The Eradication Of Slaves: Barbados After The Emancipation

Barbados after the Emancipation British plantation owners in the West Indies relied on slavery as their source of cheap labor. The emancipation of slaves in 1833 was not insignificant. Rather, it was a controversial procedure, which would lead to economic and social tensions in the West Indies, if the abolition were considered. Through the amelioration plan planters claimed that the British government would destabilize their estate values if their slaves were freed. Therefore, if the government approved emancipation then the planters would try to withhold the emancipation news to themselves. Moreover, the Colonial Office feared slave rebellions and wondered if a slave once free would continue to work for their former masters. After revising …show more content…
According to Dooling, the eradication of slavery in Barbados took place for the first time in 1794 by the French Republic, which abolished slavery in all of its colonies. In the French West Indies, Napoleon and France reinstated slavery in 1802 when it re-secured its control within the Caribbean. The slave trade was then abolished by Britain in 1807, and slavery was entirely eliminated from the colonies of West Indies in the year of 1833. Napoleon abolished the slave trade within France in 1815. The eradication of slavery in the British Empire took place in the year of 1848. Before the emancipation there was a legal Atlantic slavery system, which was dominated by the European settlers. According to Drescher, after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, Great Britain was the first metropolitan polity to conclusively pass emancipation within its own plantation complex in the West Indies. Eventually leading tin to the long dispute between slavery and emancipation within the politicians and polemicists. Moreover in the abolition of slavery there was an attempt to create a systematic system to structure the British economy that lead to changing ideas and perspectives of …show more content…
Violence took place against slavery in the islands of Barbados in order to deal with the slavery conditions. For many years, slaves in the West Indies were well informed of anything that related to them and the abolitionist movement. According to Sir Bejamin D’Urban, Governor of Demarara, he stated in 1824 that slaves were knowledgeable in the east coast colonies. Many of the house slaves listen to conversations of their masters, and others were cable to read newspapers, pamphlet and some understood what was read and repeated to