Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics After Slavery by Juanita de Barros (review)

For nineteenth century advocates of slavery in the British Caribbean, one of the more disquieting potential outcomes of emancipation was a lack of certainty with regards to ensuring a sufficiently large labor force and maintaining healthy population numbers in the West Indies. These concerns dominated British imperial discourse in the post-slavery nineteenth century and continued well into the twentieth. In Reproducing the British Caribbean, Juanita de Barros lays out the debates that surrounded analysis of Caribbean population numbers by making connections between "ideas about reproduction and the size and health of Caribbean populations" (14).

According to de Barros, colonial masters in Whitehall and both white and non-white groups in the Caribbean concurred that healthy reproduction was vital for the well-being of the colonies. Her arguments focus on the various reasons offered for why preserving labor after abolition proved so challenging to the British. Reproductive health among both the Caribbean population of African descent and the Indian and Chinese indentured laborers brought in to alleviate the shortage of labor was agreed upon as an allegory for the health of the colonies (p. 15). De Barros analyzes infant mortality, "traditional" midwifery practices and white fears of obeah and bush medicine, the role of white women in attempting to "civilize" Caribbean childbirth and welfare, and the importance of non-whites in informing imperial ideologies and practices.

De Barros presents two central theses. She firstly argues that whites understood that poor health and high infant mortality among the non-white populations of the West Indies was the result of "uncivilized and immoral" sexual and domestic habits rather than disease and environment (2). Secondly, de Barros contends that local black, creole, or mixed-race attitudes towards health and mortality, medical practice, and non-white healing practices informed and shaped imperial policy towards the British Caribbean from abolition in 1834-8 to the Moyne Commission of 1934-9.

The author concentrates on three locations in the British West Indies – Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana – to analyze imperial endeavor in maintaining a robust labor force after emancipation. Some readers may be concerned about her decision to concentrate on only three islands. De Barros, however, presents robust justification. The author states that the British Caribbean writ large has a "shared history of colonialism and slavery" that allows for a broad analysis and, impressively, presents narratives that demonstrate that these connections throughout the region were both present in the years after emancipation and endured well into the 1930s (158).

De Barros marshals census data, health records, contemporary medical journals, conference minutes, and imperial policy documents with considerable dexterity. Her conclusions are well informed and presented in a convincing manner. The author's use of infant mortality as an analytical tool to unveil white attitudes towards non-white sexual practices demonstrates the skill of her scholarship (51). More impressive still, however, is her discursive analysis of non-white midwives that simultaneously presents the realities of Caribbean midwifery and its perception in European society as "filthy and ignorant" (67-73).

De Barros is strongest when offering consideration of the twentieth century, the focus of the bulk of the book. Although her examination of the years immediately after emancipation is important, the temporal focus of the work is somewhat skewed. The role of locals in shaping colonial policy developed an increased relevance as calls for full independence grew louder in the 1930s. More of de Barros' thoughts on the connections between aspects of childcare and public health and independence would have been welcome. This is particularly enticing, as it was not only the colonial masters who proved concerned by Caribbean population numbers; indeed, Caribbean women and men saw child health as "a moral imperative and one upon which their reputation as civilized people rested" (127). A more cursory look at the earlier nineteenth century may have allowed more detail on...