Blood Waters: War, Disease and Race in the Eighteenth-Century British Caribbean

The eighteenth-century Caribbean was a violent and unstable region, characterized by war, international rivalry, disease, and slavery. This book explores the region's allure as a site of potential wealth and adventure, the fragility of tropical campaigns, slave insurrection, and the efforts of indigenous peoples to gain autonomy from British and Bourbon powers. It also highlights the contrarieties of struggle, the challenges preventing subaltern groups from forging broader alliances, and the importance of tropical disease in shaping military outcomes.

Format: Hardback
Length: 246 pages
Publication date: 18 June 2021
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Far from the romanticized image of the swashbuckling genre of maritime history, the eighteenth-century Caribbean was a marchlands in which violence was a way of life and where solidarities were transitory and highly volatile. This book paints a picture of the eighteenth-century British Caribbean as a frontier zone in which war, international rivalry, disease, and slavery are paramount themes. It explores the lure of the region as a vaunted site of potential wealth and derring-do, the fragility of tropical campaigns, the nature of slave insurrection, and the efforts of indigenous peoples (here, the Miskito of the Mosquito Coast and the Black Caribs of St Vincent) to carve out some autonomy from the British and Bourbon powers. It also explores the mutiny of a slave ship and its unsuccessful raiding ventures in order to show how the dominant European powers sought to contain piracy in an expanding plantation complex. The book emphasizes the contrarieties of struggle, the difficulties preventing subaltern groups, whether slaves, free blacks, indigenous peoples, or soldiers and sailors, from forging broader alliances, and the importance of tropical disease in shaping military outcomes. It warns against romanticizing resistance in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, showing that it was instead a marchlands in which violence was a way of life and where solidarities were transitory and highly volatile.

Weight: 498g
Dimension: 162 x 240 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781783276233