Dear all,
I read Sandra's e-mail about planter mental health with interest, and as
luck would have it, spent the day working on the Fitzherbert Papers
(microfilms of which are located here in Barbados; I think the originals are
at the Derbyshire Record Office, UK). Anyway, there was a surprising amount
of material about the mental health of plantation managers and chief
overseers in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. Various bouts of
'derangement' and 'insanity' amongst this group required their replacement
by their employers.
As far as determining the actual psycho-medical problems these individuals
were experiencing, I'm afraid that's not my area. What did strike me,
however, was that descriptions of 'insanity' amongst plantation managers by
plantation owners seemed to be a discursive feaure of a 'paternalist'
mythology. Violence, indiscipline and cruelty on the plantation in question
was attributed to the 'derangement' of the manager, rather than being a
feature of enslavement per se. In other words, 'unstable'
managers/'irrational' management was represented by the plantation owners as
an abberation of an 'ideal' way of running a West Indian plantation. This
discourse of 'insanity' contributes to a white elite self-image of
'paternalistic' plantership. This, of course, brings me back to my initial
request about responses to Genovese's _The World the Slaveholders Made_...
Anyway, just some initial thoughts.
David
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David Lambert,
Ph.D. Student,
Department of Geography,
Downing Place,
Cambridge, CB2 3EN.
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