Social Structure of Slave Society and the Impact of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slave Emancipation

This chapter describes colonial society as a pyramid of legal estates. It consisted of white planters from Britain who were free; free people of mixed race who were manumitted, but lacked the vote; and enslaved Africans. Legal status correlated closely with colour-class and culture, and was characterised by the differential creolization of family structures, religions, and education. The chapter concludes with the abolition of the slave trade and the movement for civil rights. It explores the role of the various social agents who set emancipation in motion—free people of colour, British missionaries to Jamaica, British abolitionists (notably Nonconformists), British Whig politicians—and the slaves themselves.