Review

General Books

The British West Indian colonies chose not to join the thirteen mainland colonies in rebelling against Britain, but remained loyal members of the empire. Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy explains why, in spite of similarities in their political institutions and ideology, this was so. Even the close trade relationship between islands and the mainland colonies was not sufficient to draw the sugar islands into the American Revolution. Further, O'Shaughnessy shows that the security of the wealthy sugar colonies was taken so seriously by the British government that maintaining it contributed to Britain's defeat in the Revolutionary War and the loss of the thirteen colonies. The background of this situation is well known to those who study the institution of slavery in the West Indian islands as a contrast to slavery in the American south. The large amounts of capital that were available for investment in sugar production allowed planters to capture economies of scale on large estates worked by slave labor. Workers endured especially harsh working regimes comparable only to the South Carolina rice fields in the eighteenth century. The planters prospered, but faced a demographic disaster similar to Virginia's in the seventeenth century. They could not sustain families, and the ravages of malaria and yellow fever frequently shortened their own lives. Those who survived and made their fortunes left their plantations in the hands of overseers and fled to Britain. There they were known for their wealth. A number served in the House of Commons and became part of the influential West India lobby in London.	1
Demographic failure and the flight of planters created a dangerous situation in the islands. The planters lived in fear of the black majorities and of fierce maroon communities of escaped slaves in Jamaica and the Windward Islands. These fears were not misplaced since the white minority exacted labor from a black population that far outnumbered it. In response to their fears planters demanded that British soldiers be permanently stationed in the West Indies. Local legislatures paid both officers and men cash subsidies in addition to their regular pay, and paid for the cost of their barracks and hospitals. The islands also required the services of the navy to protect them from attacks by foreign enemies. Taxpayers in Britain and the West Indies paid a high price to sustain the monopoly of high-priced West Indian sugar on the home market. These circumstances tied the colonists in the West Indies to Britain. Nevertheless, the planters were British and no more abandoned their notions of the rights of assemblies and of the illegality of taxation without representation than did their brothers on the mainland. However, they did not claim that their assemblies were equal in power to parliament, nor did they attack parliament's sovereignty. Mostly, they were concerned with the privileges of their own governments. West Indian assemblies challenged their governors' prerogative powers vigorously. The long struggle between Governor Lyttleton and the Jamaica assembly over the members' right of free speech is a case in point. But during the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s, local assemblies were not overly concerned with parliament's efforts to tax the colonies, even though the sugar islands were taxed more heavily than the mainland colonies. Although other historians have believed that there was revolutionary fervor in the islands, O'Shaughnessy denies that it existed. Even the Stamp Act riots on St. Kitts and Nevis, he shows, were instigated by the islanders' fears of a boycott of their ports by mainland merchants on whom they depended heavily for food supplies. It was fear of famine and slave revolts that drove the rioters and kept the assemblies quiet.	2
O'Shaughnessy also shows how the British need to defend the sugar islands affected the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The British government could never bring its armed might to bear on Americans because of the need to protect the vulnerable Caribbean islands. Human behavior influenced the disposition of naval power too. The outcome of the Battle of Yorktown might have been different if Admiral Rodney had thrown his full force into intercepting de Grasse's fleet as it sailed for the Chesapeake, instead of lingering to plunder St. Eustatius. The book's virtues make it a must for libraries in colleges and high schools. O'Shaughnessy manages to present detailed accounts of the situation in individual colonies, while holding together his argument. In a masterly and thorough way, he explains that the sugar colonies did not revolt, indeed never seriously considered doing so, because they were habituated to the riches the protected home market offered, and were too terrified of their slaves to consider fighting against Britain, whose laws and traditions they revered, and whose armed might kept them safe.	3
Illinois State University   Susan Westbury

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