International Slavery Project (Slavery in the Caribbean)

Slavery in the Caribbean

Slavery in the Caribbean happened during the 17th and 18th centuries. During this time, many of the slaves were mistreated by their owners. Because of this many of them would fight back by doing things like refusing to work and to pretend to be ignorant so that they could avoid torture and so that they would not have to do as much work. The slave women would also refuse to have children. Some of the reasons why they would not have children is because they did not want to provide their masters with more slaves, to bring new life into their world of pain and suffering, and to rebel against their masters. The slave women were often the leaders of rebellions that happened, especially in Saint-Domingue, a French portion of the Caribbean, where the slaves were used to work the fields where the sugar cane grew.

(photo is from www.historical-museum.org)

(Information is from www.wikipedia.org and dl.lib.brown.edu)