Hubs of empire : the Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean

Hubs of empire : the Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

viii, 244 p. ; 22 cm.

972.9 M955 2014

(OCoLC)879584078

Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-236) and index.
Contents: Prologue: Rethinking Regions in Colonial British America -- Chapter One. Plundering and Planting the Greater Caribbean -- The Greater Caribbean -- Native Peoples and Native Societies -- Early English Incursions : Privateering and the Tobacco Trade -- Colonization of the Leeward Islands and Barbados -- Chapter Two. The Sweet Negotiation of Sugar -- Tobacco and Cotton Societies -- "This King of Sweets" -- The Rise of Slavery -- Leeward Island Transitions -- Chapter Three. Jamaica -- Jamaica and the Western Design -- Planting, Plunder, and Trade -- "A Constant Mine" -- Chapter Four. "Carolina in ye West Indies" -- The Colony of a Colony -- The Rice Revolution -- The Greater Lowcountry -- Chapter Five. "In Miserable Slavery" -- The Slave Trade -- The World of Work -- The Reaper's Garden -- Family Life, Culture, and Religion -- Resistance and Rebellion -- Chapter Six. Creole Societies -- Social Divisions -- Life in a Region of Death -- Women and Family Life -- Social and Cultural Life -- Chapter Seven. Trade, Politics, and War in the Eighteenth Century -- "A Grand Marine Empire" -- Local and Imperial Politics -- Warfare -- Eighteenth Century Conflicts -- The Treaty of Paris -- Epilogue: The Political Crises of 1760s -- Essay on Sources.
L2014M159
Mulcahy argues that it is useful to view Barbados, Jamaica, and the British Leeward Islands, along with the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, as a single region. Separated by thousands of miles of ocean but united by shared history and economic interest, these territories formed the Greater Caribbean. Although the Greater Caribbean does not loom large in the historical imaginations of many Americans, it was the wealthy center of Britain's Atlantic economy. Large-scale plantation slavery first emerged in Barbados, then spread throughout the sugar islands and the southeastern mainland colonies, allowing planters to acquire fortunes and influence unmatched elsewhere--including the tobacco colonies of Maryland and Virginia. Hubs of Empire begins in the sixteenth century by providing readers with a broad overview of Native American life in the region and early pirate and privateer incursions. The author examines the development of settler colonies during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, explores diverse groups of European colonists, and surveys political, economic, and military issues in the decades before the Seven Years War. The plantation system achieved its fullest and harshest manifestation in the Greater Caribbean. The number of slaves and the scale of the slave trade meant that enslaved Africans outnumbered Europeans in all of the affiliated colonies, often by enormous ratios. This enabled Africans to maintain more of their traditions, practices, and languages than in other parts of British America, resulting in distinct, creole cultures--Provided by publisher.

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