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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Through A Glass, Darkly: Jamaica, Speculative Narrative, and The Archives Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4x9781rv Author Newby, Jessica Alaina Publication Date 2021 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Through A Glass, Darkly: Jamaica, Speculative Narrative, and The Archives A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in African American Studies by Jessica A. Newby 2021 © Copyright by Jessica A. Newby 2021 ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Through A Glass, Darkly: Jamaica, Speculative Narrative and the Archives by Jessica A. Newby Master of Arts in African American Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2021 Professor Peter James Hudson, Chair The sexual violence and terrorism inflicted upon enslaved Black women by white men was integral in shaping the character of Caribbean Atlantic slavery, as was the resistance to that violence. The ramifications of these encounters set and shaped social parameters of intimacy, sexuality and power not only for the enslaved, but for the enslavers as well. This thesis seeks to explore the nuances of these encounters. It will perform a close reading of several passages from the diary of English overseer Thomas Thistlewood, who lived in the British colony of Jamaica during the eighteenth century. The close reading will specifically focus upon passages of the diary that reference two enslaved Black women: a woman named Phibbah, and a woman named ii Coobah. Rather than allowing the diaries of Thistlewood to narrate this ritual, this thesis argues for the creation of speculative narrations, performed through the perspective of both women. Speculative narratives of Phibbah and Coobah hold the possibility to counter the narrative of Thomas Thistlewood and the narrative of the colonial archive by moving them out of peripheral, dehumanized obscurity and into a place of human existence and recognition. iii The thesis of Jessica A. Newby is approved. Walter R. Allen Caroline Anne Streeter Peter James Hudson, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2021 iv Table of Contents PREFACE ....................................................................................................................................... 1 PART I (THE ROOTS): WOMEN, SLAVERY & RESISTANCE WITHIN CARIBBEAN HISTORIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 8 The “Essential and Unanswerable Problem” of Jamaican Creole Society ................................... 11 Writing Gender into History ......................................................................................................... 33 The Jamaican “Woman Policy” .................................................................................................... 42 PART II (THE DOTS): HISTORY, THE HAPPENING ............................................................. 85 History as Power ........................................................................................................................... 88 History as Awareness .................................................................................................................. 112 History as Imagination ................................................................................................................ 142 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 177 v For Courtney. vi PREFACE “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”1 In the aftermath of enslavement, freedom poses many questions; history testifies that emancipation is not the sole answer. Rather than an endpoint, emancipation is but a mere marker on an unstable, treacherous and non-linear road. It is neither a tool of determination, nor of rescue. In spite of (and arguably, because of) the many incremental overtures in the project of emancipation throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, and throughout the diaspora, freedom and all that it entails and promises--equality, dignity, opportunity and the recognition of personhood-- remains an elusive and immense struggle for people of African descent. Many of them, “conscious of the enduring legacies of slavery,” pose the apt questions of “What freedom? What emancipation?” [emphasis mine].2 Understanding the implications and ramifications of slavery becomes all the more crucial to the project of realizing freedom if and when we cease to consider them as dominations, violations and conditions that exist solely in the past and are buried with the dead, “Atlantic slavery continues to be manifested in black people's skewed life chances,” Verene Shepherd asserts, “[in] poor education and health, and high rates of incarceration, poverty, and premature death.”3 The domination, violence and suffering that can be found 1 1 Corinthians 13:12, (King James Version). 2 Verene A. Shepherd. “‘Petticoat Rebellion?’: Women in Emancipation in Colonial Jamaica”, in 'I Want to Disturb My Neighbour': Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Postcolonial Jamaica., ed. by Verene A. Shepherd (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2007), 95. 3 Vincent Brown, “Social Death and Political Life in the Study of Slavery,” The American Historical Review, 114, No. 5 (2009), 1238. 1 within historical archives of slavery continue to be replicated upon a daily basis in living historical archives and their subjects. As slavery itself continues to be manifest in the lives of its descendants, so too are many of its cruelest rituals. Yet while these rituals do include violence, social and economic disenfranchisement, and death, there is also another crucial ritual that can be found within both the archives, and in the experiences of living archival subjects. One of the greatest legacies left behind from the projects of emancipation that have taken place (and continue to take place) within the Americas and Caribbean, is the imperative of resistance. Resistance is the impetus that transforms the journey of freedom from one of static, to one of ever shifting advancement and evolution. Resistance is an articulation of human thought, feeling, and intention. Resistance is the relentless assertion of personhood in the midst of cruel and extreme dehumanization. Any understanding of the ongoing and future project of Black freedom thus necessitates an understanding of past projects of Black resistance throughout enslavement; as narratives, lessons, and legacies, they are indivisible from one another. The objectives of this thesis are multifold. In the first place, it is a contemplation of the methodological and ethical practices and authority of the colonial archive in the historical production of knowledge about enslavement, violence, resistance, and intimacy. Colonial archives of slavery are in many ways, sites of routine, excessive and yet normalized violence. There is no soft or gradual initiation to them. The Black, faceless and often nameless bodies on these sites are often defined, characterized by and exist for the purpose of violence. Yet, the narrative of enslavement is inseparable from the narrative of resistance. As such, the assent to encounter the violence of the colonial archives is not an inevitable capitulation to its totality, nor is it an exercise in replicating the original brutality upon its subjects. By performing an examination of the perverse, complex and messy human intimacies delineated in the archives, 2 this thesis will appreciate just how closely the project of slavery was and continues to be fused to the project of resistance. Enslaved Black people were neither reconciled nor resigned to their torment. As Vincent Brown emphasizes, it was to the contrary, “The violent domination of slavery generated political action; it was not antithetical to it. If one sees power as productive and the fear of social death not as incapacity but a generative force- a peril that motivated enslaved activity- a different image of slavery slides into view.”4 It was the physical, social and psychological conditions of enslavement that generated subsequent enslaved resistance of the same kind. The project of enslaved resistance is a testament to the persistence of enslaved personhood. Cynical nihilations of the significance of enslaved resistance not only erase the past and ongoing legacy of its impact, they also negate the courageous and constant assertions of Black personhood that have been made over and over again in the face of inconceivable opposition, for centuries. Enslavement conceived, nurtured and birthed resistance at every turn, through numerous ways. An archive of slavery is therefore, also an archive of resistance. How then, does the same archive whose original intent was to negate the humanity of the enslaved still yield inferences to its persistence? What is the articulation and language of personhood for the being who was not meant to exist within the archive as a person, but as property? How does the historian maintain the balance between violence and resistance as foci, while also shifting the weight of the scales of perspective from upon violence and its impact, to that of resistance to violence and its impact? These are all considerations that this thesis will explore. A second objective set forth by this thesis is to
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