Beyond Massa Review

The book under study is entitled “Beyond Massa – Sugar Management in the British Caribbean. 1770 -1834” was written by Dr. John F. Campbell. John F. Campbell is a Ph.D. Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the West Indies. Dr. Campbell has earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and his Masters of Philosophy at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, majoring in History. He received his second Masters of Philosophy as well as his Ph.D. from Cambridge University, England. Since 2001, Dr. Campbell lectures at the University West Indies where he specializes on aspects of contemporary Caribbean civilisation and culture. Dr. Campbell is especially noted for being the recipient of several awards and his literary works and collaboration dealing with issues of Caribbean affairs and development. “Beyond Massa - Sugar Management in the British Caribbean, 1770-1834” strives to investigate the workings of the plantation life of both the enslaved and the European whites who were recognized as their “masters”.

It probes deeply into the truth about slavery and revisionism, as this book challenges many past conceptions of events and verdicts on slavery with various supporting evidence. Dr. Campbell focused on the British Controlled Caribbean territory of Jamaica and specifically on the Golden Grove plantation which was owned by Chaloner Arcedekne (1780-1849), an absentee owner and managed by his close friend, Jamaican-born Simon Taylor (1740-1813). Simon Taylor, as an estate attorney, controlled three cattle ranches and six sugar plantations, Golden Grove, one of the six. It should be noted that owner absenteeism from plantations was fairly common during British occupancy of the Caribbean. In “Beyond Massa”, based on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, masters (owners or overseeing managers) of sugar plantations were faced with several difficulties and the book also emphasized the social relationships which formed between the enslaved people and...