Child Slaves in the Modern World

3: Youthful Rebels: Young People, Agency, and Resistance against Colonial Slavery in the British Caribbean Plantation World

64 3 youthful rebels Young People, Agency, and Resistance against Colonial Slavery in the British Caribbean Plantation World cecily jones enslaved children: context, significance, and aims Shortly after the October 1823 discovery of an alleged plot by enslaved Afro-Trinidadians to rise in revolt against their owners, Mrs. Carmichael, mistress of Laurel Hill estate, encountered a group of “young negroes” singing a catchy tune. Intrigued by the song, though not fully understanding its lyrics, Carmichael cajoled a youngster, “J,” to repeat the song. However, J hesitated, warily confessing, “Misses, it no good song,” one that would likely offend his mistress, though he personally “no mean bad by it.” Eventually Carmichael’s authority prevailed, and the youth reluctantly sang: Fire in da mountain,1 Nobody out for him Take me daddy’s bo tick [dandy stick] And make a monkey out of him. Chorus. Poor John! nobody out for him, &c. Go to de king’s goal [gaol], You’ll find a doubloon dey Go to de king’s goal, You’ll find a doubloon there. youthful rebels in the british caribbean plantation world 65 Chorus. Poor John! No-body out for him &c.2 Only then did Carmichael realize that it was “an insurrectionary song” with ominous overtones for Trinidadian whites. Carmichael understood the satirical lyrics to mean that when the bad negroes wanted to do evil, they made for a sign a fire on the hill-sides, to burn down the canes. There is nobody up there to put out the fire; but as a sort of satire, the song goes on to say, “take me daddy’s ‘bo tick’” (daddy is a mere term of civility ), take some one’s dandy stick, and tell the monkeys to help to put out the fire among the canes for John (meaning John Bull). The chorus means that poor John has no-body to put out the fire in the canes for him. Then when the canes are burning, go to the goal [gaol], and seize the money.3 Despite its inflammatory nature, Carmichael dismissed the song as “negro poetry,” which is puzzling, given its insurrectionary context and the probability that the phrase fire in da mountain referred to the recent troubles. My concern however lies not with the “mediated insurrection,” but rather with what the episode may reveal about the antislavery consciousness and resistance practices of enslaved young people. While the historiography has illuminated the complexity of enslaved resistance , it has yet to systematically address the ways in which young people responded to their enslaved condition. Colonial slavery was as much a system of social control as of economic production, and of the control of African children as of enslaved adults. Childhood and adolescence represented critical stages in the lives of the enslaved, as reflected in many slave owners’ accounts. During these formative years, children imbibed the racialized ideologies of the wider social order, gained insight into the value systems of black and white societies, were socialized into acceptance of their unfree condition, prepared for their future roles as laborers, and developed antislavery consciousness.4 A close reading of slavery narratives from the perspectives of enslaved and owners strongly suggests that most children followed the lead of enslaved adults; and while some adopted accommodationist strategies that enabled them to withstand the rigors of slavery, most imbibed, developed, and acted out resistances practices. Childhood historian Stephen Mintz persuasively argues for greater attentiveness to age as a cultural and social construct. Mintz suggests that age, like gender, race, and social class, functions as a category of organizational 66 cecily jones power and hierarchical relationships. However, while age is increasingly becoming a category of historical analysis, its influence on the master narratives of plantation slavery remains tenuous. Thus, although Wilma King’s Stolen Childhood and Marie Jenkins Schwartz’s Born in Bondage represent seminal moments in the scholarship on enslaved childhood in the American South, Caribbean historiography remains stubbornly adult centered.5 This chapter analytically privileges enslaved children, whom I represent not as mere appendages of their parents or—from the planters’ perspectives —future laborers-in-waiting, but as complex, conscious, active beings whose very presence and actions indelibly defined the social relations of their societies. Specifically, enslaved youth are conceptualized as agents of historical and social transformation, as evidenced by their manifold practices within the resistance movements of the enslaved. situating enslaved children within historiography In their respective scholarship, historians Hilary Beckles and Deborah...