Description
Edward Long’s three-volume work marks an incredible turning point within the historiography of Jamaica, as the primary attempt at a comprehensive description of the colony, its history, government, other people, economy and geography. The son of a prominent Jamaican plantation owner, Long (1734-1813) spent twelve years running his father’s property, an revel in which permeates his vision of the island’s past, present and long term. Long defends slavery as ‘inevitably vital’ in Jamaica, suggesting the institution to be implicit within the ‘possession of British freedom’. Volume 3 covers the natural history of Jamaica, including descriptions of weather phenomena and a list of native flora of potential interest to British importers. It is also a translation of the French ‘code noir’ governing slavery, proposed as a model for long term British legislation. This necessary 1774 book provides fascinating insights into eighteenth-century colonial Jamaica and the ideology of its commercial and administrative elite.