Contrary Voices: Representations of West Indian Slavery

This collection fills a gap in the provision of sourcebooks for the history and sociology of slavery. It highlights variations in representations of West Indian slavery by drawing on a wide range of testimonies, especially those of the enslaved themselves. It differs significantly from previous collections such as Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period, edited by Peter Kitson and Debbie Lee, and James Basker's Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery, 1660-1810. First, the main focus is on representations based on first-hand experience or observation of slavery in the then British West Indies. Second, in an attempt to recover the "voices" of the enslaved, it draws on sources untapped in most anthologies, such as transcriptions of slave songs, funeral orations, conversations and judicial reports, as well as better-known slave narratives. The work is divided into five sections: Texts, 1657-1807; From Abolition to Emancipation, 1808-1834; Resistance and Rebellion; On the Haitian Revolution; and Songs of the Enslaved. The authors include not only relatively familiar figures such as Aphra Behn, James Grainger, Bryan Edwards, Matthew Gregory Lewis and Mary Prince, but also more obscure writers such as the cartographer John Luffman and the black radical Robert Wedderburn.

About the Author:
Karina Williamson is an Honorary Fellow of Edinburgh University and Supernumerary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford