ABSTRACT
The little known island of St. Vincent lies in the southeastern part of the Caribbean, 97 miles west of Barbados and 170 miles north of Trinidad. St. Vincent's popular appellation, "Gem of the Antilles," is richly deserved, its physical beauty long recognized by visitors and residents alike. According to Mrs. Carmichael, a pro-slavery propagandist, an elaborate system of social differentiation had developed in St. Vincent by the 1790s based on an earlier division between Whites, Colored persons or Mulattoes, and Black slaves. Whites of "secondary rank" were socially segregated from elite Whites and included estate managers and overseers, junior government officials, and small-time merchants. The free people of color held an intermediate social, economic, and legal position in society. The ambivalence this created lead to their preoccupation with social standing, especially when dealing with slaves. At the bottom of the social hierarchy lay the bulk of the colonial population, the slaves.
