DOC Slaves; Freedmen and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius (African Studies) by Richard B. Allen in History

Description

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.