Smith, Chelsey R.
(2024)
A Generation Rising: Education for Freedpeople in Post-Abolition Jamaica, 1834-1872.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
My dissertation explores the role of education in Jamaica from abolition in 1834 to the aftermath of the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion. There is not a single story of education in Jamaica, but rather, multiple ones; between missionaries, planters, and freedpeople, no single group expressed a monolithic perspective on the role of schooling in Jamaica after abolition. Access to education became a new frontier for freedpeople, as well as a new target for conflict. The type of education offered to Black children and adults during the post-emancipation period sometimes reinforced racialized stereotypes about them and hindered upward mobility, even as it also provided narrow access to skills and knowledge that some freedpeople valued; paving the way for more opportunities for Black and mixed-race Jamaicans to pursue jobs as teachers and preachers. Planters feared that educating Black Jamaicans might provoke thoughts of rebellion that could echo Haiti’s path to liberation. Missionaries promised education would bring Christian virtue. Actual school attendance figures tell another story: of the hardships and hopes that gave rise to freedpeople engaging and disengaging tactically and practically with schooling in post-emancipation Jamaica.
Whether attendance at available schools reflected a component of free community life, or represented a new kind of compelled labor was an open question. Tensions over this issue, shaped by the animosity between freedpeople and those in positions of power, persisted decades after the abolition of apprenticeship in 1838 and spilled over in times of economic depression. The impact of unforeseen environmental and economic conditions on Black families typically affected their level of engagement with educational institutions, and ultimately, freedpeople prioritized family survival. Afro-Jamaican parents sometimes required their children to miss school in favor of tending the family’s provision grounds or helping with domestic labor. Amid times of intense socio-economic distress, such as during epidemics and droughts, some children would stop attending school altogether until conditions improved. Despite the planters’ efforts to promote education as a mechanism of control, rather than one of possibility, freedpeople continued to live as active agents of their own destinies by carving out the meaning of freedom for themselves.
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| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
22 July 2024 |
| Approval Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
9 August 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
361 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > History |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Jamaica, Education, Abolition, Emancipation, Freedpeople, Schools, Normal schools, Apprenticeship, Slavery, Freedom, Children, Students, Teachers, Preachers, Ministers, Missionaries, Labor, Industrial Schools, Reformatories, Black Parental Rights, Learning, Amelioration, Reform, Cholera, Epidemic, Afro-Jamaicans |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Aug 2024 11:38 |
| Last Modified: |
27 Aug 2024 11:38 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46899 |
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