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The Politics of Childbearing in the British Caribbean and the Atlantic World during the Age of Abolition, 17761838

The Politics of Childbearing in the British Caribbean and the Atlantic World during the Age of... THE POLITICS OF CHILDBEARING IN THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD DURING THE AGE OF ABOLITION, 1776–1838 In a speech he delivered on the floor of the House of Commons in 1791 in support of his motion for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, William Wilberforce predicted that ending the trade would force plantation managers ‘to make breeding [enslaved Afro-Caribbeans] the prime object of their attention’. Instead of importing enslaved African labourers, planters should cultivate a home-grown Afro-Caribbean labour force. In doing so, they could ensure the economic stability of the British West Indies, and of the British empire more generally, despite the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. The West Indian plantation system had long relied on imported slave labour, particularly in the face of long-standing demo- graphic decline among Afro-Caribbeans, but the American War of Independence had disrupted the Atlantic slave trade and forced British politicians such as Wilberforce to rethink the system. This vision of economic success built on the backs of children born to enslaved women was not unique to Wilberforce. Many British politicians in the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, both abolitionists and West Indian planters, shared it. * I http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Past & Present Oxford University Press

The Politics of Childbearing in the British Caribbean and the Atlantic World during the Age of Abolition, 17761838

Paugh, Katherine
Past & Present , Volume 221 (1) – Nov 3, 2013
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
The Past and Present Society, Oxford, 2013
ISSN
0031-2746
eISSN
1477-464X
DOI
10.1093/pastj/gtt011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

THE POLITICS OF CHILDBEARING IN THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD DURING THE AGE OF ABOLITION, 1776–1838 In a speech he delivered on the floor of the House of Commons in 1791 in support of his motion for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, William Wilberforce predicted that ending the trade would force plantation managers ‘to make breeding [enslaved Afro-Caribbeans] the prime object of their attention’. Instead of importing enslaved African labourers, planters should cultivate a home-grown Afro-Caribbean labour force. In doing so, they could ensure the economic stability of the British West Indies, and of the British empire more generally, despite the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. The West Indian plantation system had long relied on imported slave labour, particularly in the face of long-standing demo- graphic decline among Afro-Caribbeans, but the American War of Independence had disrupted the Atlantic slave trade and forced British politicians such as Wilberforce to rethink the system. This vision of economic success built on the backs of children born to enslaved women was not unique to Wilberforce. Many British politicians in the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries, both abolitionists and West Indian planters, shared it. * I

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Past & Present – Oxford University Press

Published: Nov 3, 2013

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