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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article addresses the double erasure of both women and the slaves they owned from the conjoined histories of slavery and empire. It shows how the economic practices of free women of European and African descent helped to make Jamaica the wealthiest and largest slaveholding colony in the early modern Anglo-Atlantic world. The growth of Britain’s American colonies created novel financial and social opportunities for women. They acted as vigorous participants in a high risk marketplace that was being made global by European imperial activities. As merchants, women strengthened the economic ties between Britain and the Caribbean, and helped to make Jamaica an important commercial hub. Financial pragmatism rather than nationalist sentiments drove them to pursue trade in Spanish territories, while also profiting from the frequent military conflicts between European powers. Women’s abilities to pursue entrepreneurial ventures were deeply intertwined with slave ownership. They had a vested interest in maintaining and advancing the severe labour regime in Jamaica and elsewhere in British America. Slave ownership reconfigured women’s financial, legal and social positions. In the colony, the status of being free came to matter more than any other signifier of identity, including gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customarily, studies of urbanization in early British America have concentrated on its northern mainland seaports. This article moves beyond a thirteen colonies perspective to define and explore a Greater Caribbean urban world, with Charleston, South Carolina, at its most northerly point. In particular, the authors’ comparison of the internal dynamic of Charleston and Kingston, Jamaica, reveals an urban world that was no more dominated by the demands of the plantation sector than the northern seaports were beholden to their agricultural interiors. Significantly, however, these rich internal urban economies relied on, and were profoundly shaped by, the institution of slavery. In light of these findings, the authors thus characterize this Greater Caribbean urban zone as constituting one strand of urbanization in a larger British Atlantic world that experienced an overall expansion and diversification of the urban form across the early modern period. Most specifically, Charleston and Kingston achieved a growth rate and an economic complexity comparable to other English-speaking towns through their embrace of enslaved people and their labor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]