In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

New Citizens, New Sexualities Nineteenth-Century Jamettes Rosamond S. King The abolition of chattel slavery caused upheaval everywhere and every time it happened, literally creating new citizens out of people previously categorized as property. This was certainly the case in Trinidad when emancipation became official in 1834. By the late nineteenth century the transformation of Trinidadian colonial society was well under way, with the transition from Spanish to British colonial powers, the arrival of Indian and Chinese indentured workers to take over plantation labor, and the rise of the black Creole jamette class.1 Not surprisingly, the new black citizens in this colony inhabited citizenship in new ways and created new behaviors and social practices. Black Creole Trinidadians’ citizenship was necessarily different, both literally and materially, from their own previous status on the island and from the European minority’s citizenship. Jamettes in particular were known for wreaking havoc upon Victorian morals, particularly with their sexualized Carnival performances and with the many street protests led by jamette women. Indeed, the social and economic transition of emancipation, combined with mass black migration away from plantations to cities, encouraged the possibility for and the expectation of the creation of new social and political identities and practices that were exemplified by jamettes. The term jamette itself is unique to Trinidad and other eastern Caribbean Creole languages and derives from the French diamêtre, originally referring to those considered below the “diameter” of respectable society.2 Jamettes were poor black Creoles who worked in marginal or illegal sectors such as prostitution and gambling. The available archive of information about them largely comprises articles and editorials from colonial newspapers and colonial laws that attempted to restrict their behavior, especially women’s behavior in general and transvestism in particular. As I detail in this essay, because jamettes dominated both emerging social protests and sexualized Carnival performances, we can and should link these behaviors to the creation of new citizenship and, in part, new sexualities. 215 New Citizens, New Sexualities Migrating from rural to urban areas was a typical way for many Creoles to distance themselves from the work they had done as slaves. But in Port of Spain and San Fernando, Trinidad’s two main cities, the poor had few options . Most worked as domestics or manual laborers, and many were unemployed . The implicit promises of emancipation—primarily upward economic mobility and control of one’s body, labor, and relationships—remained largely broken or unfulfilled. “Freedom” consisted of inadequate and limited employment and education and was further restricted by the laws and ordinances passed to control black bodies and behavior. Not able to fully inhabit their new “citizenship,” limited though it was, and with insufficient legitimate jobs available, frustrated but enterprising poor black Creoles discovered and created underground industries below society’s respectable “diameter.” In the late nineteenth century, jamettes became notorious for behavior that scandalized whites. Their modes of work and play offended the upper classes—as did their protests of government laws and policies. Although during slavery black Trinidadians were not permitted more than token participation in Carnival, shortly after emancipation in 1834 the urban Creole poor began to dominate the festival, in part because of their increased presence in the urban areas around which Carnival activities were centered. Participation in Carnival was, in effect, a tangible benefit of their new citizenship, one that was often used to mock and sometimes to scare the elite. Since its beginnings as a festival for the French planter class, Trinidadian Carnival has provided both a time and a space in which social, racial, and sexual taboos were allowed to be exposed and broken. Carnival occurs in the days just before Lent begins, and its costumes, characters, music, and dances often express irony and social or political commentary as well as pleasure (see Cowley; and Hill). As black Creoles and jamettes in particular participated in the festival more, they changed its tone to include “ridicule and derision” of Europeans (Pearse 21). Significantly, Carnival existed then and still exists in the public sphere, in which performance and display are privileged over restraint or modesty.3 For jamettes, Carnival became an opportunity for men and women whose work was often hidden—in the dark, inside, or “underground”—to appear in public and in daylight, reminding others of their presence, “getting on bad” and shocking the middle class and elites. Indeed, the importance, especially for recent ex-slaves, of playing “mas,”4 of taking over public space and choosing the manner...

Share