Christienna Fryar on the Emancipation of Jamaica

Hidden Histories

Christienna Fryer talks to Helen about the emancipation of slaves in Jamaica in 1838. While the colonial government thought that a similar plantation system might exist with the addition of wages, their formerly enslaved subjects disagreed. Christienna talks about how Jamaicans resisted British rule, and particularly about the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865, which caused brutal British repression. The likes of Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and J. S. Mill discussed whether the British response could be justified and came to very different conclusions.

Christienna looks at how people in Jamaica resisted and challenged colonial structures and systems, and how in challenging them, they helped to reshape them. She talks about one particular case in the Kingston Lunatic Asylum that would change how the British approached asylums all over the empire, as well as much more.

Christienna Fryar is a lecturer in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London. Find out more about her here: https://www.cdfryar.com/

Find out more here: https://www.ukri.org/news/100-new-generation-thinkers/

Producer: Peter Curry

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