Women and Slavery in the Caribbean

Abstract

Much has been written on the subject of New World slavery, and indeed it may seem that the time has come for all such considerations to cease. For the people of the Caribbean, however, slavery is a crucial aspect of their historical experience, and its existence and legacy are not confined to the distant past. In Cuba, for example, slavery still existed less than a hundred years ago. The study of history is important not for its own sake, but in order to acquire an understanding of the workings of society that we can apply to our present experience. In the women's movement throughout the world, women have had to reexamine and reinterpret history and often rewrite it in order to make women visible. In this article I shall attempt to reinterpret the history of slavery in the Caribbean from a woman's perspective. I hope by so doing to expose some of the ideology that conceals material oppression.' 1 Caribbean slavery has been attributed varying positions in Marxist mode-of-production analysis. To some (Padgug, 1976(Padgug, -1977Genovese, 1967) it was a particular form of production within the worldwide capitalist system. To others (e.g., Post, 1978), however, it was a distinct mode of production, though it was incorporated into the sphere of exchange of the capitalist one. This view is justified by the fact that most, if not all, surplus value was derived from slave labor. According to Post (1978: 22-23), &dquo;It was based upon a particular combination of capital, land and labour-power, and as Marx showed, the mere presence of capital, even in conjunction with 'free' labour, let alone chattel slaves, does not make a social formation capitalist.&dquo; I take the position that New World slavery in general, and Caribbean slavery in particular, can be seen as the capitalist harnessing of an *Rhoda E. Reddock (Trinidad and Tobago) is currently on the staff of the postgraduate program of Women and Development at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at The Hague. She is working at present on a social and labor history of women in Trinidad and Tobago entitled Women, Labour and Struggle in Twentieth-Century Trinidad and Tobago.

South Asian Plantation Histories and their Enduring Legacies: Indian and Atlantic Ocean Connections

“…Reproduction of the labour force was always a challenge on these coercive plantation sites. The trade-off between high levels of production now and the reproduction of a low-cost future labour force would be managed in relation to the possibilities for reproduction in other locations and transportation/migration to the plantation areas (Reddock, 1985a). Abortion was a solution often consciously chosen by many women workers (pp.…”

We Need These Bodies, but Not Their Knowledge: Black Women in the Archival Science Professions and Their Connection to the Archives of Enslaved Black Women in the French Antilles

“…Black feminist theorist Patricia Hill Collins (2000) explains that black women have had their voices suppressed to preserve social hierarchies: "Maintaining the invisibility of black women and our ideas not only in the United States, but in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, and other places where black women now live, has been critical in maintaining social inequalities" (p. 3). Because of this suppression of black women's voices-in archives specifically-historians, archivists, and writers have had to use a combination of quantitative data, oral histories, and slave narratives to construct narratives about enslaved black women (Bush-Slimani, 1993;Eltis, Lewis, & Richardson, 2005;Engerman, 1976;Gaspar & Hine, 1996;Moitt, 2001;Reddock, 1985;Stein, 1978;Tadman, 2000). Also, the silencing of black women has allowed those who control archives-archivists included-to shape and control their identities.…”

Questions of Presence

“…If she is not a gendered subject, hers is in some sites of plantation economy a reproductive body as in the USA where reproduction of the enslaved population was through the use of black women as 'breeders'. In the Caribbean, reproduction of the enslaved population was achieved through the importation of more human cargo (Reddock, 1985). In either case, hers was an animalistic body which was marked as such-a marking that traversed the landscape of colonial rule.…”