# data[].attributes.body
This course has refreshed my memory on what it is to be Caribbean. As a people we have such a diverse and dynamic origin from the Indigenous peoples to enslavement, indentureship  and the present day. Our diversity has developed and formed my identity - it should be embraced and not hidden. I appreciated the way in which the information was presented via the lectures and specifically the tutorials - they were engaging and relatable to the 21st Century student.

I was particularly struck by the history of slavery and encouraged to know that our ancestors fought back - which is contrary to what is displayed in the media and from European sources. The course again highlighted the biased nature of the information that we received of our own history! It is important for us to carve our own indigenous path and revise what we have been given over the centuries,

To conclude, I enjoyed this course though I was skeptical in the beginning it was a well rounded, intriguing and valuable addition to my education and personal development.

# data[].attributes.body
It cannot be disputed that the family structure is important additions,ly, the role of a mother within that family structure is vital. During the enslavement period the role of the woman as a mother was highlighted, in fact, they intentionally increased the number of incoming female enslaved to encourage natural reproduction on the plantations to counter the cost of purchasing slaves. It can be argued that the women were never really given the opportunity to mother as they were required to be working on the plantations. Much as the working woman of the 21st century, between a 8-4 or 9-5 job, fill time career and full time mother she is stretched thin; yet she still prevails.

The strength of the determined woman in the 19th century facing many adversities and abuse us the strength that is displayed in the women of the Caribbean today.

Image:
Lewis-Giggetts, Tracey Michae'l. "Forget about Facebook and focus on the real "Apple" of your eyes" My Brown Baby. 1 Maywww.mybrownbaby.com/2014/05/forget-about-facebook-and-focus-on-the-real-apple-of-our-eyes/. Accessed 28 Nov, 2016.

# data[].attributes.body
Image:
Jones, Jae. "Queen Nanny of the Winward Maroons: Mother to All Jamaicans" Black Then: Discovering our History. 23 May, 2015. https://blackthen.com/queen-nanny-of-the-winward-maroons-mother-to-all-jamaicans/. Accessed 28 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.body
HistoryActive resistance as the name suggests was a much more overt form of resistance and entailed rebellions, revolts and marooning from the plantations. In the text Beyond Massa the author Dr. Campbell speaks of women being able to encourage and motivate the men to rebel - he labels this as 'potential power' (102).

An example of such a woman is Cubah who spearheaded the Slave a Revolt of 1760 in Kingston, Jamaica; she was hailed as the 'Queen of Kingston'. It can be argued that powerful female figures are still present throughout the present Caribbean, stil leading large masses of people. Specifically, the recent Prime Ministers of Jamacia and Trinidad & Tobago respectively i.e. Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica and Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago. Though not inciting the citizens of their countries to revolt they are still examples of this important role if a woman that has been passed down from this period of history.

Campbell John F., Beyond Massa : Sugar Management in the British Caribbean 1770-1834. Calaloux Publications, 2012.

Image
Campbell, Russ. "Jamaican History and Culture- The People Part II" Cycroft Omnibus: Russ Campbells's Journal of this and that "Persevere" , 23 May, 2015. http://www.cycroft.net/2015/05/jamaican-history-and-culture-people_23.html.  Accessed 28 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.headline
To Resist or Not to Resist?.... Is there even an option? 

# data[].attributes.subject
To Resist or Not to Resist?.... Is there even an option? 

# data[].attributes.body
GynecologicalIt is known that the demands if slavery were high and the effect of the toil on the laborers were not only physical but mental and emotional. Arriving to Trinidad they were separated from  their families into a new system of forced labor and at times of abuse. However, this was not merely accepted with no resistance.

A huge part of the role of an African decent enslaved woman was to resist and to revolt. This resistance took many forms but fell under the umbrella of passive or active resistance. The former took the form of Gynecological revolt. Women would take excessively long periods of time nursing their children thus preventing them from returning to work in the House or in the field. They would also engage in abortion or take time off of work during their menstrual cycle. Those who worked in the domestic areas sabotaged their masters through poison or placing glass in their food.

Image:
"Women's Resistance" Slave Resistance: A Caribbean Story.
http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/womens_resistance/womens.html Accessed 28 Nov 2016

# data[].attributes.body
The domesticated house slave - not a foreign image. Slaves were purchased for many reasons, one of which was to work in the Great House taking care of the domestic needs of the owner and his family. The image attached depicts such a woman, however, young children such as Mary Prince were bought as play companions for young white children.

Image:
Noirfife. "Slavery: from Africa->West Indies->Europe->[A History Student Project] Yelhispressing: Vibrations of a Heart: Historical & Romantic. 9 Mar, 2015.
https://yelhispressing.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/slavery-from-africa-west-indies-europe-a-history-student-project/. Accessed 28 Nov 2016

# data[].attributes.body
The story of Mary Prince though unfortunate is the stereotypical role of a endslaved woman during this period in the Caribbean. If you were to ask the reasonable man/woman on the streets: what happened during slavery? I would expect to hear an account similar to that of Mary Prince.

However, she went above and beyond the perceived role of an enslaved woman. She suffered horrendous abuse under the hands of her European owners and became the first Caribbean woman to pen an autobiography of her experiences. This to us may seen a simple achievement, but it was far from it! Because of her narrative we get a distinctly Caribbean approach to the 'White woman - black slave' dynamic. Her words are crucial.

Wajid, Sara. "'They bought me as a butcher would a calf or a lamb'" The Guardian. 19 Oct ,2007.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/19/race.historybooks. Accessed 28 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This year is, of course, the bicentenary of the act that sought to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and the anniversary has marked a renewed interest in Prince, the abolitionist and first black woman to publish an account of her life in Britain - The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, 1831. This month a Mary Prince commemorative plaque is being mounted in Bloomsbury (where she once lived) and a new slavery gallery, opening at the Museum in Docklands, recognises her as an author who "played a crucial role in the abolition campaign". A fictionalised Prince also appears as the love interest in Bridgetower, a new jazz opera about the 18th-century black musician George Bridgetower.

Born in Brackish Pond, Bermuda, in 1788, Prince and her siblings were raised by her adoring mother until she was 12. Her mother worked as a household slave to a family called Williams, and Mary wrote that she "was made quite a pet of by Miss Betsey [the Williams's child, who] used to lead me about by the hand, and call me her little nigger". When the Williamses fortunes changed, Mary's devastated mother took her to the market to be sold. Mary "was soon surrounded by strange men, who examined and handled me in the same manner that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase".

For the next 15 years, Mary was passed between brutal owners ("from one butcher to another") across the Caribbean Islands. Then, in 1815, she was bought by the sadistic John Wood, a white Caribbean man. He and his family took her to Antigua and, in 1826, through her Moravian Church, she met and married Daniel James, a free carpenter.

She had not asked permission to marry and was horsewhipped for this insurrection. The Woods abused her in other ways too: locking her in a cage and beating her, and leaving her to die in an outhouse when her rheumatism prevented her from working for some months. She was saved by a neighbour. Despite essentially condemning her to death, the Woods refused Prince's requests to buy her freedom. They didn't want to lose someone who, when well, was such a phenomenally hard worker.

And so, in 1828, Prince accompanied them to London, hopeful that the air might improve her rheumatism and that she might be able to return to her husband a free woman. Prince's limbs quickly seized up in the new climate and she was unable to wash laundry, enraging Mrs Wood, who threatened to throw her on to the streets. Prince wrote that she "stood a long time before I could answer, for I knew that I was free in England, but did not know where to go, or how to get my living". She escaped from the Woods in the same year she arrived in the UK, making it to the Moravian missionary church in Hatton Garden and then to the Anti-Slavery society in Aldermanbury, east London. There she learned that, although free in London, if she returned to her beloved husband in Antigua, it would have to be as the Woods' property.

A petition to parliament for her to return to the "West Indies not as a slave" failed, as did all attempts by the abolitionists who took up her cause to convince the Woods to sell Mary her freedom. The History was published in 1831 by her new abolitionist employer, Mr Pringle, so that, in Prince's words, "good people in England might hear from a slave what a slave had felt and suffered". It ran to three editions and almost immediately provoked two court cases. First, in February 1833, Pringle successfully sued the publisher of a magazine that ran an article damning the book. A month later, though, Wood himself brought a libel case against Pringle, which he won.

At the time, readers found the account of the relentless violence against Prince too extreme to be believable. So much so that Mrs Pringle wrote to one doubting women's group (the Birmingham Society for Relief of Negro Slaves) confirming that she had inspected Mary and the "whole of the back part of her body is distinctively scarred . . . chequered with the vestiges of severe floggings".

For Gretchen Gerzina, author of Black London, Prince represents "the tip of the iceberg". Shocking though the details are, Gerzina says it is the record, rather than the story it contains, that is unusual. "As far as slave narratives go," she notes, "it is a familiar story." The History is a particularly important document because there were far fewer black women than men in Britain at this time.

Jak Beula, founder of Nubian Jak, the organisation behind the Mary Prince plaque, says Prince has always been overlooked because she is an awkward heroine. "History has a problem with her as a genuine heroine because she wasn't educated and was very obviously reliant on the anti-slavery movement to represent her - unlike someone such as Mary Seacole, who was a self-made woman. She may not have been a poster girl for women's independence, but," he insists passionately, "she's an extraordinary symbol of tenacity and resilience."

In fact, research by Sarah Salih, editor of the most recent edition of Prince's book, suggests that Mary was not the passive victim that she sometimes seems in her account. Prince's ghost writer, Susanna Strickland, subtly tailored the book to suit the abolitionist cause. At the libel court case brought by Mr Wood, in March 1833, though, Prince appeared as a witness and talked in detail about her seven-year sexual relationship with a Captain Abbot and "Oyskman - a freedman".

Strickland had omitted these passages because, according to Salih's introduction, "it was important for the anti-slavery society to present Prince as sexually pure". Salih points to examples throughout the account of Prince's resistance (marrying without permission and repeatedly defending herself and others, physically and verbally). She concludes: "Far from passively accepting the punishments meted out to her, Mary Prince protested against her treatment at every available opportunity. Her History is a culmination of this protest"

· Sara Wajid is editor of Untold London.

· See a fictional interview with Mary Prince at www.untoldlondon.org.uk/news/ART41922.html. The English Touring Opera's production of Bridgetower tours from October 23, www.englishtouringopera.org.uk
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sara Wajid on Mary Prince, a slave whose brutal account shocked the literary community

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This year is, of course, the bicentenary of the act that sought to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and the anniversary has marked a renewed interest in Prince, the abolitionist and first black woman to publish an account of her life in Britain - The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, 1831.

# data[].attributes.body
Having looked at the developing status of women in the business market during the enslavement period. It was not only for European women, after reading on the development of free coloured women and even some who were still enslaved but making additional income - I considered the suggestion that would women of African descent become plantation or estate owners. If they do, surely this would counter the very system that they were part of, or may have tried to escape.

It is known that women of Acrican descent carried jobs on the lower end of the business market e.g. Prostitutes, domestic services, pastry cooks, washers, poulters (484). Due to the imbalanced system, the enslaved would not be able to develop enough capital needed to start their business, consequently they may be involved in work/businesses that do not require a major initial investment.

It has been documented that free womenof  course owned property in Jamaica along with enslavedfactor persons (494). They would often advertise for runaway slaves - again suggesting that they were owners and managers.

Walker, Christine. "Pursuing her Profits: Women in Jamaica, Atlantic Slavery and a Globalising Market" Gender & History. Vol 26, Nov 2014. EBSCOhost. Accessed 23 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.body
There is support in scholarly literature that shows women such as Mrs. Arcedkne were not exceptions or anomalies. There were many women both European and of African that were small business owners or even plantation owners. As the attached article suggests, many women were the head of the household or served as the matriarch if the family.

An example being Anna Hassell who inherited her husbands 'mercantile enterprise' which included 43 enslaved persons. She was not hindered by gender - she even broke the mercantile law by trading with Spanish territories and invested in privateer ships that attacked French and Spanish ships. She was far from the picture that women were docile.

Watttlker, Christine. "Pursuing her Profits: Women in Jamaica, Atlantic Slavery and a Globalising Market" Gender & History. Vol 26, Nov 2014. EBSCOhost. Accessed 23 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.headline
Beyond Massa: Challenging the Stereotypes

# data[].attributes.subject
Beyond Massa: Challenging the Stereotypes

# data[].attributes.body
It is well established in literature that the perception of the European women was predominantly negative. Specifically, the wives of plantation/estate owners were described as being docile and dependent without any real autonomy in their life's. This is challenged in the text 'Beyond Massa' written by Dr. John Campbell, primarily through Mrs. Arcedkne - the mother of the absentee plantation owner Mr. Arcedkne.

Through the correspondences between the estate manager Simon Taylor and Mr. Arcedkne we see that in the absence of the owner Mrs. Arcedkne makes valuable contributions to the estate. Not only verbally, but financially. Her opinion is respected and at times held in higher standing than the absentee owner. Her residency in Jamaica during this time cements her rise up the social hierarchy. Another challenge to the perception that women were proactive in business or political activities.

Campbell John F., Beyond Massa : Sugar Management in the British Caribbean 1770-1834. Calaloux Publications, 2012.

# data[].attributes.body
This image proves to be another example of the prevalent stereotypes of this period.

Image:
Goldstein Speinwall, Alyssa. "If This is a Woman: Evelyne Trouillat's The Infamous Rosalie and the Last Stains of the New World Slavery" Fiction and Film for French Historians a Cultural Bulletin.
http://h-france.net/fffh/classics/if-this-is-a-woman-evelyne-trouillots-the-infamous-rosalie-and-the-lost-stories-of-new-world-slavery/. Accessed 28 Nov 2016

# data[].attributes.body
This image depicts a free (presumably) European woman with her parasol, this watercolor painting is an example of the encounters of the women that Cazabon may more frequently have come into contact with. Considering his position in society as a free French male. It is similar in comparison to another painting of a European woman with her African enslaved helper.

This image depicts the stereotypical perception of European women during the period of enslavement.

Image:
Michel Jean Cazabon 1813-1888" Peintures Musiques et Poesies. 4 Apr, 2012.
http://peinturesetpoesies.blog50.com/peintres-aquarellistes Accessed 28 Nov, 2016

# data[].attributes.body
Mr. Cazabon was the namesake of the controversial band section put together by Mr. Brian MacFarlene. Cazabon is famed to be Trinidad and Tobago's first internationally hailed painter. However, his upbringing is of interest and thus may have shaped his perception of women - more so than the average colored young man being raised in Trinidad.

Born in 1813, his wealthy French coloured parents arrived in Trinidad to receive land grants which were given to them under the Cedula of Population. However, his parents split and divorced a year after his birth. Cazabon was raised in South Trinidad (Naparim vicinity) with his Mother and siblings. His perception of colonial women would have been shaped by his experiences in Paris, the French Isles and the plantation culture in Trinidad during his time here.

This is seen in the paintings that today are cherished, and seen as a glimpse of what women of this era were perceived to be. His work attempts to capture the diversity of individuals and landscapes of during the 19th century.

Besson, Gerard A. "Michel Jean Cazabon" The Caribbean History Archives. Paria Publishing, 17 Feb, 2012.
http://caribbeanhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2012/02/michel-jean-cazabon.html. Accessed 19 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.body
Are we still fighting negative portrayals of race and culture stemming from the slave trade?
Is there stil a divide regarding the role of women and their perceived position? The backlash that the Band designer received suggests that there are still unresolved issues regarding this period - specifically for the purposes of this portfolio - issues revolving around what the role of a woman should be and the perception of women during that period of history.

The criticisms also suggest that the manner in which race and gender were portrayed were done in an uncomfortable and distasteful manner, showing that as a people we are still unsettled in this area. It creates an opportunity to explore and further examine again exactly how many of our perceptions and stereotypes have root in the enslsvement period.

Wayow, Sue-Ann. "MacFarlene cancels "Cazabon" section" Daily Express, 25 Oct 2016.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20161025/news/macfarlane-cancels-cazabon-section#comment. Accessed 19 Nov 2016.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mac Farlene's Controversial Carnival 2017 Band 

# data[].attributes.subject
Mac Farlene's Controversial Carnival 2017 Band 

# data[].attributes.body
La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” – The Pretty Lady and the House Boy”

This is the starting point of this journey on the Role of Women during the enslavement period. Seeing this image in a news article it initially brought up thoughts regarding relationship between a Master and enslaved. The perception that the relationships were predictable led me to question the believed stereotypes from the enslsvement period. The course Caribbean Civilisation has challenged my understanding of what women during that period - this includes both African decent and European women.

They  were involved in many activities that were far beyond the generalized and expected. Both were dynamic fearless leaders doing what was necessary to ensure that they did the best they could for themselves and their family.

Jordan, Gary. Daily Express. 24 Oct, 2016.