Annika Raapke: "Who Do You Think You Are? Making names and digging up roots after emancipation in Swedish St. Barthélemy, 1846-1853”

Beskrivning:

After the abolition of slavery in the Swedish Caribbean colony of St. Barthélemy in 1846/47, around 500 formerly enslaved women, men and children began new lives. Caribbean research has tended to emphasize that, in economic terms, the conditions of these new lives would not differ greatly from slavery. Yet in other respects, emancipation made an enormous difference. Formerly enslaved people had become legal persons, and they were able to engage with institutions such as the church in order to officially record identities and family backgrounds which had been hidden by slavery. For the first time, they had a say in determining who they were.