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5 - Metrics of Mastery

Race, Migration, and Political Arithmetic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2024

Justin Roberts
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

This chapter begins to explore the impact of slave majorities and limited white migration and settlement to the tropics. This chapter starts with Barbados in the middle of the seventeenth century, showing that the island had held a substantial white majority population and that it was the most densely settled place in England’s overseas empire before a mix of disease and emigration combined with dwindling immigration led to a sharp decline in the white population. The chapter details the increasing black to white ratios at tropical sites across the colonies after the dispersal of white settlers from Barbados. The English tried to mitigate their fears of these emerging racial imbalances by turning to new modes of political arithmetic to socially engineer populations and recruit more European migrants. English colonial architects started to calculate exactly how many white settlers would be necessary to ensure the survival of the English in the tropics and counter the new crisis in political economy. These constructed metrics helped to entrench ideas about racial distinctions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fragile Empire
Slavery in the Early English Tropics, 1645–1720
, pp. 204 - 238
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Metrics of Mastery
  • Justin Roberts, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
  • Book: Fragile Empire
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622288.008
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  • Metrics of Mastery
  • Justin Roberts, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
  • Book: Fragile Empire
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622288.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Metrics of Mastery
  • Justin Roberts, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
  • Book: Fragile Empire
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108622288.008
Available formats
×