First-Hand Account of Jamaican Apprenticeship System After 1834 Emancipation - Historical Memoir by James Williams | Perfect for Caribbean History Studies & Black History Education

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In this, one of the few autobiographies of a Caribbean slave, a young man describes his oppression under the apprenticeship system that replaced the British slave trade. Originally written in 1837 by James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican apprentice and former slave. A Narrative of Events documents the harsh working conditions on Jamaican plantations and the unjust treatment of the apprentices. Williams forcefully argues that the new system was actually worse than the one it replaced as planters and magistrates conspired to use the Jamaican legal system to effectively keep the apprentices in a type of "legal bondage".

This account caused a tremendous outcry when it was first published in Britain, and was widely used by abolitionists to demonstrate to the greater public the evils of slavery. As such, it was central in the campaign to fully abolish slavery in all its forms in Great Britain's colonies. Also included in this edition is the entire testimony of the Commission of Inquiry, which verified and validated the narrative.

James Williams

(1837), 2014, 5" x 8", paper, 119 pp.

ISBN: 9780486789637

111-W8963