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'Major-General Le Marchant was killed at the head of his brigade, and I have to lament the loss of a most able officer.' The Duke of Wellington after the Battle of Salamanca, 1812
The Southern Caribbean was the last frontier in the Atlantic world and the most contested region in the Caribbean during the Age of Revolution. As well as illuminating this little-understood region, the book seeks to complicate our understanding of the Caribbean, the role of 'free people of colour' and the nature of slavery.
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Situated opposite the mouth of the Orinoco River, western Trinidad has long been considered an entrepôt to mainland South America. Trinidad’s geographic position—seen as strategic by various imperial governments—led to many heterogeneous peoples from across the region and globe settling or being relocated there. The calm waters around the Gulf of Paria on the western fringes of Trinidad induced settlers to construct a harbour, Port of Spain, around which the modern capital has been formed. From its colonial roots into the postcolonial era, western Trinidad therefore has played an especial part in the shaping of the island’s literature. Viewed from one perspective, western Trinidad m...
In 1806 General Thomas Picton, Britain's first governor of Trinidad, was brought to trial for the torture of a free mulatto named Louisa Calderon and for overseeing a regime of terror over the island's slave population. James Epstein offers a fascinating account of the unfolding of this colonial drama. He shows the ways in which the trial and its investigation brought empire 'home' and exposed the disjuncture between a national self-image of humane governance and the brutal realities of colonial rule. He uses the trial to open up a range of issues, including colonial violence and norms of justice, the status of the British subject, imperial careering, visions of development after slavery, slave conspiracy and the colonial archive. He reveals how Britain's imperial regime became more authoritarian, hierarchical and militarised but also how unease about abuses of power and of the rights of colonial subjects began to grow.