Jamaica and Saint-Domingue were especially brutal but conspicuously successful eighteenth-century slave societies and imperial colonies. Using a wide range of archival evidence, The Plantation Machine traces a critical half-century in the development of the social, economic, and political frameworks that made these societies possible.
Focusing on the period from 1603 to 1800, this book explores Britain's significant evolution into a global power. It offers detailed insights into the political, social, and economic changes during this transformative era. With accessible writing and illustrations, it serves as an excellent resource for students studying early modern Britain, providing a comprehensive understanding of the historical context and events that shaped the nation’s rise on the world stage.
The Atlantic in World History, 1490-1830 looks at the historical connections between four continents – Africa, Europe, North America and South America – through the lens of Atlantic history. It shows how the Atlantic has been more than just an ocean: it has been an important site of circulation and transmission, allowing exchanges and interchanges which have profoundly shaped the development of the world.Divided into four thematic sections, Trevor Burnard's sweeping yet concise narrative covers the period from the voyages of Columbus to the New World in the 1490s through to the end of the Age of Revolutions around 1830. It deals with key topics including the Columbian exchange, Atlantic slavery and abolition, war as a global phenomenon, the Age of Revolution, religious conversion, nation-building, trade and commerce and intellectual movements such as the Enlightenment. Rather than focusing on the 'rise of the West', Burnard stresses the interactive nature of encounters between various parts of the world, setting local case studies within his broader interconnected narrative.Written by a leading historian of Atlantic history, and including further reading lists, images and maps as well as a companion website featuring discussion questions, timelines and primary source extracts, this is an essential book for students of Atlantic and world history.
Focusing on the historiography of early America, this book examines the period from the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 to the conclusion of the American Revolution in 1784. It provides insights into the evolving narratives and discussions surrounding the colonial era, highlighting key developments and scholarly perspectives that shape our understanding of this transformative time in American history.
Focusing on pivotal events like Tackey's Rebellion, the Somerset decision, and the Zong murder case, the book explores Jamaica's resilience and adaptability within an Atlantic context. It highlights how the society effectively navigated economic and political challenges, particularly during tumultuous periods such as the American Revolution, revealing the complexities of its brutal yet responsive nature.
In "Eighteenth-Century Jamaica," Trevor Burnard explores the brutal slave management system through the diary of plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood. This detailed account reveals the harsh realities of slavery, sexual exploitation, and the complex interplay of power, class, race, and gender in the plantation society.
The book explores the transformation of 460 wealthy men in colonial Maryland from a rugged merchant-planter class in the seventeenth century to a refined class of plantation owners by the eighteenth century. It innovatively compares these individuals to similar elites in the British Empire, such as absentee Caribbean landowners and East Indian nabobs, highlighting their roles within the broader Atlantic economic network. This examination provides insights into social and economic shifts during this period.
In 1750 Thomas Thistlewood, the twenty-nine-year-old son of a Lincolnshire tenant farmer, sailed to Jamaica in the hope of making his name and his fortune. He remained in Jamaica, never returning to England, until his death in 1786. During his time Jamaica, Thistlewood kept a rich and detailed diary. Now Dr Burnard extensively analyses Thistlewood's career as a plantation overseer and his personal relationships. As related by Burnard, and as recorded by Thistlewood in his diary, those relationships reveal some fascinating intersections between social class, race, gentler, sex and sexuality. What has attracted the attention of historians in recent years, including Burnard himself, is not so much the sugar production and plantation management so carefully recorded by Thistlewood as the equally detailed record he maintained of his numerous and some would claim excessive sexual liaisons with enslaved woman of colour. The work appeals to an extremely wide range of readers, including Caribbean historians, colonial historians, historians of the American South, historians of gender, sex and sexuality, as well as social, economic and cultural historians of the eighteenth century.
"As with any enterprise involving violence and lots of money, running a plantation in early British America was a serious and brutal enterprise. Beyond resources and weapons, a plantation required a significant force of cruel and rapacious men men who, as Trevor Burnard sees it, lacked any better options for making money. In the contentious Planters, Merchants, and Slaves, Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism, but rather out of economic logic because to speak bluntly it worked. These economically successful and ethically monstrous plantations required racial divisions to exist, but their successes were always measured in gold, rather than skin or blood. Burnard argues that the best example of plantations functioning as intended is not those found in the fractious and poor North American colonies, but those in their booming and integrated commercial hub, Jamaica. Sure to be controversial, this book is a major intervention in the scholarship on slavery, economic development, and political power in early British America, mounting a powerful and original argument that boldly challenges historical orthodoxy."--
This Element shows that existing models of global slavery derived from sociology rather than history. It argues that we can understand the global history of slavery in ways that historicise the study of history as an institution with a history that changes over time and space. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.