ABSTRACT
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company’s (RMSPC’s) Dee departed from Valparaiso in late May 1848 and stopped at Panama before proceeding to Jamaica, Cuba, and several of the Windward and Leeward Islands. The vessel subsequently called at St Thomas in the Danish West Indies on 15 July (The Standard, 5 August 1848). The Dee arrived in Southampton almost three weeks later on 4 August 1848, bringing with it the usual news despatches. These were published in newspapers in England the following day. On the occasion of this particular journey, the RMS Dee brought to British shores
a combination of news and lurid rumours. The Examiner of London reported:
On the 10th July a slave insurrection took place in St Croix, one of the Danish Antilles. They demanded their freedom, which was granted, deposed the
governor, Von Scholten, rescued the prisoners from prison, and set fire to and destroyed an immense deal of property all over the island. Part of the town was fired. (The Examiner, 5 August 1848)
The Hampshire Advertiser alternatively recounted:
The whole of the property of the Danish Island of St. Croix has been destroyed, owing to an insurrection of the Negroes, who deposed the Governor and demanded and obtained their emancipation. About 5000 men were at one time in arms. The insurgents committed frightful excesses; to infuriate themselves they mixed hogs’ blood with rum and drank it to excess. (Hampshire Advertiser & Salisbury Guardian, 5 August 1848)
In fact, the events reported in the newspapers had been gathering force since the beginning of July 1848, when the enslaved population in St Croix had begun to revolt and make demands for their freedom (Hall 1992, 208-209). As the August newspaper accounts illustrate, the arrival of the mail steamer was an integral part of imperial communications, since these vessels brought news – in this case dramatic news that struck a particular chord in the long wake of the Haitian Revolution (Geggus 1985, 113) – from Caribbean colonies to European spaces. The arrival and departure of steamers between colonies proved particularly impor-
tant to the circulation of information. When news of the insurrection reached St Thomas on 6 July, military support was dispatched from that island. From St Thomas, the Royal Mail steamer Eagle proceeded to Puerto Rico, where the Captain General dispatched infantry and artillery within five hours of receiving the intelligence (The Standard, 5 August 1848). However, contrary winds prevented these troops from reaching St Croix until the uprising had largely subsided and the troops only arrived on the island on Saturday 8 July (The Standard, 5 August 1848). Thus, during the first two weeks of the month, revolutionary impulses swept through St Croix, with enslaved individuals gathering, marching, rioting and claiming freedom. Yet the island’s incorporation into the steamship network brought a counter-revolutionary impulse. The RMSPC’s steamships, in this case, carried news of revolt to Puerto Rico and in this way facilitated a military mobilisation that conflicted with enslaved people’s claims to freedom. The case of St Croix starkly illustrates the significance of the steamship timetable, and the rhythms of arrivals and departures within the Caribbean region. These arrivals and departures – the concern of this article – mattered to island lives, and notably to the mercantile community. Firstly, I discuss the significance of historical oceanic rhythms and suggest that the ocean, as a different kind of material space (Peters 2012) produced a set of rhythms which strained against those of the land. This had particular kinds of consequences for projects of empire, which became frustrated and were necessarily altered within watery spaces. Secondly, in ‘Smoothing the steamship timetable’, my focus is upon the establishment of these steamship rhythms. Subsequently in ‘Steamship pauses’ and ‘The great event of the fortnight’, I turn to the intersection between rhythms at sea and those on shore. As these sections will indicate, steamship rhythms prompted island responses and necessary negotiations at mundane as much as at exceptional moments in the nineteenth century Caribbean. Phillip Vannini has examined the maritime rhythms of ‘everyday life’ through a contemporary focus on ferry mobilities
A.
