ABSTRACT
Learning how to work hard was considered an essential aspect of the 'civilization' of enslaved people, and effects of the emancipation settlement of 1833-1838 were therefore qualified and ambiguous in the Caribbean, where celebration of the 'freedom' of slaves overshadowed reality of continuing oppression. Through enslaved labour outside the British empire and intermediate forms such as indentured labour, British industrial capitalism after emancipation 'depended more on slave labour, and on a larger scale, than it ever did on its own sugar plantation regimes'. In the post-emancipation era of penal justice, abolitionists helped to create the prison system as the central mechanism for governing the relationship between capital and labour in the Caribbean. Despite the diverse continuities between Caribbean slavery and post-emancipation forms of exploitation, the people also need to acknowledge their specificities and innovations. Transcending the dichotomy between ‘slave’ and ‘free’ by defining the specificity of post-emancipation experience allows the reader to understand the reality of violence, coercion and abuse.
