Managing the Transition to a Free Labor Society: American Interpretations of the British West Indies during the Civil War and Reconstruction

American reactions to the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865 reveal that three decades after abolition, British West Indian emancipation was still considered relevant to policy debates in the United States. The early 1860s saw a significant shift in northern views of the British Caribbean colonies, in particular as a result of the writings of William G. Sewell on the subject. For Republicans, escalating social conflict in Jamaica highlighted above all the need to prevent former slaveholders from monopolizing political power after emancipation, and this interpretation of the West Indian experience reinforced the evolving case for equal rights. Many had argued that former slaves’ economic independence had been the major cause of declining plantation production in the West Indies. However, Republicans tended to accept representations of black farmers in the Caribbean as an incipient middle class, and never concluded from the British case that access to land for freed slaves would be fundamentally at odds with maintaining future cotton production.     

Instrumental routes to emotional geographies

Emotional experiences and relationships have traditionally been marginalized in human geography despite their impact on all aspects of social life. We argue, however, that understanding emotions is crucial for appreciating how the world of human (inter)actions works. To develop this argument we address two key questions. First, we ask how it is possible for social scientists to access the intimate emotional content of human affairs. One answer to this lies in settings where the emotional dimensions of social relations are deliberately and routinely enhanced. The example we take is that of musical performance. Second, we consider what might be done with these emotional ways of knowing once they have been acquired. What relevance does emotional knowing and being have? To address this, we turn to the relatively neglected concept of social well‐being, and we outline some ways in which ‘musicking’ might be used to promote it. These include music as therapy; music as a way of enhancing quality of life; and music as a medium of empowerment.