Literature From Slaves In The Caribbean In Postcolonial Times

The colonization of the Caribbean, by the Europeans, brought about massive changes not only to the architectural landscape of the islands but to the economy, language, and much more. I will explore how the Europeans, looking to not only stake claim to these islands for their motherlands but get rich doing so without exerting much effort themselves, forever altered the social and cultural aspects of this region as well. While Caribbean nations started seeking independence beginning with Haiti in 1804, St. Kitts and Nevis did not gain independence from Britain until 1983. Regardless of when post-colonization occurred, the effects linger still today, though it is difficult to uncover stories not from a European narrative. Most of the natives and slaves were uneducated and had to rely on others to translate and transcribe their stories.

We all know Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and stumbled upon the Caribbean but it wasn’t until about 1620 that Europeans began settling there. In 1640, sugar became one of the most sought-after crops to produce in the Caribbean. The discovery that sugar grew so well in the tropical climate, brought about great interest in what could possibly be an invaluable export. The problem was, who was going to grow and maintain these plants? The indigenous people were promptly put to work. The Europeans, taking advantage of their colonization of the land, leaned on the natives and pressured them to abide by their rules. The native’s ways and culture were slowly smothered. “The inhabitants of the Caribbean found themselves pushed from the center of life, culture, and history through oppression and exploitation from the colonizer. This sociological picture of marginalization parallels the Natives’ marginalization in Caribbean literature”.

The Indigenous people were treated very poorly, and soon become enslaved and given the tough jobs that the European men didn’t want to do. When the Europeans came to the Caribbean, they brought with them new organisms and in turn many new diseases. The natives, having no immunity to these changes, began rapidly getting ill. Those who refused to work or stood up to the ruling country were killed. With the natives’ workforce dwindling, the Europeans looked elsewhere for slaves, choosing Africa due to its similar hot climate. “Estimates vary wildly, but most scholars agree that native Caribbean populations exceeded several million before contact, and declined rapidly — perhaps as much as ninety percent in some places — within the first century after European arrival. Warfare accounted for some of this decline, but the primary cause was the unintentional introduction of pathogens like influenza and smallpox (to name only two). Facing an insufficient indigenous labor supply, Europeans began to import African laborers through the transatlantic slave trade”.

The Transatlantic slave trade brought African American people to America for the most part. Other African American slaves were taken to British owned colonies in the Caribbean. The Caribbean has a very hot and humid forecast, therefore the work needed to be done to cultivate the sugar plants was very excruciating. The Europeans (Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English) that had taken over the land figured since people in Africa were more used to those climates that they could put them to work on their sugar plantations. These African slaves were also much cheaper than other white folks. “The main reason for importing enslaved Africans was economic. In 1650 an African slave could be bought for as little as £7 although the price rose so that by 1690 a slave cost £17-22, and a century later between £40 and £50. In comparison, in the 17th century a white indentured labourer or servant would cost a planter £10 for only a few years’ work but would cost the same in food, shelter and clothing. Consequently, after 1660 very few new white servants reached St Kitts or Nevis; the Black enslaved Africans had taken their place”.

The natives of the Caribbean had no written skills per say and relied mostly on an oral-only language and the imported African slaves certainly had no more education either. This makes first-hand accounts of slavery in that time extremely rare. Literature from slaves in the Caribbean in post-colonial times is sometimes hard to get primary evidence of because in that time many slaves were illiterate. It is like this because in those times white settlers didn't want slaves to learn how to read or write so that they had more power over their slaves. They didn’t want their slaves educated enough to have a good chance of escaping. We can surely imagine and figure out what the slaves were going through during this time, but have no real first-hand account of the hardships or stories of survival. Most of the slave’s literature had to be translated and/or transcribed by someone. Getting ahold of these documents can be very difficult. The stories written by slaves often must be dug up and found. Much of the Caribbean literature that can be found, grew from the opposition to colonialism. The subject matter often focused on decolonization, or the political and cultural independence of the natives and African slaves.

When we read slave literature from the Caribbean, we need to realize all the things these slaves were going through as they wrote. A big concern is that an editor or someone who was transcribing their stories would insert their own view and opinions into the writing. This is a very likely occurrence because of the lack of education the slaves received so they aren’t very good writers. 'Fewer books on slavery by slaves or ex-slaves were published in the Caribbean region than in Britain and in the Americas/United States. The literature of slavery and abolition displays the nature and construction of colonialism'. Despite the lack of education and hardships in its history, the Caribbean has given birth to a number of exceptional authors in post-colonial time such as: Herbert George de Lisser, Wilson Harris, and Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott. H.G.

De Lisser, an author and journalist, was well known for his power in print. He was born in Jamaica and contributed to one of the biggest pieces of writing in the Caribbean culture. It was called the Daily Gleaner. This was like the Times magazine in the world now. John Witherow is the editor of the Times magazine and imagine how much of his own input and opinons he can put into the magazine. “Kipling. W. Adolphe Roberts, a fellow Jamaican novelist and historian, states in Six Great Jamaicans that DeLisser was warmly praised by Kipling and Somerset Maugham”. Delisser ended up deciding to make a whole novel and called it Janes Career: A Story of Jamaica. This first novel was a big success and it featured a young black girl as the main character growing up in postcolonial times in the Caribbean. In the novel it says, “It seemed to Jane that she was expected to do everything. She was to run errands, clean the house, dust the furniture, learn to cook, help Sarah with the washing, and, it was added (with unconscious irony), make herself generally useful”. Most fourteen-year-old girls I know aren’t doing half these things they are concentrating on school, and sports, and such. Jane had to do all these things and wasn’t allowed to enjoy being a kid. This is how it was like for all slaves in the Caribbean.

Another important author is Derek Walcott. He was “born on the island of Saint Lucia, a former British colony in the West Indies, poet and playwright Derek Walcott was trained as a painter but turned to writing as a young man. He published his first poem in the local newspaper at the age of 14. Five years later, he borrowed $200 to print his first collection, 25 Poems, which he distributed on street corners”. One of his first pieces of works, In a Green Night, didn’t have much to do with slavery in the Caribbean but he later starts to write more about this topic in a later piece of writing called Omeros. It is a novel that is divided into seven smaller books and a total of 64 chapters. We can see how life was during postcolonial times for slaves. In part of the book the narrator talks about one of the characters becoming very dehydrated. The slaves are out at work on the sugar fields all day and dehydration is what comes along with that. They speak of the sun as “the glowing iron,” because it is so hot. Walcott describes a pain that transcends one person and falls as a burden across an entire race. “He believed the swelling came from the chained ankles of his grandfathers. /Or else why was there no cure? / That the cross he carried was not only the anchor’s but that of his race…”.

Sir Wilson Harris is another important writer in the Caribbean during postcolonial times. Harris was “born in Guyana in 1921, and studying at Queen’s college, Georgetown, Guyana, Sir Wilson Harris became a government surveyor, before taking up a careers lecture and writer”. He became so known for his writing there that he eventually moved to England. In England Harris wrote his very first novel which was Palace of the Peacock. In this novel Harris writes about a main character who is a white male. Throughout the story we come to realize that the only thing the white man cares about for their diverse group of slaves is that they do work. Late in the story we find out that the main characters brother has a dream, in this dream he imagines his brother abusing a Native American woman. The Native American woman stands up against this and kills Donne. Do you think this dream is moral? I would say that it is not only moral but a very righteous thing to do. As a Native American woman, you have very little power. Also, when this white man’s friends and family find out what happened there would unquestionably be grave consequences. She stood up for what was right after her abuse and got rid of it. At the end of this book it is confusing, there is no real ending. Harris relied on the information in his story to wind together and all make sense without a grand ending. Anthony Boxill says, “Nevertheless, it is because of the strong limiting influence of English literature upon West Indian literature that a writer such as Wilson Harris, who is willing to undertake radical formal experimentation, is so welcome in West Indian writing. Here, at last, is a philosopher- poet who is not content merely to criticise social imperfections but who explores more fundamental problems of human nature”.

Another Caribbean poet is Edward Kamau Brathwaite, a poet and scholar. Brathwaite went to school at Harrison College in Barbados and Pembroke College in Cambridge. He was a very wise man and knew how to write amazing poems. Brathwaite eventually gets a PhD in philosophy. Brathwaite’s work is “omnivorously synthetic, insistently local, sinuously syncopated and consistently exciting” (poetry foundation). Brathwaite has received number of honors including the Casa de las Americas Prize for Literary Criticism, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the Bussa Award. He’s also been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Guggenheim Foundation. In one story written by Brathwaite is called roots. In one part of the book Braithwaite talks about the language that salves used in postcolonial times. Brathwaite says, “I think, however, that language does really have a role to play here, certainly in the Caribbean. But it is an English that is not standard, imported, educated English but that of the submerged, surrealist experience and sensibility, which has always been there and which is now increasingly coming to the surface and influencing the perception of contemporary Caribbean people”.

Samuel Selvon was born in Trinidad where he could experience lots of diversity and multicultural influences. From this he was able to compose very excellent pieces of fiction work. On top of this he was able to get his short stories and poems published. Many Caribbean writers also wrote articles during this postcolonial time to really get their voice out there. Caribbean magazines and such would host these articles for many people to see. “Selvon began his international career with his first novel, A Brighter Sun, which is set in Trinidad and explores peasant experience during socio-economic change”. This story is about a young boy who has plans way out of his league. He witnesses failure but that doesn’t stop him from pushing forward. We all make mistakes and we can learn from those mistakes to better ourselves. The boy doesn’t want to go back to his family who are welcoming him with open arms. That would be a very easy decision, but as the boy finds out maybe not the best decision. He decides that he will start out on life by himself. We learn that this was a wise choice and that if the boy sets his mind to something, he can do it. When he is without his family he really grows by himself.

Just like Samuel Selvon, Michael Anthony was also born in Trinidad. As a young boy he was one of the lucky Trinidadians that got a chance to have an education. Here in the United States we take education for granted, and people in the Caribbean during this time would have killed for the education that we have in the Americas. Michael Anthony took his education and made the most out of it. During the postcolonialism time people lacked education and most of Anthony’s friends were likely pretty bad writers. There were very few people like Anthony that had the knowledge and skill to write a story much less a novel. The first novel he published was the Games Were Coming in 1963. Caribbean reviewers loved this novel and rated it very highly. The Games were coming, is about a boy who rides bikes. The boy has been training for a big race, training so hard that he has forgotten the other important things in his life such as his girlfriend. This story can teach everyone a lesson. We should not get too involved with one thing. We need to be multicultural.

The final author from the postcolonial times in the Caribbean I have for you to talk about is Chinua Achebe. Chinua Achebe is: “Such a big deal that people often call him the 'father of modern African literature.' He was a Nigerian writer who was one of the first to write a postcolonial novel that said, basically, 'screw you' to Nigeria's British colonizers. Chances are that if you haven't read the novel, you've at least heard of it. It's called Things Fall Apart, and it was first published in 1958”. In his book Things Fall Apart Achebe talks about how things literally fall apart for a strong native man. Achebe wrote this piece specifically so that the European peoples would see it. In European literature, the native people in the Caribbean were tagged as the bad guys. Achebe argues that the European people are the much bigger problem than the natives. The European people want to just come over and take and control native land. This isn’t right and Achebe stands up for what is right.

As we’ve seen through the authors presented above and their works, Caribbean literature seems bound to its haunted past of hardship and heartache, of slavery and disease, but perhaps most proudly - the will to survive. While the recording of the slaves’ stories is as varied and sketchy as many of the slave owners themselves, their plight was not forgotten, and resonates in the written word still today. “Oh the horrors of slavery! – How the thought of it pains my heart! But the truth ought to be told of it; and what my eyes have seen I think it is my duty to relate; for few people in England know what slavery is. I have been a slave – I have felt what a slave feels, and I know what a slave knows; and I would have the people of England to know it too that they may break our chains and set us free”. Those heart wrenching words come from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself. Whether the tales and thoughts are recorded first-hand, translated, or transcribed, they will without a doubt leave a lasting impact for every generation across every land.

Works Cited

1. Deena, Seodial F. H. Situating Caribbean Literature and Criticism in Multicultural and Postcolonial Studies. Peter Lang, 2009.
2. “Slavery in the Caribbean.” National Museums Liverpool, www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/archaeology/caribbean/.
3. Ferguson, Moira. “The Literature of Slavery and Abolition (Chapter 14) - The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-african-and-caribbean-literature/literature-of-slavery-and-abolition/B089E27B5022A3CDE41073F0E85174F1.
4. Ferguson, Moira. “The Literature of Slavery and Abolition.” The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature, edited by F. Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi, vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 238–254.
5. Birbalsingh, F. M. The Novels of H. G. DeLisser . York University.
6. DeLisser, Herbert. Janes Career: a Story of Jamaica. Heinemann, 1981.
7. “Derek Walcott.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-walcott.
8. “Sir Wilson Harris.” Literature, Faber and Faber Ltd, 1 Jan. 1970, literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/wilson-harris.
9. “The Caribbean.” Slavery and Remembrance, slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0105.
10. “Kamau Brathwaite.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kamau-brathwaite.
11. Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. Roots. The University of Michigan Press, 1996.
12. Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave, related by Herself. 1831
13. (Thomas Pringle ed.). Ed. Moira Ferguson. 2 ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
14. Liu, Kate. Selvon, www.eng.fju.edu.tw/worldlit/caribbean/Selvon.htm#reference.
15. Shmoop Editorial Team. “Chinua Achebe in Postcolonial Literature.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/postcolonial-literature/chinua-achebe-author.html.