Young historians' challenge

By Devon Dick

TWO YOUNG historians, Daive Dunkley and Dave Gosse, recently launched Agency of the Enslaved and Abolition and Plantation Management, respectively, at the Ardenne High School.

Dr Dunkley's thesis is that "we need to shift from seeing resistance as the pursuit of freedom, instead view these as the accommodations that the enslaved needed to make in order to assert their right to be acknowledged as free". For Daive, running away was not done in response to slavery, but was an assertion of freedom that the enslaved always knew they had.To provide an exclamation to his point, he quoted from an 1823 list that had the title "Persons committed to Goals and workhouses as Runaways, but who declared themselves to be Free". The enslaved always saw themselves as free. The enslaved were born free and no individual or institution of slavery could alter that state of mind and being.

Daive, a Warwick graduate, is challenging Harvard professor, Jamaica-born Orlando Patterson. Patterson's epic work, Freedom in the Making of Western World, had claimed that freedom was "socially created" and an "invented value" of the West and even credits Christianity with a role in freedom being cherished in the West. Daive is stating that whether or not there was slavery, the enslaved would assert they were free. Therefore, the resistance was not to attain freedom, but rather to assert the freedom they have.

SLAVES IN ENGLAND

Daive cites the Somerset case of 1772 and states that "slavery was not practised in England". However, according to F.O. Shyllon, writing in Black Slaves in Britain, the ruling in the Somerset case decided that "black slaves in England could not forcibly be removed from England". Furthermore, James Oldham, in The Mansfield Manuscripts, and the Growth of English Law in the Eighteenth Century states, "Popular history credits Lord Mansfield with freeing the slaves in England through the decision in the Somerset case. That he did not free the slaves is by now agreed and is a point featured in modern scholarship on slavery". Contrary to Daive's citation and subsequent inference, these quotes show that slavery was indeed practised in England. In fact, the ruling of Mansfield correctly understood, strengthens Daive's argument about the agency of the enslaved who asserted their freedom even when Mansfield only ruled that a slave owner could not forcibly remove an enslaved from Britain.

Daive also challenges the popular view that the Anglican Church catered to the planter class only. He presents data to support his claim on the number of enslaved persons who were baptised. However, concerning pastoral figures, he had the Anglicans as nil in 1805 and Native Baptists as nil in 1841. This error is due to his relying on one source for the data, namely Baptist missionary James Phillippo. However, Daive has in his bibliography reference to The Cross and the Machete which has a detailed table on pastoral figures of five denominations. If he got his figures right concerning pastoral support, it would strengthen his argument about the work of Anglicans among the enslaved and his overall thesis on the agency of the enslaved.

Gosse is also challenging some received historical wisdom. His contention is that the planters wasted time fighting political battles rather than concentrating on the economic implications resulting from the abolition of the slave trade. He explores through detailed footnotes and numerous figures and tables the relationship between plantation management and productivity. This work will have important best practices for Jamaican businesses in this new economic environment.

These two outstanding works by these young historians challenge us to rethink old reasoning and to apply better research to making our society prosperous.

PS

Maurice Facey, on the occasion of his 50th wedding anniversary, gave a witty and romantic account of how he met, wooed and married Valerie - the stuff of a soap opera. He challenges all businessmen to balance one's professional and personal life. May his soul rest in peace.

Rev Devon Dick, PhD, is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. He is author of The Cross and the Machete; and From Rebellion to Riot. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com.