Estranged but No Longer Enslaved: Women Negotiating Slavery and Freedom in the British Caribbean

Two years before returning to his native Scotland from Jamaica, John Tailyour freed his mistress of color Polly and their children.  The manumission came in 1790 after repeated requests by Polly who hoped that her young boys could soon travel to Britain with their father.  Tailyour did eventually bring his mixed-race sons with him to Europe, but once he quitted Jamaica he effectively abandoned his erstwhile lover.  He was like many of his fellow merchants and planters who used the Caribbean as a quick stop on a path toward financial windfall, leaving behind families of color.  Polly struggled to manage her new position as a free woman in a slave society, especially now that she was absent a white companion to intercede regularly on her behalf.  This paper explores the methods by which enslaved (and formerly enslaved) women in the West Indies negotiated slavery and freedom in part through their domestic relations with Anglo-American men.  I argue that appeals to kinship were vital to these women, who, like Polly, found ways to surmount the challenges of both slavery and freedom through their appeals to parenthood and intimate affections.

Using personal correspondence, probate records, and diaries, this paper provides a nuanced perspective of West Indian conceptions of family and slavery.  In particular, I will explore the lives of three Jamaican families of color who rose out of slavery between 1770 and 1810.  This paper gives a more detailed reflection on the lived experience of enslaved families.  In addition, it provides a fresh examination of British notions of kinship in the Atlantic World.