Occupation & Control

Richard Harts book is the study of the means by which the British Government and the mainly white planters and merchants in Jamaica maintained their control for centuries over the mainly black working class and peasant masses and the emerging coloured middles classes in Jamaica. It gives a detailed history of the colonial militia, the regular armed forces, the law courts and enforcement legislation, the constitution and constitutional developments, and the process of indoctrination designed to, as far as possible, cement imperial loyalties and facilitate government by consent. The author has drawn on public records available in the National Library and the National Archives in Jamaica and in the Public Office in London and the Library of Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and has made use of contemporary writings and recollections of persons responsible for exercising these controls. This is the only existing comprehensive study of the machinery of control of this former colony, and will be of use to teachers and students of the history of the English-speaking Caribbean region and of British imperial policies.