New Negroes from Africa: Slave Trade Abolition and Free African Settlement in the Nineteenth-Century Caribbean(Blacks in the Diaspora)

In 1807 the British government outlawed the slave trade, and began to interdict slave ships en route to the Americas. Through decades of treaties with other slave trading nations and various British schemes for the use of non-slave labor, tens of thousands of Africans rescued from illegally operating slave ships were taken to British Caribbean colonies as free settlers. Some became paid laborers, others indentured servants. The encounter between English-speaking colonists and the new African immigrants are the focus of this study of the Bahamas and Trinidad—colonies which together received fifteen thousand of these "liberated Africans" taken from captured slave ships. Adderley describes the formation of new African immigrant communities in territories which had long depended on enslaved African labor. Working from diverse records, she tries to tease out information about the families of liberated Africans, the labor they performed, their religions, and the culture they brought with them. She addresses issues of gender, ethnicity, and identity, and concludes with a discussion of repatriation.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Potential Laborers or "Troublesome Savages"? Settlement of Liberated Africans in the Bahamas
2. "Binding them to the trade of digging cane holes": Settlement of Liberated Africans in Trinidad
3. "A fine family of what we call Creole Yarabas": African Ethnic Identities in Liberated African Community Formation
4. "Assisted by his wife, an African": Gender, Family, and Household Formation in the Experience of Liberated Africans
5. Orisha Worship and "Jesus Time": Religious Worlds of Liberated Africans
6. "Powers superior to those of other witches": New African Immigrants and Supernatural Practice beyond Religious Spheres
7. "Deeply attached to his native country": Visions of Africa and Mentalities of Exile in Liberated African Culture
Conclusion: African Creoles and Creole Africans
Appendix 1. Reports of Liberated African Arrivals in the Bahamas from Governors' Correspondence
Appendix 2. Reports of Liberated African Arrivals in Trinidad from Governors' Correspondence
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Rosanne Marion Adderley is Associate Professor of History at Tulane University in New Orleans.

"For the student of Caribbean culture, Adderley's work fills a gap in the available scholarship. Her study offers strong evidence that the creolization process in the Caribbean was neither a simple nor a unidirectional affair . . . Adderley's book is an important addition to any Caribbean library. Vol. 84, No. 3 & 4, 2010"—New West Indian Guide
"Rosanne Adderley's study focuses on the Bahamas and Trinidad and the particular interactions there between English-speaking colonists and the new African immigrants, who . . . numbered some fifteen thousand. She describes the new African communities that were forged where before there had been only slave labour, and through her research uncovers how these African families lived . . . . No. 114 April-Oct. 2007"—British Bulletin of Pubs Latin America,...
"This interesting and well researched book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the multifaceted experiences of the "liberated Africans" who were brought in the nineteenth century to the Caribbean and, through them, to the cultural history of the African experience in the Americas. Vol. 47.1 (Jan. 2008)"—Bridget Brereton, University of the West Indies
". . . A complex study, extremely well researched and presented, and an important contribution to the cultural history of the African diaspora. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice