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A review by 2treads
Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War by Vincent Brown
5.0
There is a certain satisfaction, a fulfilling openness when you read a well-researched, illuminating account that traces a significant part of your island's rich, dark, bloody, and oft times colonially-drenched history.
Brown gives us just that with Tacky's Revolt: he delves into just more than the almost year long revolts that saw the destruction and paralysis of the empire's wealth, he details what must have been the slave's strategy, how they communicated, and how in their execution, they were able to achieve success or failure.
He traces the emergence of the slave trade, the dominion of the trade routes, battles and skirmishes between the colonial nations, and the role played by powerful kingdoms and tribes of Africa along the Gold and Slave Coasts in supporting or opposing the slave trade.
Brown also shows the duplicity of the white man, how their accounts both marveled at yet undersold the intellect and staunchness of our ancestors, how it took them a while to adapt to the battle stratagem of the slaves, how they had to move towards securing a treaty with the Maroons in order to have a chance at quelling rebellions and catching runaways.
It is important to note that Brown goes beyond just the revolts and uprisings on the island of Jamaica, he also traces the prowess of the enslaved, how they assembled, and the influence of their battle experience that they would have retained from the motherland and it rippled from island to island.
Revolts and rebellions caused cascading effects that affected more than the productivity of plantations: they unsettled white "sensibilities", planted fear, mobilized the army and navy of the colonial settlers, led to emboldening enslaved on other nations, and disrupted shipping and commerce upon which the "empire" depended. What is clear, is that there exists a connecting thread across colonies that succeeded in debilitating the evil undertaking that was the Slave Trade and enslavement.
Thank you to Vincent Brown for bringing an aspect of my country's history that is not spoken about or reflected on enough.
Fantastic record of the revolts that shook the colonial 'empire' and set off answering reverberations across other colonies.
Brown gives us just that with Tacky's Revolt: he delves into just more than the almost year long revolts that saw the destruction and paralysis of the empire's wealth, he details what must have been the slave's strategy, how they communicated, and how in their execution, they were able to achieve success or failure.
He traces the emergence of the slave trade, the dominion of the trade routes, battles and skirmishes between the colonial nations, and the role played by powerful kingdoms and tribes of Africa along the Gold and Slave Coasts in supporting or opposing the slave trade.
Brown also shows the duplicity of the white man, how their accounts both marveled at yet undersold the intellect and staunchness of our ancestors, how it took them a while to adapt to the battle stratagem of the slaves, how they had to move towards securing a treaty with the Maroons in order to have a chance at quelling rebellions and catching runaways.
It is important to note that Brown goes beyond just the revolts and uprisings on the island of Jamaica, he also traces the prowess of the enslaved, how they assembled, and the influence of their battle experience that they would have retained from the motherland and it rippled from island to island.
Revolts and rebellions caused cascading effects that affected more than the productivity of plantations: they unsettled white "sensibilities", planted fear, mobilized the army and navy of the colonial settlers, led to emboldening enslaved on other nations, and disrupted shipping and commerce upon which the "empire" depended. What is clear, is that there exists a connecting thread across colonies that succeeded in debilitating the evil undertaking that was the Slave Trade and enslavement.
Thank you to Vincent Brown for bringing an aspect of my country's history that is not spoken about or reflected on enough.
Fantastic record of the revolts that shook the colonial 'empire' and set off answering reverberations across other colonies.