The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica and Britain, 1832-1938

Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture

by Thomas C. Holt

The Jamaican slave revolt of 1831-32 precipitated the abolition of slavery throughout the British colonial empire. A century later, the labor rebellion of 1938 marked the beginning of that empire's end. Each event embraced a particular form of at issue in the first revolt was the freedom of the individual slave; at issue in the second was the freedom of the society itself. The century that separated these watersheds in British colonial history was one of extraordinary transformations in British ideology, in economic and social policy, and in the lives of Jamaican freed people and tehir descendants. In The Problem of Freedom , Thomas C. Holt offers an intriguing analysis of this period, exploring the meaning and reality of freedom in the context of slave emancipation in Jamaica―the largest West indian colony of the nineteenth century's major world power.

Genres: History, Latin American History

552 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

About the author

Professor Thomas Cleveland Holt taught at Howard University, Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.

Reviews

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book, Holt is an interesting author

[Zachary Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book that is still the standard for addressing a question people don't analyze enough: what happened to the Caribbean after emancipation? Holt's book is about slavery just as much as it's about capitalism. Holt tries to understand why Jamaica didn't become more prosperous after emancipation. Moral opposition to slavery, along with ascendant classical liberal ideas touting the superiority of free trade and free labor, led to the demise of slavery in the British Empire. Jamaica is an intriguing case study on how free markets did not lead to economic prosperity--through the remaining nineteenth century, the former jewel of the British Empire was a drain financially. Why didn't free Jamaican laborers accumulate wealth? Holt shows how formerly enslaved Jamaicans were more interested in acquiring personal independence than working for low wages to enrich the British. Holt examines this from Parliament's perspective, and as a result Jamaica is seen as a failure. Blacks were disenfranchised through a poll tax and a judicial system that favored planter interests. With few civic rights, black Jamaicans had a hard time acquiring wealth, and probably saw few benefits in the entrepreneurial activities which would benefit those outside their societies, like the British. These injustices culminate in the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, with blacks protesting the unfair judicial system. Most of the The Problem of Freedom is dedicated to the first few decades after emancipation, with the last quarter of the book covering seventy years of history, which was very uneven and seemed rushed to me.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brilliance and importance of this book cannot be overstated.

I think of Holt's text whenever I hear the Boy King talk about "Frei-dumb."