Contested Bodies
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
Series editors Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher
Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial, revolutionary, and early national history and culture, Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character, and with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Contested Bodies
Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica
Sasha Turner
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Turner, Sasha, author.
Title: Contested bodies : pregnancy, childrearing, and slavery in Jamaica / Sasha Turner.
Other titles: Early American studies.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] | Series: Early American studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016049308 | ISBN 978–0-8122–4918–7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Slavery—Jamaica—Social conditions—18th century. | Slavery—Jamaica—Social conditions—19th century. | Pregnancy—Jamaica—History—18th century. | Pregnancy—Jamaica—History—19th century. | Motherhood—Jamaica—History—18th century. | Motherhood—Jamaica—History—19th century. | Child slaves—Jamaica—Social conditions—18th century. | Child slaves—Jamaica—Social conditions—19th century. | Antislavery movements—Jamaica—History—18th century. | Antislavery movements—Jamaica—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC HT1096 .T875 2017 | DDC 306.3/6209729209033—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049308
For my grandmother, Mercella, and to the memory of my grandfather, Lloyd
Contents
Introduction. Transforming Bodies
Chapter 1. Conceiving Moral and Industrious Subjects: Women, Children, and Abolition
Chapter 2. “The Best Ones Who Are Fit to Breed”: The Quest for Biological Reproduction
Chapter 3. When Workers Become Mothers, Who Works? Motherhood, Labor, and Punishment
Chapter 4. “Buckra Doctor No Do You No Good”: Struggles over Maternal Health Care
Chapter 5. “Dead Before the Ninth Day”: Struggles over Neonatal Care
Chapter 6. Mothers Know Best? Maternal Authority and Children’s Survival
Chapter 7. Raising Hardworking Adults: Labor, Punishment, and Slave Childhood
Conclusion. Transforming Slavery
Map 1. The British Caribbean
Map 2. Jamaica Parishes and Towns, circa 1830
Introduction: Transforming Bodies
Suspended midair by one arm tied to a rope draped over a pulley, an unnamed African captive faced her last torment. For three weeks in the month of December 1791, she was flogged repeatedly for refusing to dance for the amusement of her captors. For about half an hour, the young girl, who was about fifteen years old, hung from her limbs, bruised and naked. Repeatedly she was whipped, hoisted, and released, her head falling inches from the ground. Her captors watched, mocked, and laughed. Several times during her ordeal, her tormentors changed her position, hanging her by each wrist, then by both hands, followed by each ankle, and finally by both wrists again. After her punishers satisfied their appetites for cruelty, they released her and instructed her to return to her quarters. From her weakened, terrified state, she collapsed, never to rise again. For three days, the unnamed girl writhed in pain as her now disfigured hands, swollen legs, and battered body trembled.1
The story of this unnamed fifteen-year-old girl was one of several accounts William Wilberforce recounted in his numerous speeches before the British Parliament persuading it to abolish the slave trade. Unlike many of the other cases Wilberforce brought to the attention of the House of Commons, this one drew national interest. Wilberforce narrated a truncated version of the brutal fate of the fifteen-year-old before the Commons on Monday, 2 April 1792, and by Tuesday, several British newspapers published the tale of the girl’s suffering. Almost two months later, on 7 June, Captain John Kimber of Bristol, the orchestrator of the girl’s punishment, faced trial for murder. The court hearing and subsequent not guilty verdict sensationalized the case, drawing further attention to the cruelty of the slave trade and the lack of justice for captive Africans.2
In the version he rendered before Parliament, Wilberforce detailed not just the manner in which the youngster was punished but also the reasons for the sentence she received and what he imagined were her feelings after the ordeal. According to Wilberforce, the young girl suffered from a disorder, which he refused to name. (Court testimonies suggested it was gonorrhea.) “Out of modesty,” he explained, she stooped down and tried to conceal her naked, infirmed body. The girl’s actions enraged Kimber, who exacted revenge by ordering