Description
The emergence of nationalist movements and the increase in black consciousness in the Caribbean have for many years diverted historical scholarship away from the white elite to the recording of the experiences of the black and coloured populations. The White Minority in the Caribbean reverses this trend by focusing on the strategies adopted by the white community to shape and dominate the social and economic environment in a region which is predominantly non-white.
The unifying perspective of the essays in this volume is that in spite of changing relationships with other races in the Caribbean, the white minority has maintained its elite position by uniting its constituent ethnic and social groups whenever its dominance has been challenged. Other strategies included cementing links to political power and maintaining access to domestic and foreign capital.
This discussion is not limited to the Anglophone Caribbean; a discussion of the French and Dutch territories is included in this comprehensive analysis.
About the Authors
Howard Johnson is Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware
Karl Watson lectures in History at the university of the West Indies, Cave Hill.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
- White Women and a West India fortune: Gender and Wealth during slavery
Hilary McD. Beckles
- Salmagundis vs Pumpkins: White Politics and Creole
Consciousness in Barbadian Slave Society, 1800-34
Karl Watson
- The White Elite of Trinidad, 1838-1950
Bridget Brereton
- Bay Street, Black Power and the Conchy Joes: Race and Class in the Colony and Commonwealth of the Bahamas, 1850-2000
Michael Craton
- The Culture of the Colonial Elites in Nineteenth-century Guyana
Brian L. Moore
- The White Minority in Jamaica at the end of the Nineteenth Century
Patrick Bryan
- In the Name of the People: Populist Ideology and Expatriate Power in Belize
Karen Judd
- Ethnicity and Social Change in Curaçao
Réne A. Römer
- French Republicanism under Challenge: White Minority (Béké) Power in Martinique and Guadeloupe
Fred Constant
Contributors
