Description
Recovered from the archives is Cyrus Francis Perkins’ novel entitled Busha’s Mistress or Catherine the Fugitive: A Stirring Romance of the Days of Slavery in Jamaica which was written in the mid-1800s and published in Jamaica in 1911 as a series of installments in the local newspapers, the Daily Telegraph and the Jamaica Guardian.
Cyrus Francis Perkins, a white Jamaican (of Canadian descent), lived through the period of Jamaica’s history during which the colony was undergoing the transition from slavery to emancipation. The resulting story is, thus, rich in historically insightful details which bring that era to life and which make the book a valuable resource for scholars of Caribbean history. Revealed here are interesting tit-bits about the relationship between slave and master, the daily life on the sugar plantations, the business transactions involved, the depiction of the culture of the African slaves, the Maroon resistance and varied perspectives on the abolition of slavery.
But apart from its historic dimensions, Busha’s Mistress is a satisfying ageless story of romance and heartbreak. The book recounts the tale of Catherine, the slave concubine of a cruel white overseer on the Greenside Estate, near Falmouth on Jamaica’s north coast. This young beauty’s adventures begin with her flight from the estate where she finds refuge with friends who eventually smuggle her off the island to England. Her story continues with her travels and experiences in England, and culminates in her return to Jamaica where she delivers a final act of love.
About the Authors
Paul E. Lovejoy is Distinguished Research Professor of History at York University in Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has written more than 15 books on African economic and social history, slavery and the African diaspora. He is a member of the UNESCO ‘Slave Route’ Project and Director of the Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora. He holds the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History.
Verene A. Shepherd is Professor of Social History at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, and was a 2000-2001 Network Professor of the York/UNESCO Nigerian Hinterland Project. She is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society and author, editor and co-editor of several books and articles on slavery, migration, indentureship and gender in Caribbean history.
David V. Trotman is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Division of Humanities, York University, Canada. He is also Associate Director of the Harriet Tubman Resource Centre on the African Diaspora and a member of the Steering Committee of the Text and Testimony Collective.
Contents
Busha’s Mistress, or Catherine the Fugitive
Poetry of Cyrus Francis Perkins
Genealogy of Perkins Family
Reviews
This nineteenth century Jamaican novella uneasily cross-fertilizes anti-slavery issues with narratives of emotional entanglement and of individual paths from enslavement to freedom. Busha’s Mistress offers a rare depiction of social life among white estate personnel and among domestic slaves, linguistically traversing eighteenth century English, both hyperbolic and colloquial, and varying registers of Jamaican Creole. Set primarily in the countryside, its denouncement takes place amidst the socio-economic kaleidoscope of Kingston.
Maureen Warner-Lewis
An antislavery ‘romance’, written after slavery has ended, Busha’s Mistress condemns a system that (at least, in name) is no more. What, then, we must ask, is the work’s deepest value in terms of West Indian literary history? Beyond its themes, motivations, and form, it yields insights into ways of thinking, structures of feeling, as well as frames of references that provide the deeper resonances of our forever present, if elusive, past.
Veronica Gregg
