In addition, each student is to present oral and written reports on two books assigned to them, one in each half of the semester. The oral presentation should last about 10 minutes and provide for the class's benefit an exposition of the work's contents; treat it as an opportunity to hone skills needed in a conference setting. The written report should be in the style of an academic book review and, where possible, place the work in the context of the week's readings. It may be helpful to consult the book review sections of journals like New West Indian Guide and Hispanic American Historical Review for questions of approach and for reviews of the works concerned, but be explicit where you are citing others’ opinions.

The final requirement is a 15-page term paper. It may take the form of a bibliographical survey or research paper using primary sources and can deal with any aspect of Caribbean history. The university library's Caribbean collection is exceptionally strong in printed, manuscript, and microform material and gives the opportunity to exploit a world-class resource-base. Suggestions for additional reading are listed below to provide a point of departure for further exploring each week's topic. Other bibliographies are available here (click). An excellent source for exploring the full range of pre-1850 Caribbean material in the library is this library guide. Further details on manuscript and newspaper holdings can be found in The Caribbean Collection at the University of Florida: A Brief Description. The ability to write to a deadline is an important skill to acquire. Since it is unfair to give some students more time than others, late-submitted papers will be penalized. Students are also expected to be familiar with the university's honesty policy.

Grading: contribution to class discussion, 30%; book reports, 15% each; term paper (due Fri., Dec. 7), 40%.

    The joint readings for discussion are numbered. Listed under "Presentations" are the books for individual review we will choose in weeks one and seven. The "Further Reading" is optional.  More than a dozen of the weekly readings can be found in the two student readers by H. Beckles and V. Shepherd entitled Caribbean Freedom and Caribbean Slave Society.  As the class meets on Thursdays, the Thanksgiving holiday will shorten it by one week.     

Week

1. Introduction. Geographical and Historical Overview (8/23)

2. The Amerindian Societies of the Caribbean (8/30)

1) Las Casas, Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies 2) David Henige, "On the Contact Population of Hispaniola" and R. Zambardino, "Critique" 3) Robert Myers, "Island Carib Cannibalism" 4) Peter Hulme, "Caribs and Arawaks" 5) Nancie Gonzalez, Sojourners of the Caribbean, 3-38.

Presentations: Carlos Deive, La Española y la esclavitud del Indio; William Keegan, The People Who Discovered Columbus; Philip Boucher, Cannibal Encounters.

Further Reading: Rouse, The Tainos; Hulme, Colonial Encounters; Sued Badillo, Los Caribes; Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit; Whitehead & Hulme, Wild Majesty.

1) Richard Dunn, "Sugar Production and Slave Women in Jamaica" 2) Thomas Thistlewood, "Notes on Plantation Life, 1752-59" 3) Susan Socolow, "Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Français" 4) Dale Tomich, "The Other Face of Slave Labor" 5) Esteban Montejo, "Life in the Baracoons"

Presentations: Barry Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1832; David Eltis, Rise of African Slavery in the Americas; Kenneth Kiple, The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History; Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire; John Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in Saint Domingue.

Further Reading: Dirks, Black Saturnalia; Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean; Gaspar & Hine, More Than Chattel; Berlin & Morgan, Cultivation and Culture.

4. The Caribbean Economy Under Slavery (9/13)

1) Robert Batie, "Why Sugar? Economic Cycles and Changing Staples" 2) K. Davies, "The Origins of the Commission System" 102-110 3) Robert Stein, "The French West Indian Sugar Business" 4) J.R. Ward, "The Profitability of Sugar Planting," 5) Seymour Drescher, "The Decline Thesis of British Slavery since Econocide," 6) Franklin Knight, "The Transformation of Cuban Agriculture"

Presentations: Seymour Drescher, Econocide; Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power; Dale Tomich, Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar; P. Tornero Tinajero, Crecimiento económico y transformaciones sociales...Cuba colonial  

Further Reading: L. Rupert, Creolization and Contraband, Curaçao; Pares, War and Trade; Ward, British West Indian Slavery, 1750-1834; Richard Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery;  Williams, Capitalism & Slavery; Stein, French Slave Trade; Tarrade, Le Commerce colonial; Eltis, Lewis & Sokoloff, Slavery in the Development of the Americas.

5. Maroons, Rebels & Resistance (9/20)

1) Mary Turner, "Chattel Slaves into Wage Slaves" 2) Geggus, "On the Eve of the Haitian Revolution" 3) Esteban Montejo, "Life in the Forest" 4) Richard Price, To Slay the Hydra, intro. 5) Richard Price, First Time 129-146

Presentations: Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory; Price, Alabi's World; Gabino La Rosa Corzo, Runaway Slave Settlements in  Cuba.

Further Reading: Price, Maroon Societies; Kofi Agorsah, Maroon Heritage; Heuman, Out of the House of Bondage; Jean Fouchard, Haitian Maroons; Michael Craton, Testing the Chains; D.B. Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels; Robert Paquette, Sugar is Made With Blood; Carlos Deive, Los Guerrilleros negros.

6. Haiti and the Age of Revolution (9/27)

1) Geggus "The Haitian Revolution in Atlantic Context" 2) Geggus, "Haitian Revolution: New Approaches" 3) Laurent Dubois, "The Price of Liberty: Victor Hugues and the administration of freedom in Guadeloupe, 1794-1798," William and Mary Quarterly 56 (1999): 363-92 4) Edward Cox, "Revolution in Grenada" 5) Geggus, "The Greater Caribbean, 1789-1815"  6) Dubois, "Insurrection & the Language of Rights"

Presentations: L. Dubois, Avengers of the New World; Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti; Matt Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba; Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolution.

Further Reading: Armitage & Subramanyam, eds., Age of Revolution in Global Context; Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery; James, Black Jacobins; Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture; Gaspar & Geggus, eds., Turbulent Time: French Revolution & and the Greater Caribbean; Geggus, ed., Impact of the Haitian Revolution; Verna, Pétion y Bolívar; Dubois, A Colony of Citizens;  Klooster & Oostindie, eds., Curaçao in the Age of Revolution, 1795-1800; 

7. Impact of Emancipation (10/4)

1) J.R. Ward, "Adjustments to Emancipation" 2) Mary Butler, Economics of Emancipation 3) Swithin Wilmot, "Emancipation in Action" 4) Woodville Marshall, "Notes on Peasant Development" 5) Sidney Mintz, "Panglosses and Pollyannas" 6) Rebecca Scott, "Former Slaves"  7) Keith Laurence,  "Introduction" Question of Labour

Presentations: Gad Heuman, The Killing Time: Morant Bay Rising; Thomas Holt, Problem of Freedom; S. Engerman, Between Slavery and Free Labor; Seymour Drescher, Meaning of Freedom.

Further Reading: Hall, Free Jamaica,1838-1865; Craton & Emmer in New West Indian Guide (1994 & 95); Green, British Slave Emancipation; Butler, Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica and Barbados; Rebecca Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba; R. Hoefte, In Place of Slavery (Suriname).

8. Haiti (10/11)

1) Robert Lacerte, "Evolution of Land and Labor" 2) David Nicholls, "Intro" & "Conclusion" 3) Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Nation, State and Society 4) Plummer, "State & Society" 5) Hans Schmidt, "The Marines Take Charge" & "Epilogue" 6) Mintz, "Can Haiti Change?"

Presentations: Laurent Dubois, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History; Matts Lundahl, Man & Land in Haiti; Joan Dayan, Haiti, History & the Gods; Mary Renda, Taking Haiti.

Further Reading: Barthelemy, Pays En Dehors; Hurbon, Comprendre Haïti; Schmidt, The US Occupation of Haiti; Gaillard, Les Blancs Débarquent; Simon Fass, Political Economy in Haiti.

9. Cuba (10/18)

1) Rebecca Scott, "Explaining Abolition" 454-470 2) Aline Helg "Our Rightful Share" 2-21 3) David Healy, "War in Cuba and Its Fruits" 38-57 4) Louis Pérez, On Becoming Cuban 5) Lester Langley, "FDR & the Good Neighbor Policy" 122-133  6) Louis Pérez, Cuba and the United States, "Twilight Years"  7) Marifeli Pérez-Stable, "Revolution and Radical Nationalism, 1959-1961" 61-81.

Presentations: Verena Martínez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Color; Ada Ferrer Insurgent Cuba; A. de la Fuente, A Nation For All: Race, Inequality...20th Century Cuba; Lillian Guerra, The Myth of José Martí; Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint.

Further Reading: Louis Pérez, Cuba; Robert Paquette, Sugar Is Made With Blood; Robin Moore, Nationalizing Blackness; Lester Langley, The U.S. and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century; Marifeli Pérez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution.

10.  Guyana & Trinidad  (10/25)

1) David Northrup, "Indentures" 2) Brian Moore, "Guyanese Society" & "Chinese Hua-Qiao Culture" 3) Walter Rodney, "Internal & External Constraints" 4) John Cowley, "Creole Musical Traditions"  5) N. Jayaram, "The politics of 'cultural renaissance' among Indo-Trinidadians" 6) Stephen Rabe, "British Guiana, 1831-1953"

Presentations: Walter Rodney, History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905; Steven Vertovec, Hindu Trinidad;  W. Look Lai, Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar; 

Further Readings: Brian Moore, Race, Power and Social Segmentation and Cultural Power, Resistance and Pluralism (Guyana); Cowley, Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso;A lan Adamson, Sugar Without Slaves.

11. Race, Ethnicity & National Identity (11/1)

1) Harry Hoetink, Caribbean Race Relations, 1-55 2) M.G. Smith, "Ethnic & Cultural Pluralism" & "Plural Framework of Jamaican Society" 10-17, 162-175 3) Stuart Hall, "Pluralism, Race and Class" 150-182 4) Kevin Yelvington, "Trinidad Ethnicity" 1-15 5) David Nicholls, "No Hawkers or Peddlers," 135-164 6) Aline Helg, in Idea of Race, 47-48, 52-57 7) Helg, "The Limits of Equality" 228-248

Presentations: Brackette Williams, Stains on My Name; Selwyn Ryan, Race & Nationalism: Decolonisation in Trinidad; Charles Hale, Resistance and Contradiction (Miskitu); K. Yelvington, Trinidad Ethnicity.

Further Reading: A. de la Fuente, A Nation For All...20th Century Cuba; G Oostindie, Ethnicity in the Caribbean; José Luis Gonzalez, El país de cuatro pisos (PR); M. Fennema, Construcción de raza y nación en la RD; M.G. Smith, Culture, Race and Class in the Commonwealth Caribbean; F. Knight, Race, Ethnicity, and Class.

12. Black Consciousness Movements (11/8)

1) Tony Martin, "Marcus Garvey" 359-368 2) Barry Chevannes, "Introducing the Native Religions" & "New Approach to Rastafari" 1-41 3) Richard Burton "Idea of Difference" 137-165 4) David Nicholls, "Biology & the Politics of Duvalier" 48-60 5) David Nicholls, "East Indians & Black Power" 61-80

Presentations: Robin Moore, Nationalizing Blackness;  George Brandon, Santeria From Africa to the New World; Judith Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey

Further Reading: Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology & Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews; Stubbs & Pérez, Afrocuba; Conjonction (1991) articles on Indigénisme; S. McLemee, C.L.R. James on the "Negro Question."

13. Gender and Family (11/15)

1) Janet Momsen, "Introduction" 1-9 2) R.T. Smith, "Dual Marriage System" 59-80 3) Jean Besson, "Reputation & Respectability" 15-32 4) Patricia Mohamed, "Writing Gender into History" 20-43 5) Helen Safá, "Gender & Industrialization" 1-36

Presentations/Further Reading: Hilary Beckles, Centering Woman: Gender Discourses; K. Kempadoo, Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, race and sexual labor; R.T. Smith, Matrifocal Family;  Helen Safá, Myth of the Male Breadwinner; Verene Shepherd, Engendering History (essays); Vera Kutzinski, Sugar's Secrets.

14. NO CLASS. Thanksgiving (11/22)

15. The Caribbean Economy in the 20th Century (11/29)

1) J.R. Ward "Problems of Economic Development" 46-65 2) J. Mandle, "British Caribbean Economic History"  3) M. Baud, Peasants & Tobacco, 201-217  4) J. Dietz, "Operation Bootstrap" 421-433  5) Frank Innes, "Caribbean Food Production" 210-219 6) Frank Taylor, "The Second Coming" 156-178

Presentations/Further Reading: F. Taylor, To Hell With Paradise (Jamaican tourism); R. Schwartz, Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba;K. Kempadoo, Sun. sex and gold: tourism and sex work;  P. Pattullo, Last resorts: the cost of tourism in the Caribbean; G. Beckford, Persistent Poverty or Small Garden Bitter Weed.

TERM PAPER due Friday, Dec. 7.

CARIBBEAN TIME-LINE 16th TO 18th CENTURIES

CARIBBEAN TIME-LINE 19th & 20th CENTURIES (to 1970s)

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