Experiencing Abolition at the Edges of Empire: Slavery in 19th-Century British Caribbean Crown Colonies

Much of the scholarly literature on slavery in the nineteenth century British empire focuses on the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and the amelioration and eventual demise of slavery. Yet this era was also marked by the rapid intensification of the plantation complex in newly acquired British territories. Focusing on St. Lucia and Trinidad, which Great Britain conquered at the turn of the nineteenth century and administered as crown colonies, this paper uses an author-created database of Slave Registers, complemented by colonial correspondence and Protector of Slaves Reports, to explore how the advent of British rule changed the daily lives of people enslaved on the empire’s expanding frontiers during the Age of Abolition.

As crown colonies, St. Lucia and Trinidad were denied legislative assemblies and were instead ruled by metropolitan Orders in Council. In the eyes of British colonial officials, such colonies were therefore ideal sites for reform and experimentation. Despite concerted resistance from resident planters, it was here that policies later extended throughout the empire, such as the compulsory registration of all enslaved people, were first enacted. This paper focuses on how enslaved people in these little-studied colonies experienced and responded to these imperial projects. As abolitionists and members of the planter lobby in London debated the future of slavery, tens of thousands of men and women in the southern Caribbean were subjected to changes in the nature and intensity of labor they performed, where and with whom they resided, and the regime under which they lived. By highlighting the changing realities of slavery during an era usually associated with abolition, this paper calls attention to how enslaved people navigated broader imperial changes.