Indies in North America, you know once war breaks out especially after the end of the War we are The Independent United States.

00:41:41: And they and the Caribbean our British?

00:41:46: Then Of course You Know Even Though The United States Doesn't Abolish Slavery Until A Generation After The British Empire Abolishes Slavery In The Caribbean There Starts To Be a Lot of Mythology Just as Back in the seventeenth century, there was a black legend that said colonization is good when English people do it but bad.

00:42:05: When Spanish people do?

00:42:06: But its not colonialism thats bad.

00:42:08: Its if the spanish are supposedly cruel and the english are good And the spanish are catholic and therefore you know acting for a bad faith whereas the english protested doing things in godly way even though The United States is not anti-slavery in any significant way, even until the middle of the nineteenth century.

00:42:28: There's a sense that plantation owners in South Carolina are basically good people humane Christianizing the slaves whereas slaveholders and the Caribbean are evil rapist rapacious using up slaves letting them die buying more of them which Is Not Completely Untrue.

00:42:48: I don't mean to imply slaveholders in the United States were kind and humane, but largely because of differences in climate.

00:42:56: And this sort of labor that's done.

00:42:58: slaves on Caribbean islands do die a lot faster and they are not a self-reproducing population Whereas as I said, you know even by the outbreak of The Revolution You do have Plantations especially in places like Virginia and Maryland where there've been several generations Of enslaved descendants.

00:43:17: And the slave population is pretty self-sustaining In terms of enslaved women having children.

00:43:23: that Children surviving to adulthood

00:43:26: Maybe has a penultimate question since we've now been talking A lot about differences North American colonists characterized their own form of the institution of slavery versus how Caribbean planters did.

00:43:41: I'm always struck by the passage, the famous passage in The Declaration Of Independence criticizing the slave trade which was left out of final draft.

00:43:52: and there it seems that Jefferson is making a distinction between trading trafficking slaves from Africa owning slavery itself.

00:44:02: And even though I've done a lot of these episodes, i'm still not quite sure I understand why that distinction is important.

00:44:09: so maybe you can end by just explaining more.

00:44:13: finally what Jefferson would think oh it's the trading of slaves.

00:44:17: thats bad.

00:44:18: its okay if have three generations born here in Monticello.

00:44:23: Well when Jefferson looked out at his estate he would feel These people, they live here.

00:44:32: They live as families.

00:44:34: some times you've got several generations of one family on the plantation.

00:44:38: yes they have to work hard but Jefferson did provide a decent material standard of living for enslaved people in terms of food, clothing housing and medical care.

00:44:49: And after all someone like Sally Hemmings he would probably have said Sally Hemming's had never known freedom.

00:44:55: her parents had Never known Freedom.

00:44:58: they lived In Virginia They lived in Monticello Whereas if you were seizing People from Africa?

00:45:06: Taking them away From their homes and Their families that was cruel.

00:45:11: And then, you know the conditions on the slave ships were notorious that at least twenty to thirty percent of captives would die on this ship.

00:45:21: That even people who are enthusiastic about The Prophets Of The Slave Trade didn't feel great about the conditions.

00:45:29: There was something seemed really squalid and horrible about it.

00:45:34: Just the idea of sending people out, seizing people who were going about their daily business taking them away getting to the coast putting on this ship where they might die.

00:45:44: I mean, you can sentimentalize plantation slavery from a white perspective.

00:45:48: You could say oh look yes they work hard but have some good food and neat little cabins or playing music together partnering in having kids.

00:45:59: see it all looks pretty nice?

00:46:00: You cannot sentimentalize any aspect of the slave trade even if that's what your money is based on.

00:46:08: Even within Britain Slave traders were seen as sort.

00:46:13: Nobody likes slave traders.

00:46:15: Plantation owners can say, well I'm sort of like a feudal noble with my retainers except they happen to be African and i own them.

00:46:23: but you know you could use these sentimental pictures what seems like class rather than race bound society.

00:46:31: And if you visited Monticello, you wouldn't see people living in utter misery and horror.

00:46:39: Hanging in cages starving to death for punishment?

00:46:42: You could say oh look it's Sunday so they have the day off!

00:46:46: They're going fishing...they are dancing..they play music their parents are playing with their children....it all looks perfectly okay, whereas you cannot sentimentalize any aspect of people crammed in literally like sardines lying on their own filth dying and agony.

00:47:05: You know the girls and women are probably occasionally boys men being used by the sailors for sex and then these people being the ones who survive, you know?

00:47:15: Being put up for sale.

00:47:17: And taken away even from their shipmates.

00:47:19: You know there's no way to say oh this isn't really so bad.

00:47:24: So when we start getting in the beginnings of abolitionism In Britain Really just a decade or so after publication The Declaration Of Independence The focus is not on getting rid of slavery.

00:47:37: The focus Is On Ending The Slave Trade.

00:47:40: And many of the people involved said, well we'll do this slave trade first as at least no more will be brought into slavery and then we can work on liberating those who are already enslaved.

00:47:49: But other people really were convinced that maybe being a slave if you had never known anything else was not so terrible but also cut down supply of new captives to keep slaves healthy.

00:48:06: And some of them believe that you could have moral slaveholding, where you treated people decently and they lived relatively physically healthy lives.

00:48:20: And certainly Jefferson who we know from his later writings was often haunted by the thought that maybe slave holding is just not morally all right?

00:48:31: Maybe I am a good person if I own these people But you know one way he tried to solve his conscience was by saying well, I don't know what they would do if I freed them but also You know here.

00:48:43: I Do give them good food?

00:48:44: They do have medical care.

00:48:45: They do live in you know adequate conditions.

00:48:48: So maybe that's enough

00:48:50: and indeed He did separate himself from that respect.

00:48:53: there is some logic behind this, since we have multiple generations of slaves.

00:49:00: We have a self reproducing enslaved in population that does separate me from a planter and Jamaica That literally burns through slaves enslaved people and keep then acquiring new horrors to be visited upon new enslaved people captured in Africa, and traded into slavery on the Sugar Islands.

00:49:26: Okay, well on that not particularly happy note.

00:49:29: We've reached the end of our episode today.

00:49:32: I ask all my guests before we conclude just to give me a final takeaway.

00:49:37: as you're looking back at the anniversary Of The Declaration of Independence what is the main thing?

00:49:43: You think we should all remember

00:49:46: Just how revolutionary What Jefferson was proposing Was.

00:49:51: At The Time In all of the European empires, there had been a power struggle between metropole and colony.

00:49:59: But to actually say we don't just want to renegotiate our status within the empire We're not just annoyed about taxation or military quartering... ...we really wanna do it our way And were'nt going get out own king You know?

00:50:15: Were are gonna try an experiment that seems doomed fail Because we dont have any model that succeeded to work from, but we're going give this a try.

00:51:28: the transatlantic relationship.

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00:51:52: Thanks for listening.