SURVIVING SLAVERY: POLITICS, POWER, AND AUTHORITY IN THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN, 1807-1834 Randy M. Browne A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: John Wood Sweet Vincent Brown Laurent Dubois Lisa A. Lindsay Heather Andrea Williams © 2012 Randy M. Browne ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT RANDY M. BROWNE: Surviving Slavery: Politics, Power, and Authority in the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Under the direction of John Wood Sweet) This dissertation explores a broad range of power relationships and struggles for authority in the early nineteenth century British Atlantic, focusing on the Caribbean colony of Berbice. I aim to understand how enslaved people and their enslavers negotiated their relationships and forged their lives within multiple, interconnected networks of power in a notoriously brutal society. To do so, I focus on politics and culture writ large and small, zooming in to see the internal conflicts, practices, and hierarchies that governed individual plantations, communities, and families; and zooming out to explore the various ways that imperial officials, colonial administrators, and metropolitan antislavery activists tried to shape West Indian slavery during the era of amelioration--a crucial period of transformation in the Atlantic world. To analyze these overlapping power struggles, I focus on specific social contexts in which authority was contested. In particular, I explore: obeah, the construction of spiritual authority and its dangers; the predicament of drivers, enslaved men who balanced the competing needs of enslaved laborers and plantation managers; the gendered politics of marriage and sexual control; the connections between metropolitan penal reform and efforts to regulate physical violence against slaves; and enslaved people’s struggles to assert iii ownership of different forms of property. In each case I show how the goals and priorities of different individuals and groups, enslaved and free, competed, overlapped, and intersected to shape high politics and lived realities. I use a range of sources, including travel narratives, trial records, missionary correspondence, and official government documents. Most important are the records of the Berbice fiscals and protectors of slaves, officials charged with hearing enslaved peoples’ grievances and enforcing colonial laws. Their investigations produced detailed, first-person testimony from owners, managers, overseers, drivers, and enslaved laborers themselves. These records provide an unparalleled opportunity to understand how enslaved people negotiated their day-to-day relationships with one another and with Europeans and how they struggled to survive. The voices at the heart of this project reveal a complex set of power relationships and concerns, painting a rich portrait of a world where authority was constantly contested and contingent. iv For Mafe, with gratitude and love v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many people and institutions who helped make this project possible. By far, my largest debt is to John Wood Sweet. Over the many years it has taken to complete this dissertation, John has been a constant source of encouragement and an ideal advisor. His enthusiasm for this project was contagious, and his tough questions and imagination helped make it much stronger. The many hours John and I spent talking-- and the countless drafts John read and critiqued with great care--had a major impact on my approach to this project and on its outcome. I am also very grateful for the support and encouragement of the other members of my dissertation committee. Heather Williams made me feel welcome when I arrived at UNC, helped me secure funding for my graduate studies, and challenged me to clarify and reconsider various aspects of my analysis large and small. Lisa Lindsay’s unflagging energy and good cheer were especially useful when I hit bumps in the road, as was her knack for helping me figure out what I was trying to say and why it was important. Laurent Dubois’s enthusiasm and encouragement at an early stage gave me the confidence to take on a challenging project, and his expansive vision of Caribbean history and skill in explaining it in clear and compelling language continue to inspire me. Vincent Brown played a key role in shaping the scope and focus of this project, and the impact of the provocative questions he vi has raised--in private conversations and seminars and in his own scholarship--is evident throughout this dissertation. Colleagues and friends at UNC and other universities on both sides of the Atlantic also helped in a variety of ways. In particular, I thank Trevor Burnard, Meghan Cohorst, Kathleen DuVal, Bronwen Everill, Jonathan Hancock, Jerome S. Handler, Jerma Jackson, Marjoleine Kars, Lloyd S. Kramer, Christina Mobley, Philip D. Morgan, Diana Paton, Susan G. Pennybacker, Brad Proctor, Ben Reed, Donald M. Reid, Katy Simpson Smith, Alvin O. Thompson, and Tyler Will. The support of Christopher Cameron and Laura Premack, my writing partners and close friends, was invaluable. Chris and Laura devoted an extraordinary amount of time and energy to this project, reading several drafts of each chapter, making insightful suggestions, and keeping my spirits up. I owe a large intellectual and personal debt to them both for their patience, enthusiasm, and friendship. In Guyana, Margaret Chan-a-Sue was an ideal guide, fully of savvy advice and fantastic stories. Alex Mendes generously allowed me to stay at Dubulay, his family’s ranch on the Berbice River, where I got one of the most valuable perspectives on the history of Berbice and its people. I treasure the time I spent with Margaret and Alex, and thank them for all that they taught me about a country that is full of wonderful mysteries and surprises. The staff of several archives and libraries also made a crucial contribution to this project. Many thanks to the archivists and librarians at the British National Archives at Kew; the archives of the Council for World Mission / London Missionary Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London); the Walter Rodney Archives in vii Georgetown, Guyana; and the Walter Royal Davis Library at the University of North Carolina. Parts of this project were presented at various seminars and conferences, including the American Historical Association, the Caribbean Studies Association, the College of Charleston’s Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program, Duke University’s African and African American Studies Working Group, King’s College London, the Society for Caribbean Studies, the Triangle African American History Colloquium, the Triangle Early American History Seminar, the Triangle Legal History Seminar, UNC’s Working Group in Feminism and History, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am very grateful for the questions, comments, and suggestions I received from all who participated, and especially to Holly Brewer, Peter A. Coclanis, Richard Drayton, Kathleen DuVal, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Diana Paton, Susan G. Pennybacker, Terri Snyder, Peter H. Wood, and Jason R. Young. I am also very grateful for the financial support I received while working on this project. A four-year Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship from the United States Department of Education allowed me to spend unrestricted time researching and writing. Multiple research trips to England (in 2008, 2009, and 2010) were made possible by grants and fellowships from the Graduate School, Department of History, and Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at UNC; a Beveridge Research Grant from the American Historical Association; and a Short-Term Research Grant from the International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University. A Mellon Dissertation Fellowship and Luis viii Quirós Varela travel grant, both from the Institute for the Study of the Americas at UNC, allowed me to spend a month in Guyana in 2010. An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as “The ‘Bad Business’ of Obeah: Power, Authority, and the Politics of Slave Culture in the British Caribbean,” in the William and Mary Quarterly 68, no. 3 (2011), and is reprinted here with the permission of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Three anonymous readers for the William and Mary Quarterly, as well as Diana Paton, Philip D. Morgan and Editor Christopher Grasso, offered excellent suggestions, questions, and criticism which shaped not only my analysis of obeah but also the way I conceptualized the broader project. I am grateful for their feedback and encouragement. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................................xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................xiii INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................1 Chapter I. THE “BAD BUSINESS” OF OBEAH.....................................................................16 “They could bring things on the estate to order”......................................................25 “Setting the estate to rights”.....................................................................................38 An authority no longer..............................................................................................47