Representing Race in the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean: Brunias in Dominica and St Vincent

This essay looks at the complexity of the representation of racial otherness in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, focusing on the work of the painter Agostino Brunias, who worked mainly in Dominica, which was an island recently taken over by the British from the French. The essay argues that such representation cannot be reduced to colonial propaganda or anthropology, but depends on a wide range of factors involving geography, the different forms of slavery, and sharp conficts of attitude among the dominant colonial settlers towards the racial mixture endemic in the Caribbean colonies.