Slaves Who Abolished Slavery
This volume provides extensive coverage of slave resistance and revolt in Jamaica. Richard Hart’s coverage of the slave rebellions and revolts in Jamaica documents that slavery did not eradicate the intellectual and creative powers of slaves; in fact, a great deal survived and was created by the slaves themselves.
Hart avoids polemics and his most important point is that the Jamaican rebels forced the British government to reset the agenda for emancipation and the slaves gained their freedom sooner than anticipated. This work is an in-depth and accessible study of the Maroon Wars and of the many slave revolts that were a standard feature of the Jamaican struggle against slavery.”
“Hart pulls the veil from an aspect of West Indian history that has largely ignored – if not consciously suppressed – the slaves’ own struggles to abolish slavery. This culmination of his life work and this long-awaited reprint is now widely available to a new generation of students and researchers.”
Richard Hart, one of the founding members of Jamaica’s nationalist movement, was among members of the People’s National Party (PNP) detained by the British in Up Park Camp in the early 1940s. He began his studies of the slave trade, slavery, slave rebellions and the Maroon Wars to provide historical background to the PNP’s early nationalist struggles and is the author of The Origin and Development of the People of Jamaica and numerous other books and articles on historical and political topics.
