Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783-1865 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Spence, Caroline Quarrier. 2014. Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783-1865. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13070043 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783-1865 A dissertation presented by Caroline Quarrier Spence to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August 2014 © 2014 Caroline Quarrier Spence All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Maya Jasanoff Caroline Quarrier Spence Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783-1865 Abstract This dissertation examines the era of slavery amelioration while situating the significance of this project to reform slavery within the longer history of the British Empire. While scholars of British slavery have long debated the causes of both the abolition of the slave trade (1807) and the abolition of slavery (1833), they have overlooked the ways that both abolitionists and politicians attempted to “reform” slavery – extending both baseline protections and a civilizing mission toward slaves – as a prelude toward broader emancipation. This attempted amelioration of slavery influenced both the timing and form that emancipation took. By focusing on the island where metropolitan officials first attempted to exert an ameliorative agenda, this dissertation uncovers the forgotten influence of Spanish laws and practices on British abolitionism. Trinidad was captured from Spain in 1797 during the heyday of abolitionist agitation, during an era when Spanish slave codes were gaining newfound attention among British reformers for their reputed benevolence. Despite local planter opposition, metropolitan officials elected to retain the island’s Spanish legal structure following the Peace of Amiens. The Trinidad template for amelioration would be framed around the island’s Spanish laws, notably the office of Protector of Slaves. This individual was imagined as an intermediary between master and slave, metropole and colony, epitomizing an attempt to infuse the slave regime with a modicum of imperial regulation. The ideas behind amelioration survived the abolition of slavery. After Caribbean slavery was abolished between 1833 and 1838, the reforms that had been attempted in Trinidad and elsewhere over the previous decades came to inform the regulation of labor relationships, iii particularly immigrant labor, following in its wake. The process of negotiating reform – of slavery, indentured labor, and relations with indigenous peoples – had taught Colonial Office officials to distrust the instincts and activities of white colonial subjects. The Protector model proliferated in contexts of continued distrust during an era when metropolitan officials remained reluctant to exert more direct authority than necessary. This model would break down only in the wake of repeated failure. Until then, metropolitan officials hoped that local watchdogs would “protect” nonwhite and laboring subjects from abuse. iv Table of Contents. List of Tables. ............................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements. .................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations. ............................................................................................................................. xii Introduction. .................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. The Origins of Amelioration. .............................................................................. 23 Chapter 2. An Uncertain Constitution. ................................................................................. 73 Chapter 3. The Farm of Experiment. .................................................................................. 138 Chapter 4. The Amelioration of British Slavery. ............................................................... 193 Chapter 5. After Abolition. ................................................................................................... 244 Conclusion. ................................................................................................................................ 302 Bibliography. ............................................................................................................................. 316 v List of Tables. Table 3.1 Slave population returns for Trinidad ......................................................................... 151 Table 3.2 Manumission rates before and after the Order in Council .......................................... 175 Table 3.3 Number of successfully litigated manumission cases by six-month period ............... 176 Table 3.4 Cost of manumission .................................................................................................. 178 Table 3.5 Average manumission cost for plantation versus personal slaves .............................. 180 Table 5.1 Slave compensation in several colonies ...................................................................... 258 Table 5.2 What became of the Gladstone coolies ....................................................................... 275 vi Acknowledgements. In writing this dissertation I have incurred many debts, many more than this short space will permit me to acknowledge. I must first thank the two mentors who took me under their wings. The first is my undergraduate advisor, the second my doctoral supervisor. Paul Halliday surely did more than he has ever realized in supporting my academic pursuits. Many years ago, he encouraged an eager student with a taste for historical things to think more critically about what it meant to “do history,” to ask ambitious questions, and to venture into dusty archives many miles from home in pursuit of answers. I would certainly never have landed in graduate school without his support, encouragement, and advice. I was no less fortunate in having the opportunity to study under the supervision of Maya Jasanoff. Countless times during the researching and writing of this project, she anticipated fruitful turns of inquiry, helped me to find the best paths to follow, and pushed me to test my own limits. I only wish that I had, at times, followed her advice sooner. She knew, months before I did, that Trinidad should be the real focus of my research. She was also a more thorough reader than I could ever have imagined. I have long since lost count of the number of chapter drafts she read, and I cannot imagine how this project would have turned out without her guidance. Anyone who reads this work must appreciate the time she spent (and insisted I spend) on sharpening language and pruning prose. Any remaining errors and infelicities of prose certainly do not owe to her oversight or anyone else’s, but rather my own. At Harvard I was fortunate enough to study with many faculty members who encouraged my endeavors, asked probing questions, and read drafts. I am indebted in particular to David Armitage, Tamar Herzog, and Emma Rothschild, all who served on my dissertation committee and all who made a lasting impression on the pages that follow. I thank them each for seeing the vii promise in the rough drafts; for recommending countless new angles, secondary sources, and archival sources to pursue; and for their unique insights. Many other scholars assisted in similar ways without formally serving on my committee. I particularly want to acknowledge Vincent Brown, Mary Lewis, and Christopher Schmidt-Nowara. I have also had the good fortune to work closely alongside many graduate students who were willing to take the time out of their own research and writing schedules to help me with mine. Hannah Callaway, Gregory Clines, Nicholas Crawford, Rowan Dorin, Philippa Hetherington, Mircea Raianu, and Joshua Specht offered particularly sage advice as well as company. I also benefitted from the close reading and analysis of other students at graduate workshops, notably the Center for History and Economics and the Center for European Studies History workshops. Outside of Harvard, I was lucky to meet Matthew Wyman-McCarthy, a graduate student at McGill with research interests similar to my own. His careful poring over my chapters has been tremendously influential in helping me to sharpen my questions, argument, and thinking. More than other scholars, this project owes to the foundations that have funded it as well as to the archives that provided ample source material. I was lucky to secure one of the last Jacob K. Javits dissertation fellowships, which limited my teaching responsibilities and afforded me the freedom to spend a year abroad during an economic recession, when funding for humanities students was being cut everywhere. I lament that this