Engendering Islands: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Violence in the Early French Caribbean

In the seventeenth century, the violence of dispossession and enslavement in the Antilles was reinforced by gender, disability, and racial discourses. Ashley M. Williard's Engendering Islands explores how early Caribbean reconstructions of masculinity and femininity sustained occupation, slavery, and nascent ideas of race. She argues that gender contributed to and complicated emerging notions of racial difference that justified slavery and colonial domination, setting the stage for centuries of French imperialism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 310 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2021
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

In the seventeenth century, the violence of dispossession and enslavement in the Antilles was intricately woven into the fabric of men's and women's bodies, bolstered by reified tropes of gender, repurposed concepts of disability, and emerging racial discourses. As colonials and ecclesiastics established local practices and institutions, particularly in the realms of family formation and military force, they consolidated old notions into new categories that impacted all social groups.

In her groundbreaking work, Engendering Islands: Gender, Slavery, and Early Caribbean Reconstructions, Ashley M. Williard delves into the complex web of gender, slavery, and race in the early Caribbean. Through meticulous close readings of archival and narrative texts, Williard uncovers the words, images, and perspectives that shaped and reflected the emerging ideas of human difference. By examining juridical, religious, and medical discourses, she exposes the interconnectedness of various conditions, including male and female, enslaved and free, Black and white, Indigenous and displaced, normative and disabled, within the islands claimed for the French Crown.

In recent years, scholars have made significant strides in exploring key aspects of Atlantic slavery, yet none have approached the archive of gender, particularly in its intersection with race and disability, in the seventeenth-century French Caribbean, in a comprehensive and systematic manner. The constructions of masculinity and femininity embedded in this early colonial context offer valuable insights into the notions of otherness and the systems of oppression they sustained. Williard's work demonstrates how gender played a crucial role in shaping and complicating emerging notions of racial difference, which were used to justify slavery and colonial domination. This, in turn, set the stage for centuries of French imperialism.

Through her meticulous scholarship, Williard sheds light on the intricate ways in which gender, slavery, and race intersected in the seventeenth-century French Caribbean, challenging our understanding of these historical processes and their enduring legacies. Engendering Islands is a groundbreaking contribution to the field of early Caribbean studies, and it will undoubtedly inspire further research and debate.

Weight: 622g
Dimension: 160 x 236 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781496220240