Social Control in Slave Plantation Societies: A Comparison of St. Domingue and Cuba

First published in 1971, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's comparison of two developing sugar plantation systems -- St. Domingue's (Haiti) in the eighteenth century and Cuba's in the nineteenth century -- changed the focus in comparative slavery studies. Hall establishes that slavery and race relations in any given time and place were determined by strategic needs, the raison d'etre of the colony, evolving economic and demographic factors, and above all, by the need to preserve social order in colonies where the slave population was large, active, competent, resourceful, and independent minded. She delineates a pattern of racism rising and entrenching itself as a matter of public policy, as a means of bolstering the exploitative system, a pattern that recurred throughout the hemisphere.

Author: Gwendolyn Midlo Hall
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 05/01/1996
Pages: 184
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.08w x 0.46d
ISBN: 9780807120835

About the Author

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall is professor of history at Rutgers University and consulting professor of history at the University of New Orleans. Her second book, Africans in Colonial Louisiana, has won numerous prizes, including the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association and the Elliott Rudwick Prize of the Organization of American Historians. Her latest book is Love, War, and the 96th Engineers (Colored): The World War II New Guinea Diaries of Captain Hyman Samuelson.

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