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Title:No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870
Author:Diana Paton
Reviewer: Marcus Goffe
Publisher: Duke University Press (2004)
Paperback: 291 pages
AUGUS MAWNIN, to many slaves, represented freedom. However, little did they know that the law was to be a form of post-emancipation bondage.
This book gives a detailed and analytical look at the role of the law in Jamaica, and in particular the cultural, social and political history of punishment, prior to and after emancipation and up to the aftermath of the Morant Bay rebellion. The book seeks to address the problems and conflicts that confronted all in the post-emancipation era in the delicate balance of a newly freed plantation society.
PUNISHMENT SYSTEM
Chapter 1, entitled 'Prison and Plantation' , outlines the prison and punishment system that prevailed during slavery.
In the early 1770s, workhouses were established to punish enslaved people. From the slaveholders' perspective, the workhouses also demonstrated to Britain that they could govern their slave societies themselves. The chapter highlights in clear terms the conditions of prisons, methods of slaves becoming imprisoned, the role of slave owners in imprisonment and in maintaining law and order, and attempts at rehabilitation in prisons. It shows how prisons in Jamaica housed large numbers of people committed without judicial procedures, the majority were imprisoned for life, many imprisoned by order of their private slave masters and not the state. This period was characterised by predominantly privately controlled corporal punishment on plantations rather than in prisons.
Chapter 2, entitled 'Planters, Magistrates and Apprentices', details the transition from slavery to apprenticeship and how that changed power and punishment in Jamaica. After emancipation, the Jamaican planters were now forced somewhat to relinquish power to state-controlled institutions and officials. The law now became the supreme bond.
APPRENTICES IN CONFLICT WITH STATE
The enforcement of work discipline was now the prerogative of the state and brought apprentices into conflict with the state in a different way. The State was now both liberator and work enforcer, trying to balance the desire to emancipate, educate and civilise the ex-slaves, and the reality of the need for continued plantation production. Special or stipendiary magistrates were appointed to hear complaints by planters and apprentices. A police force was created to enforce the law and the decisions of the magistrates and to suppress disturbances on plantations and inflict punishment, usually flogging, for a range of crimes.
Chapter 3, 'Treadmill and the Whip', graphically traces the history of flogging as the prevalent form of punishment. Although it had been abolished prior to Emancipation, flogging was reintroduced in the 1850s, although flogging of women was prohibited. The treadmill was seen by the State as a more progressive and humane form of punishment and became widespread and heavily relied upon in the pre-emancipation era.
CHANGING SOCIAL RELATIONS
Chapter 4, titled 'Penality and Politics in a 'Free' Society', discusses the attempts at reform of the penal system to meet the changing social relations of full emancipation, as well as other aspects of race, gender and hierarchy, both within the prisons and the wider society. As the planters lost their hold on the apprentices who were now free, their cruelty which was characteristic of this period, led Britain to once again step in and regulate by passing the West India Prisons Act, prescribing British prison standards, which was strongly resisted by local Jamaican planters. This chapter is complete with statistics of Jamaican prisoners in the 19th century as well as examples of the type of circumstances which led to imprisonment.
Entitled 'Justice and the Jamaican People', Chapter 5 is the most interesting as it links the historical analysis of previous chapters with the modern-day realities of power, race and political relations in Jamaica. The author credits William Knibb as the first person to declare in a court in Jamaica that there was 'no justice' for black people. Records from several Jamaican courts from 1838 - 1887 as well as reports from newspapers such as the Falmouth Post, The Despatch, The Colonial Standard and The Morning Journal, are used to analyse relationships between planters and labourers in the local courts of the period. It relates differing ways in which Jamaicans embraced and/or rejected the established justice system.
The author states that generally, in the early post-emancipation period, Jamaicans were eager to submit conflicts to courts. Many black people attended to watch court proceedings as they sought to learn how to enforce their rights as free Jamaicans, some even assisting in the search, capture and punishment of wrongdoers, the seeds of vigilante justice sown. However, in addition to perceived biases, the cost of court and the irregularity of court hearings, led many to alternative or complementary forms of justice, including the use of obeah and locally-organised people's courts or community councils, consisting of black deacons and other respected citizens, and comprising locally-appointed magistrates and lawyers. These were documented predominantly as existing in St. Thomas in the East where, arising out of rejection of an official court ruling, the Morant Bay Rebellion was started. The author closes this chapter by speaking briefly of the state reformation which followed the rebellion.
In her conclusion, the author compares historical Jamaica to modern-day Jamaica, discussing issues such as political tribalism, inner-city gang warfare, extra-judicial killing by police, anti-state music and globalisation of poverty. What is clear is that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
This book is a must-read for all political aspirants in Jamaica, and all students of Jamaican politics or history. The book in its entirety, including its 50 pages of endnotes, makes for excellent reading and gives an insight into where we are coming from and where we need to go, as we seek to continuously reform Jamaica for the better.
