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Sugar In The Blood: A Family's Story Of Slavery And Empire (2013)

by Andrea Stuart(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0307272834 (ISBN13: 9780307272836)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Knopf

review 1: This fascinating book recounts the slave history of Barbados and the West Indian islands. Andrea Stuart begins with her 8th-greatgrandfather's immigration to Barbados from England in the early 1600s and traces how the island evolved from a society of primarily white to primarily black people. We learn that the very concepts of racial identity arose with the slave trade as white planters had to find a way to insulate themselves from the barbarities they inflicted upon African slaves. The West Indies became an economic engine for Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries as the demand for sugar turned these islands from a wilderness to manicured cane plantations. The wealth that built mansions in London was created by a plantocracy built on the lives and bodies of slaves. P... morearticularly interesting to me is Stuart's analysis of slavery's on-going impacts to both the West Indian and America societies. Stuart is an artist at weaving her own family history into the history of the islands.
review 2: a beautiful book. stuart has traced her family way back to the 1600's of barbados where her very great great etc. british grandfather ashby settled and made his way in the new world when sugar was king. ashby's male descendant would have a few long term relationships with african slaves and stuart is a product of one one such relationship. she balances her disdain for the west indian institution of slavery [ which is vividly portrayed in all it's awfulness ] with her interest in seeking out these british relations who struggled mightily getting a foothold in the new world. less

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