The number of academic peer reviewed books and journal articles that are open-access online and cover Atlantic and Caribbean history, is increasing. A few key publications are listed in this article including The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy Scotland and Caribbean Slavery, 1775–1838 by Dr. Stephen Mullen and published by the University of London Press in 2022; Heritage, Landscape and Spatial Justice: New Legal Perspectives on Heritage Protection in the Lesser Antilles by Dr. Amanda Byer published by the Sidestone Press in 2022; and a peer reviewed journal article by Professor S. Karly Kehoe and Dr. Ciaran O'Neill in the Journal of British Studies. “A Colony to Themselves”: Scottish Highland Settler Colonialism in British North America, 1770–1804." As well as a new peer reviewed journal Black Histories: Dialogues, first published in 2023, and will be published biannually.
The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy Scotland and Caribbean Slavery, 1775–1838 by Stephen Mullen (University of London Press, 2022). The book abstract outlines the book as follows: "this important book assesses the size and nature of Caribbean slavery’s economic impact in British society. The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy, a grouping of West India merchants and planters, became active before the emancipation of chattel slavery in the British West Indies in 1834. Many acquired nationally significant fortunes, and their investments percolated into the Scottish economy and wider society. At its core, the book traces the development of merchant capital and poses several interrelated questions during an era of rapid transformation, namely, what impact the private investments of West India merchants and colonial adventurers had on metropolitan society and the economy, as well as the wider effects of such commerce on industrial and agricultural development. The book also examines the fortunes of temporary Scottish economic migrants who travelled to some of the wealthiest of the Caribbean islands, presenting the first large-scale survey of repatriated slavery fortunes via case studies of Scots in Jamaica, Grenada and Trinidad before emancipation in 1834. It therefore takes a new approach to illuminate the world of individuals who acquired West India fortunes and ultimately explores, in an Atlantic frame, the interconnections between the colonies and metropole in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Source: University of London Press.
Heritage, Landscape and Spatial Justice: New Legal Perspectives on Heritage Protection in the Lesser Antilles by Amanda Byer (Sidestone Press, 2022). The book abstract states that "the Caribbean region faces particular environmental challenges as a result of colonial land use, pressures from tourism and globalisation, as well as climate change. No less affected are its heritage resources, which include natural and cultural elements crucial to economic survival and local identity. This research explores the relationship between land, law and heritage in order to better understand the regulatory failures that undermine heritage protection in the English-speaking Caribbean. Using a spatial justice lens to examine the legal framework of eight islands in the Lesser Antilles, the analysis posits that domestic heritage laws are ineffective, because they ignore the relevance of local places or landscapes to the formation of heritage. Relying instead on ideas of land as abstract property rights, heritage is presented as a mere visual embellishment that can deteriorate into an unsightly and costly burden for the landowner or State, rather than the outcome of dynamic and locally unique interactions between people and place. While domestic laws continue to classify heritage as objects, sites and buildings with fixed aesthetic value, international law has adopted a more progressive stance, placing community relationships with landscape at the heart of heritage protection strategies. Empowering communities to contest unsustainable treatment of the landscape can potentially lead to the recognition of the value of landscape integrity to sustainable heritage, and influence change at the national level. Integrating landscape considerations into the legal framework can make law more responsive to the nuances and limits of the local cultural and natural environment. These dynamic landscape processes are also relevant to debates concerning climate change, ecosystem degradation, access to public spaces and environmental human rights. As such, this work should be of interest to legal practitioners in heritage and environmental law, planners, geographers and other academia exploring socio-legal approaches to sustainable development." Source: Sidestone Press.
Kehoe SK, O’Neill C. “A Colony to Themselves”: Scottish Highland Settler Colonialism in British North America, 1770–1804." Journal of British Studies. Published online 2024:1-18. doi:10.1017/jbr.2023.141
This article includes mentions of the Catholic Church in the Caribbean. The abstract stated that "this article explores the links between anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom and the acceleration of settler colonialism in British North America, and it does so by considering two group migrations from Catholic districts in the North West Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Occurring over 30 years apart, the Glenaladale settlement (1772) in Prince Edward Island and the Glengarry settlement (1803) in Upper Canada offer instructive insight into how anti-Catholicism activated Highland Catholic colonial agency. Not only did significant numbers of Highland Catholics choose to quit Scotland forever, but their settlement in places like Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada accelerated the process of settler colonialism and the establishment of the Catholic Church. The colonies at Glengarry and Glenaladale were peopled by settlers who were doubly motivated to settle in the empire. They stood to prosper economically—certainly—and they also stood to gain the freedom to practice their faith free of obvious interference. To the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral lands they settled, the consequences were not softened by this pretext for settler colonization, and too often the history of anti-Catholic discrimination in the four nations elide the fact that Catholics were enthusiastic colonizers elsewhere, and that the two processes were often related." Source: Journal of British Studies.
"Black Histories: Dialogues is a biannual, peer reviewed journal that publishes original and current research on a global understanding of the histories of people of African descent. The journal takes a multi-disciplinary approach within historical studies, including the social, intellectual, economic, political, and financial. Black Histories aims to showcase original research around intersectional themes such as race, class, gender, and identity as well as focusing on economic and/or socio-political issues within a historical framework. The journal seeks to encourage studies of Black Britain and the wider African diaspora as well as continental African societies, through a lens that will foreground complex and multi-layered themes through critical analyses." Source: Taylor and Francis, Black Histories.
This post will be updated with new open access publications, periodically.
The Historical Research International Inc. and Dr. Joanne Collins-Gonsalves have no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this article, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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