How can a small group of migrants, who have barely registered in the history books, have had any significance for the society into which they came? Henry Elkins, and the other foreign engineering workers, or maquinistas, who were thrown into prison with him in 1844, accused of involvement in a plot to end slavery and overthrow Spanish rule in Cuba, might have asked themselves this same question. Yet their story, along with that of the other North Atlantic maquinistas who travelled to Cuba to operate the revolutionary new steam technology that was being introduced into the island’s sugar mills, railways and mines, is revealing of the unexpected ways in which migrants might engage with and influence society. Coming from cities that had been transformed by the industrial revolution, of which they were the vanguard, they arrived in a Spanish colony dependent upon transnational commercial networks for its wealth, and African slavery for its labour. Having emigrated in search of opportunities denied them in the overcrowded labour markets from which they came, they were not disappointed, so valuable were their skills to Cuba’s position as the world’s leading sugar producer. But their high salaries and technological contributions could not buy them a place in Cuban society. Though their interaction with the complex matrix of Cuban identity divisions led them to rearticulate themselves, they were different and resented, and they found themselves increasingly defined by this otherness. Ironically, this exclusion helped them to have an unforeseen significance. This did not come through their direct agency, but indirectly, acting as catalytic influences upon wider societal conflicts and developments. Their presence exacerbated the existing social divisions and stimulated responses in rulers and oppressed, such that the superficial innocence of Elkins and his co-accused hid their profound complicity with the events in which they had become unconsciously caught up.

The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed large-scale migration from Asia to various parts of the world, including the Caribbean, through the indentured labour system. My research will analyse representations of indentured labour and Asian diasporic presence in Caribbean literature. Firstly, focussing on 19th century journals, diaries, and other texts from the archive, I will analyse how Indian and Chinese subjects are represented. Following this, a similar analysis will address 19th-century literary representations of Asian subjects. Thirdly and in response to these foregoing analyses, this thesis will be concerned with how 20th-century authors renew and rejuvenate representations of indentured labourers and their descendants. The theme that runs through the thesis is death in its literal and symbolic sense. Throughout this thesis, I will pay close attention to the migrant's relation to the voyage, the sea (kala pani), and arrival in the Caribbean, tracing how these become symbolically important. The thesis will be concerned at each stage with tracing migrant transnational experience and identity; as such, the focus for some subjects is their identification with or relation to the creolisation process. Questions of gender and sexuality will also be important categories for analysis, as will religious beliefs, socio-cultural practices, and the use of vernacular forms. The structuring of narrative time and form within each work will be examined with the aim of revealing the ideological underpinning behind the texts and enabling a comparison. Some authors, such as Cristina García, examine Britain's global imperial presence and explore interdependencies and relations among various colonial structures and locations. In this respect, the connection between the indenture system and opium production, distribution, and consumption is analysed with regard to its affect on the representation of both Indian and Chinese subjects as well as the wider implications for Empire. Therefore, the representation of how events and agendas in Asia impact upon migration and the Caribbean experience will figure in my analysis of the subject as a contested site of multiple colonial histories and trans-local affiliations.

This thesis examines how rival national interests and relations between European states, principally France and Britain, affected ethnic relationships on the island of Grenada, West Indies throughout the period of 1763-1800. The arguments postulated are: 1. Imperial ideologies reinforced assumed superiority and right to rule that relegated all other groups to inferior status. 2. An ethnic model rather than a racial model is the best way to study Grenada plantation society. 3. The stigmatised in society fractured into ethnic groups, forming dynamic relationships, not fixed structures, that were flexible to fit their needs, value,s and beliefs. 4. The need to dominate or participate in that society coerced inter-ethnic alliances across boundaries (considered anathema), creating reprisals from the ruling group. 5. British government policies and officers‘ lack of leadership created a vacuum for constitutional conflict and inter-ethnic internal feuding and contributed to Fédon‘s revolt. Chapter One is an introduction to outline the pre-history of the area of study to explain differences between groups. It will outline the topography of the island, explain the system of government, and describe the composition of the initial resident population. Chapter Two establishes the concepts ‗ethnicity‘ and ‗race‘ and its importance. The European ethnic groups and their relationships are examined using this model. The concept of ‗whiteness‘ is addressed and its external and internal effects. An argument postulated is white hegemony existed as a fractious union where coerced whites perceived to be complicit with Catholics, were targeted and socially ostracised. Another important focus is the roles of governors and their relationships and alliances with the planter class within society. The term Creole and their standing vis-á-vis with European whites provides another layer within society in conjunction with the critical delineation of social class across white groups in society. Chapter Three defines the concept of Coloured and the range of perceived physical characteristics and legal differences, i.e., the concepts free and un-free. As the largest social grouping the role of Africans is pivotal, viz. their place in society and relationships with other groups. African differences are assessed, particularly the Grenada Maroons and their position and interaction within society and with another ethnic group, the Caribs. Chapter Four examines the status of governors and employs a case study of the last decade of Ninian Home: an examination of his character, lifestyle, his attempts to became governor, political lobbying, relationship with his family, his administration and how it contributed to the Fédon Rebellion. Chapter Five summarises the thesis and explains how the postulated arguments are met.

This thesis is the first major investigation into the representations of Vodou within the cultural productions of Britain and America. It also opens up opportunities for further research to be undertaken in the representations of Vodou, Haiti and the culture and religions of other Caribbean countries. This thesis explores the representations of 'Voodoo,' the widely accepted and recognised term for the re-imagined religion, in Britain and America since 1850. The history of the Caribbean and Haiti is examined before considering the influence that the religion of Haitian Vodou has had on cultural production. Through a historical perspective the thesis will consider the evolution of Vodou during the horrors of slavery. The historiographic representations form the basis of the productions and are explored to contextualise Vodou in the British and American imagination. All genres of literature are examined, from the first mention of Vodou in the eighteenth century through to the present day. This is followed by an examination of the cultural reproductions of Vodou in film, animation, theatre and television to explore the diversity of the representations. The wider societal influences are considered throughout this work to contextualise the productions of 'Voodoo'. This thesis argues that the cultural reproductions of Vodou since 1850 have not changed greatly, despite various efforts to redress the misrepresentations, they remain rooted in colonialism. It will argue that many of the cultural productions are reliant on previous representations. They do not in the majority introduce authenticity, instead opting for the more sensational approach. Many of the representations will be shown to be derogatory to the religion, culture and people of Haiti and the diaspora. This is despite Vodou as a religion having survived, gained strength and continuing to thrive in the twenty-first century.

This thesis is a study of the changing way in which part of the British Empire was being governed during a period of far reaching developments both in Britain and in the plantation colonies. The colonies referred to are the old British West Indian islands -- Jamaica, the Leewards group, Barbados, Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada and Tobago -- and those colonies conquered by Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in which sugar planting was carried on by means of slave labour. The dates chosen do not denote precise limits to the period. The Colonial Office had its unintended beginnings in 1801, in 1834 slaves were emancipated in the plantation colonies, and the central years for this study lie between these dates, certain themes are followed beyond them. In this area and period an account is given of the changing of government. This concerns the institutions within the colonies and those in Britain which had a direct part in the conduct of colonial affairs; it involves the purpose of the institutions, their form and their interrelationships. At the end or the 18th century the traditional way of governing the old plantation colonies was to leave internal government to those resident In the colony and to maintain virtually only sufficient authority in Britain to ensure the preservation of the system of trade and navigation. Under the old representative system the governor, in theory, possessed wide powers, in practice his authority was narrowly confined and the regular conduct of administration was beyond his control. Colonists had developed and adapted their institutions and powers so that they largely governed themselves. In Britain there was no desire to intervene in the internal affairs of the plantation colonies, nor was there the machinery to enable the executive to do so. The institutions which existed matched the contemporary concern to maintain the system of trade and navigation. Such colonial business that there was was executed by the department with the responsibility for the relevant service: there was no department with a general responsibility for the area of the colonies, nor was there any adequate method of coordinating the activities of the different ministers and boards involved with administration in the colonies.

L’histoire des expansions européennes est peuplée d’ethnonymes dont l’évocation seule suffit à figurer les confins de la civilisation et à résumer les espoirs déçus des empires coloniaux. Autant de noms exotiques que l’on prononce, tels des emblèmes de la résistance indigène opposée à tout effort de conquête. Caraïbes est de ceux-là qui, sitôt entrés dans les chroniques européennes, ont été érigés en légende. Or, au-delà des discours hérités et convenus, que savons-nous de ces Indiens, de leurs logiques, de leurs pratiques, de leurs représentations sociales, ou des relations qu’ils entretiennent avec les Français au XVIIe siècle ? À dire vrai, fort peu de choses. Ces questions, bien que sorties des mortes-eaux de l’histoire coloniale, n’ont suscité que peu d’intérêt. Elles n’ont été qu’effleurées dans des monographies insulaires, ou dans des ouvrages consacrés à l’occupation archéologique de l’archipel. C’est en écho à ce constat un peu trop vite entériné qu’a pris forme le projet d’écrire une histoire de la cohabitation entre Français et Caraïbes au XVIIe siècle. La présente recherche aspire donc non seulement à apporter un éclairage sur ce chapitre, mais également à désenclaver des histoires généralement séparées dans la production scientifique. Aussi, souhaitons-nous que cette enquête, à l’intersection des histoires coloniales et indigènes, conduise à revoir nos grilles d’analyse, en tenant compte des réflexions développées par l’ethnologie et l’archéologie, afin d’éviter les écueils de l’histoire-récit. Les circulations et les échanges entre Indiens, Européens et Africains, où prime le facteur humain, seront par conséquent au cœur de l’intrigue. / In the stories of European expansion, many ethnonyms are synonymous with barbarism (as opposed to civilization) or with the failure of the colonial empire. These “exotic” demonyms became the symbols of the resistance of the natives against any attempt of conquest. “Caraïbes” (Caribs) is one of the names which became legendary as soon as it appeared in the European chronicles. But beyond the inherited and agreed discourses, what do we know about these Caribs, their logics, their practices, their social representations, or their relations with the French settlers during the seventeenth century? It must be acknowledged we know next to nothing about these Indians, despite the historiographical revival in the field of colonial history over the last decades. The Caribs have only been touched upon in monographs concerned with such or such island, or in books focusing on archaeological occupation of the archipelago. On the basis of these observations, this doctoral thesis explores the history of the cohabitation between the French and the Caribs in the seventeenth century. It also attempts to open up stories which have generally been studied separately although they all belong to the same scientific field. Such project, at the intersection of colonial and native history, will therefore take into account archaeological and ethnological research in order to avoid the pitfalls of story-telling. As a consequence, the circulation and exchanges between Amerindians, Europeans and Africans, in which the human factor prevailed, will be an essential field of investigation.