Review Work: Gelien Matthews, Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), pp. 197, $24.95.
For the last several decades, historians have explored slave resistance from a multitude of perspectives. Walter Johnson (Soul by Soul) and Eugene Genovese (Roll, Jordan, Roll) examine the relationship between “slave agency” and “resistance” (passive versus active). Seymour Drescher (Abolition) and Robin Blackburn (American Crucible) focus on how the Haitian Revolution influenced the advancement of anti-slavery. Hilary Beckles (Afro-Caribbean Women) and Michael Craton (Testing the Chains) explore how slaves used resistance (passive & active) to negotiate their place in colonial society. These various works and many others have pointed towards the importance of slave resistance and rebellion in the larger narrative about the rise and fall of New World slavery.
Gelien Matthews joins this overcrowded subfield with her thought-provoking work Caribbean Slave Revolts. She offers a new perspective, if possible, to consider when examining the relationship between slave insurrection and the British Anti-Slavery Movement. Matthews is writing against the traditional view that slave insurrection retarded the growth and progress of abolitionism. The older view suggests that massive slave rebellions (Nat Turner, Haiti, Barbados) hurt the abolitionist cause and gave weight to pro-slavery arguments (social stability and control over the “unruly and dangerous” slaves). Writing against this assessment, Matthews illustrates how slave rebellions in Barbados (1816), Demerara (1823), and Jamaica (1831-1832) created an environment from which British abolitionists drew their thoughts for immediate emancipation. In her own words, “slaves in rebellion [during the abolition period] contributed to the metropolitan attack on colonial slavery” (11).
The general gist of her narrative goes as follows: At the opening of the nineteenth century, abolitionists were conservative and defensive about slave rebellions, often trying to disassociate themselves from these events (Wilberforce). By the Baptist War (1831, Jamaica), however, Matthews shows that abolitionists were no longer attempting to avoid blame, but instead used these rebellions to their advantage. Rebel slaves were agents of change, which allowed abolitionists to make demands for immediate eradication of slavery throughout the Empire. They believed that slaves were fighting for freedom and liberty. They also used the threat of another Haitian Revolution to further their claims for emancipation, which would quell the tensions between African slaves and planters (which they argued would lead to race war). In short, slaves’ decision to rebel “unlocked an offensive and defensive pro- slavery and anti-slavery debates that centered on slave revolt, (28)” which in turn led abolitionist to become more radical and aggressive.
This “unlocking” raises an interesting question about how abolitionists were limited by their environment (the Marxian idea of “agency”). Matthews asserts that slave rebellions “succeeded in shifting the abolitionists’ conservative policy progressively to the left” (10). Does this mean that these reformers would not have been “immediatists” (stealing language from the American anti-slavery historiography) without slave rebellions? Or did these three insurrections provide the room for anti-slavery activists to make bolder demands on the Parliament and British public for emancipation?
This switch from gradualist to immediatist was not immediate, but happened slowly over time. Starting with Thomas Fowell Buxton’s speech to the House of Commons on slavery in 1823—where he vacillated between accepting the necessity of slave rebellion for the larger humanitarian cause and outright disapproval of such actions—and ended with the Anti-Slavery Society’s call for immediate emancipation following the Baptist War in Jamaica. This change is interesting when looking at the larger transnational context. During the same period, abolitionists in the United States made a similar movement, going from the gradualism of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society to the immediatism of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (see Rich Newman The Transformation of American Abolitionism). For the most part, Matthews stays within the national boundaries of the British Empire, but provides a wonderful opportunity for comparison. Would Matthews’ argument hold up in the American context? Did Nat Turner and Daniel Walker have the same impact on anti-slavery as the Demerarean and Jamaican rebellions?
At first glance, it would appear to be yes. American abolitionists and free blacks moved from moral suasion arguments to outright calls for black rights and freedom. Think about the difference in approaches between Richard Allen (Mother Bethel) and William Parker (Christiania Riot). British and American abolitionists both called for immediate abolition during the same period, in the midst of violent rebellions (Jamaica and Nat Turner/Walker). However, one institution of slavery ended shortly after and the other existed for another thirty years? Why the difference? This might be a fruitful question to explore.
Gelien Matthews, Caribbean Slave Revolts is a social history of slave resistance. She uses the agency of a marginalized group of people (slaves) to show how they influenced larger societal changes (the ending of slavery). The value of Matthews’ work is even more pronounced when considering how other historians have written about these revolts. Emilia Viotti da Costa, for example, provides the most comprehensive examination of the Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823. Viotti da Costa, however, ends her study in 1824. Leaving the reader curious about the how the Demerara Rebellion was linked to the actual abolition of slavery. Matthews provides an answer to this question and many others, filling in an important the historiographical gaps.
Slave rebellions database for the United States. This LINK provides an interesting overview of the various types of rebellions and how we can possibly categorize them. This might be useful to consider when reading Matthews’ work.