Tom Zoellner On The Jamaican Revolt That Ended Slavery In The British Empire FULL INTERVIEW
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- Tom Zoellner's book Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire discusses how the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt. Jamaica was the most profitable colony for Britain in the West Indies, but it was entirely due to slave labor. Nine in ten Jamaicans were enslaved. But that would all end in 1832 and it sent shockwaves throughout the empire.
We stream our live show every day at 12 PM ET.
We need your help to keep providing free videos! Support the Majority Report's video content by going to / majorityreport
Watch the Majority Report live M-F at 12 p.m. EST at / samseder or listen via daily podcast at Majority.FM
Download our FREE app: majorityapp.com
SUPPORT the show by becoming a member: jointhemajorityreport.com
We Have Merch!!! shop.majorityreportradio.com
LIKE us on Facebook: / majorityreport
FOLLOW us on Twitter: / majorityfm
SUBSCRIBE to us on RUclips: / samseder
Image Credit, PICRYL
picryl.com/media/west-indies-...
creativecommons.org/publicdom...
Image has been cropped and color has been altered.
Emma Vigeland: Let's just talk about and set the stage for Jamaica's 1831 revolt against slavery. Place us in that time period if you could between the Haitian revolution and the civil war. How ubiquitous was slavery in Jamaica at the time? I mean I think I read in your book nine out of every 10 Jamaicans were enslaved so that's an incredible figure. Just give us some broader context and then we can begin to narrow things down.
Tom Zoellner: Sure at that point British slavery was in its 330th year. It was a lasting and extremely profitable institution for the empire. They raised sugar as a monoculture. That is to say that was really the only thing going on in Jamaica was the production of this nutritionally worthless product which nevertheless fueled an addiction back in the mother country. And in order to raise it required this unspeakably cruel institution. Which was multi-generational in nature which required fear and torture to sustain it. And what had happened was that missionaries Christian missionaries from the mother country, baptist and methodists primarily, had finally gained entrance to what was called the sugar islands. And began to spread the dangerous message that people can be free in a spiritual sense. And this bled over into a more political message that we can be free in a material sense.
Emma: And I want to touch on that because that was an incredible dynamic that you laid out. but let's back up a little bit to talking about how the British see Jamaica in the first place in the 1600s. And how that kind of set up an economy and infrastructure for what we saw 200 years later.
Zoellner: Sure. When Britain deposed its king and appointed Oliver Cromwell the word protectorate, he had an aggressive foreign policy. In particular, something called that he called the western design. Comparisons with the modern-day are always you know tricky. But you know this might be compared to you know us going into Iraq this was this patriotic thing that we're going to seize the Caribbean islands from the Spanish. And the seizure of Jamaica was kind of a comic opera. Nothing went right. But they stumbled into a military victory and claimed what happened to have been for them one of the most profitable islands in the Caribbean. And that was where you really saw slavery ramped up into a commodity-level concern.
Emma: So I mean there was the twin I guess commodities of slavery and the role that Jamaica played in that, which I want to ask you about, and sugar. So what would you say those were the two primary fundamental economic drivers in jamaica for great Britain.
Zoellner: No question those were the twin foundations of the economy.
Emma: And so then talk a little bit more about the slave trade in jamaica's role in the slave trade.
Zoellner: Sure. Jamaica was what was known as the slave depot of the Caribbean. That is to say that kidnapped human beings from Africa were taken primarily first to Jamaica and then traded throughout the rest of the British possessions in North America. The what would eventually become the United States among them. and so the harbor at Kingston and port royal was the first site of the new world that an enslaved person a newly insight person was going to see. And you know there are reports really vivid heartbreaking reports of a kind of catatonia that would descend upon those who were entering a horrific new life at that point. You know they had already survived the middle passage and what they saw in front of them was this riotous explosion of verdure. The whips, gangs, this new language.
Thx for talking more about my ppl's history in depth❤🙏🏿🇯🇲
Honor to those who fought and those who helped rebuild afterwards. The lack of shame for the horrific acts of violence that occurred under slavery always boggles my mind.
I was surprised at the number of white folk who died to stop slavery or aid slaves. It was over twenty percent of the recorded black folk's deaths; still not enough but it wasn't nothing. This is assuming the numbers are accurate. I never heard about that in history class. Both blacks and whites fighting for individual freedom. Heard plenty about how robber barons were awesome and unions suck.
Indeed, honor those who fight who fight for each other.
Unfortunately my ancestor was Governor of Jamaica 3x, President of the Council of Jamaica 2x, and was a plantation owner who amassed 8 million pounds for owning a plantation and 889 slaves during the 1700’s..
I now know more about Jamaica's history than my 2nd generation Jamaican wife!
Emma's interviewing skills keep improving. It's kinda cool to be able to watch her relatively early in what's probably going to be an interesting career.
Britain should not be allowed to forget it's role in slavery
✊🏼✊🏼 pog interview
🇯🇲 Brought me back to my childhood a little. As a Baptist, I studied Sam Sharpe in Sunday School. 🇯🇲
Nice to hear about my country's history 🇯🇲 even tho the story is horrible
It's sad because we are still under the 👑..
Man, I’ve only heard pieces of this, it’s good to hear the whole thing. One love Jamaica
Ah🤔 so now I kinda get the "cane fields scenarios" in Jamaican music...interesting stuff
the small communities described here sound a lot like the base Christian communities that the Catholics liberation theologians started in many places in Latin American in the 1970s and 1980s to empower people - they were also small, local groups
We need to hear the prospective from Black people. Why are we always told the versions of history out of the white man's mouth?
There are plenty of black scholars that discuss this issue.
@@PlanetOfTheApes999 majority report has a hard finding them.
@@jayr.7209 True, but at least the white man in this video condemns the British for treating black people so horribly. He's combating white supremacy by telling the truth about countries like Jamaica. He's certainly on your side.
Did you have internet look up some other historian talking about this if you care who the message comes from.. maybe donate and promote those black voices
Violence is not a good thing but sometimes its very necessary. Just like if your arm gets trapped under a rock and only option for life is to amputate your arm. Its not a good thing but its necessary. *not advocating for violence*
@ 24:18 OK so what are those elements of resistance. Speak their name. Write em down. Make a meme. Dammit man.
Left is best
Who owned the slave ships and controlled the trade?