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The Caribbean Strikes Back: Eric Williams Redux

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The Caribbean Strikes Back: Eric Williams Redux Selwyn H. H. Carrington. The Sugar Industry and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1775-1810. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. xxii + 362 pp. $29.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8130-2742-5. Reviewed by Matt D. Childs Published on H-LatAm (February, 2004) The Caribbean Strikes Back: Eric Williams Re‐ stroyed the power of commercial capitalism, slav‐ dux ery, and all its works. Without a grasp of these In one of the latest books in a long historio‐ economic changes the history of the period is graphical tradition, Selwyn Carrington tackles the meaningless."[1] While other scholars had been relationship between the abolition of slavery and working on economic explanations for abolition the rise of capitalism. Carrington's book should prior to Williams, none had stated the issue so contribute to a scholarly debate that will likely in‐ bluntly and with such bold confidence as the Car‐ tensify, as the bicentenary of the British abolition ibbean nationalist and future president of of the slave trade will be commemorated in 2007. Trinidad and Tobago, much to the vexation of his His study builds upon the foundational work of imperial colleagues in Britain.[2] Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery (1944), After sixty years it is difficult to underscore which argued that Caribbean sugar plantations the importance of the "Williams Thesis" for the funded British industrialization that, in turn, study of Caribbean, Latin American, British Em‐ made slavery an outdated mode of production. pire, African, African-American, and Atlantic Subsequently known as the "Williams Thesis," the World history. Carrington's book is yet another Trinidadian-born and Oxford-educated historian testament to its ongoing relevance. From a survey delivered the coup de grace to studies that ex‐ of the literature, there have been at least two edit‐ plained emancipation through hagiographies of ed books assessing Williams's work and more British abolitionists. Williams powerfully conclud‐ than three dozen scholarly articles, and in the ed: "The commercial capitalism of the eighteenth massive 950-page Methodology and Historiogra‐ century developed the wealth of Europe by means phy of the Caribbean (1999), edited by B. W. Hig‐ of slavery and monopoly. But in so doing it helped man, no other scholar receives as much attention. to create the industrial capitalism of the nine‐ [3] The most direct and enduring challenge to the teenth century, which turned round and de‐ "Williams Thesis" runs through the influential H-Net Reviews publications of Seymour Drescher, most notably Carrington's book is organized by explaining Econocide (1977), Capitalism and Antislavery the causal and sequential events that created (1987), and The Mighty Experiment (2002).[4] West Indian decline. He opens by documenting Drescher has consistently argued that the aboli‐ the economic interdependence that linked the tion of the slave trade and slavery was not the re‐ British Caribbean with the North American sult of British Caribbean economic decline with colonies as sugar, rum, and coffee left the West In‐ the rise of industrial capitalism, but what he dies in exchange for imported foodstuffs that fed terms "econocide," economic suicide as slavery re‐ the plantations. Once Britain severed the link be‐ mained extremely profitable. According to tween the colonies with the 1775 Prohibitory Act, Drescher, slavery fell under the weight of a mas‐ the plantation complex had to be reorganized as sive mobilization campaign in Britain founded on sugar producers searched for imports from near‐ individual rights and new forms of political orga‐ by Caribbean islands, Canada, and contraband nizations. Selwyn Carrington's The Sugar Industry trade sources. After the revolution, masters in Ja‐ and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1775-1810 is maica attempted to re-establish the old imperial the product of the author's ongoing published de‐ relationship, but mercantilist policies frustrated bate with Drescher.[5] Twenty years ago the edi‐ their attempts to link the independent United tors of the Boletin de estudios latinoamericanos y States once again with Caribbean slavery. The re‐ del caribe apparently spoke too soon when they mainder of the book deals with the failed strate‐ wrote the debate was closed after providing a fo‐ gies by masters and colonial officials to restore rum for Drescher and Carrington to square off.[6] the profitability of West Indian slavery from di‐ Carrington's purpose in this book is to defend versifying production, dodging debt and insolven‐ the "Williams Thesis" from past and future as‐ cy, supplying their own food sources, reducing de‐ saults by focusing his analysis on the declining pendence on the transatlantic slave trade, and profitability of British West Indian sugar planta‐ hiring out laborers during peak labor periods. In tions following the American Revolution. His the end, Carrington argues the North American analysis is built upon an impressive collection of colonies provided a crucial link in the production sources from more than thirty years of research chain that secured profitable returns on Carib‐ at the Bodleian Library, the British Library, the bean sugar investments. Once the American Revo‐ National Archives of Scotland, and most impor‐ lution severed the relationship between the two tantly the Public Records Office, among numerous regions, the chains of British Caribbean bondage others, dealing with the statistical, fnancial, and began to corrode. managerial aspects of slavery and sugar produc‐ Despite Carrington's detailed argument on de‐ tion. Carrington recognizes his analysis and argu‐ cline following the American Revolution, scholars ment follow that of Williams and the even earlier will undoubtedly continue to debate what type of work of Lowell J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter "decline" caused abolition as the epicenter of Car‐ Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833 (1928), ibbean sugar production hopped from island to is‐ but "Williams never had the opportunity to exam‐ land starting in the seventeenth century. Ultimate‐ ine the wealth of plantation papers that can help ly, this must be a question for the "New Economic us to resolve the matter" (p. 107). Consequently, History" of profits and productivity as many have the book's overall thesis and argument are not looked at the same data and drawn radically dif‐ particularly innovative, but based upon a much ferent conclusions. Carrington's focus on Jamaica larger documentary foundation than past works. to the neglect of other thriving British West Indi‐ an sugar colonies, such as Demerara, only ac‐ quired in 1803, would refine some of his conclu‐ 2 H-Net Reviews sions. Quantitative historians will be quick to On all of these topics Carrington brings new evi‐ point out that while slave imports did not return dence to the table, inviting other scholars to elab‐ to their mid-eighteenth-century levels, from 1780 orate and expand on his insights. to 1808 over 400,000 slaves arrived in the British These widespread changes in sugar produc‐ Caribbean despite interruptions in transatlantic tion at the end of the eighteenth century indicate trade caused by the French Revolution and much more than simply that "[s]lavery as a labour Napoleonic wars. Moreover, if analysis were ex‐ system undoubtedly had run its course" (p. 221). panded beyond the British Empire, more weight Other scholars could easily regard them as indica‐ would have to be accorded to sugar production in tions of an innovative, dynamic, and adaptable in‐ Saint Domingue up until 1791 and then in Cuba stitution, rather than simply signaling an in‐ for the nineteenth century to explain decline. evitable decline. In explaining Cuban abolition, Ironically, scholars may fnd Carrington's historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals also regarded book much more useful not for its stated purpose many of these similar innovations as decline, de‐ of proving the "hypothesis that the British sugar spite the fact that the plantation system survived islands declined at the end of the eighteenth cen‐ and slavery fell only after a long and protracted tury" (p. xx), but for documenting changing labor death, as emphasized in the work of Rebecca and production strategies in Caribbean slavery. Scott.[9] Part of the reason that these issues are Carrington's discussion of debt underscores the not explored more deeply is that Carrington is often-minimized precarious position of planters, tied to a dependency model of historical explana‐ as historians tend to describe them as a homoge‐ tion in which individual actions, dilemmas, and nous "elite." The so-called "amelioration" policy of crises matter little in the overall analysis. His own fostering natural increase among the slave popu‐ approach to abolition echoes Williams's belief lation reflects masters' recognition of slavery's that "[t]hese changes are gradual, imperceptible, horrific human cost that literally worked laborers but they have an irresistible cumulative effect. to death. Given that both planters and abolition‐ Men, pursuing their interests, are rarely aware of ists championed the policy of "amelioration," the ultimate results of their activity."[10] Carring‐ scholars should investigate more closely how ton's argument that decline occurred long before these avowed ideological enemies shared many the end of the slave trade leads him to an anticli‐ similarities. The interdependence between the mactic conclusion: "In reality, not much occurred Caribbean and British North America emphasizes in the colonies with the passage of the act abolish‐ the two regions need to be studied as a single unit, ing the slave trade" (p. 220). What the abolition of rather than separate colonies projected backward the slave trade meant for masters, colonial offi‐ through the modern nation-state model.[7] His cials, slaves, and abolitionists in 1807 is not ex‐ chapter on planters' diversification of crops and plored in detail by Carrington. adoption of the Otaheite and Bourbon canes indi‐ In a telling and honest statement aimed at cates the widespread use of science in the service showing the difficulty of extrapolating a causal ar‐ of sugar.
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