ePub Politics of Religious Freedom by From Sullivan Winnifred Fallers in History

Description

As with any enterprise involving violence and lots of money; running a plantation in early British America was a serious and brutal enterprise. Beyond resources and weapons; a plantation required a significant force of cruel and rapacious men—men who; as Trevor Burnard sees it; lacked any better options for making money. In the contentious Planters; Merchants; and Slaves; Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism; but rather out of economic logic because—to speak bluntly—it worked. These economically successful and ethically monstrous plantations required racial divisions to exist; but their successes were always measured in gold; rather than skin or blood. Burnard argues that the best example of plantations functioning as intended is not those found in the fractious and poor North American colonies; but those in their booming and integrated commercial hub; Jamaica. Sure to be controversial; this book is a major intervention in the scholarship on slavery; economic development; and political power in early British America; mounting a powerful and original argument that boldly challenges historical orthodoxy.