Main entry:

Nelson, Charmaine, author.

Title & Author:

Slavery, geography and empire in nineteenth-century marine landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica / Charmaine A. Nelson.

Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.
©2019

Description:

xvii, 416 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Notes:
First published 2016. Issued in paperback in 2019.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- Colonialism and art : landscape and empire -- A tale of two empires : Montreal slavery under the French and the British -- Representing the enslaved African in Montreal -- Landscaping Montreal -- Landscaping Jamaica -- Imaging slavery in Antigua and Jamaica : pro-slavery discourse and the reality of enslavement -- James Hakewill's Picturesque tour : representing life on nineteenth-century Jamaican sugar plantations -- Beyond sugar : James Hakewill's vision of Jamaican settlements, livestock pens, and the spaces between -- Conclusion: Deception in the life and art of the white Jamaican Creole planter class.

Summary:

Slavery, Geography and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica is among the first Slavery Studies books - and the first in Art History - to juxtapose temperate and tropical slavery. Charmaine A. Nelson explores the central role of geography and its racialized representation as landscape art in imperial conquest. One could easily assume that nineteenth-century Montreal and Jamaica were worlds apart, but through her astute examination of marine landscape art, the author re-connects these two significant British island colonies, sites of colonial ports with profound economic and military value. Through an analysis of prints, illustrated travel books, and maps, the author exposes the fallacy of their disconnection, arguing instead that the separation of these colonies was a retroactive fabrication designed in part to rid Canada of its deeply colonial history as an integral part of Britain's global trading network which enriched the motherland through extensive trade in crops produced by enslaved workers on tropical plantations. The first study to explore James Hakewill's Jamaican landscapes and William Clark's Antiguan genre studies in depth, it also examines the Montreal landscapes of artists including Thomas Davies, Robert Sproule, George Heriot and James Duncan. Breaking new ground, Nelson reveals how gender and race mediated the aesthetic and scientific access of such - mainly white, male - artists. She analyzes this moment of deep political crisis for British slave owners (between the end of the slave trade in 1807 and complete abolition in 1833) who employed visual culture to imagine spaces free of conflict and to alleviate their pervasive anxiety about slave resistance. Nelson explores how vision and cartographic knowledge translated into authority, which allowed colonizers to 'civilize' the terrains of the so-called New World, while belying the oppression of slavery and indigenous displacement--Back cover.

ISBN:

0367432714
9780367432713

Subject:

Slavery in art.
Landscapes in art.
Imperialism in art.
Art and society Québec (Province) Montréal History 19th century.
Art and society Jamaica History 19th century.
Paysages dans l'art.
Impérialisme dans l'art.
Art et société Québec (Province) Montréal Histoire 19e siècle.
Art et société Jamaïque Histoire 19e siècle.
Art and society.
Jamaica.
Québec Montréal.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 308301
Call No.: BIB 253722
Status: Available