Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823 [Paperback]

With thorough, judicious research, Yale history professor da Costa reconstructs "one of the greatest slave uprisings . . . of the New World," which occurred in the British colony of Demerara, now known as Guyana, in 1823. She records the debates in Britain and its outposts over rights and reforms, showing how planters and missionaries differed and how the colony's slaves grew resentful of the pace of change. Missionary John Smith, drawn to Demerara by serendipity, became a convert to the slaves' causes and was blamed for the rebellion; he was sentenced to death, but died in jail. Da Costa suggests, rather, that some 12,000 slaves, stimulated by rumors of freedom and by harassment, linked to one another by family and work loyalties, started the uprising on their own, seizing their plantations. Though only three whites died during the rebellion, hundreds of slaves were killed or wounded and 33 were executed after summary trial. The conflict ultimately influenced the British decision a decade later to abolish slavery in its colonies. Illustrations not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Da Costa re-creates the historical moment of one of the most massive slave rebellions in the history of the Americas--the uprising of 9000 to 12,000 blacks in August 1823 in Demerara, the British colony in northeastern South America, later known as Guyana. With precise, penetrating analysis, the Brazilian-born Yale historian and winner of a MacArthur fellowship exposes and examines the antecedents of the three-day carnage and the subsequent highly controversial trials of captured rebels. Relying on local and world perspectives drawn from abundant archival records and broad reading in the recent scholarship on slavery, antislavery reform, and religion, da Costa offers a sensitive and skillfull portrait that captures the rules and rituals of repression and recalcitrance in a slave society in the Americas on the eve of abolition. Highly recommended for collections on slavery, antislavery, blacks, and the British Caribbean.
- Thomas J. Davis, SUNY-Buffalo
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Slave rebellions have generally proved to be rather nasty affairs, and the rebellion of slaves in the British colony of Demerara (now Guyana) was no exception. The violence was horrific, though the retaliatory violence of the slave masters far exceeded anything perpetrated by the slaves. However, as da Costa's outstanding chronicle illustrates, this rebellion was not a mere expression of incoherent rage. On the contrary, the slaves fought for clearly defined objectives on the basis of the premise that their "rights" in an unwritten but understood social contract had been violated. Da Costa, a superb writer and a superb historian, unfolds his narrative like a Greek tragedy, in which all the major characters fall victim to their own hubris. Masters and slaves are revealed as players in a game they cannot hope to fully understand. Perhaps the most tragic figures were English missionaries like John Wray and John Smith; they were caught between the demands of Christian compassion and egalitarian sentiments toward the slaves and their "duties" toward their race and class as British subjects. Da Costa has given us a riveting drama and a magnificent historical tract. Jay Freeman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

An engrossing history of an obscure incident: the 1823 mass uprising of slaves in the South American British colony of Demerara (present-day Guyana). Da Costa (History/Yale) draws on ample primary sources- -diaries, plantation records, letters, and records of legal proceedings, including complaints of the slaves themselves--to draw a riveting picture of the Demerara colony: Approximately 5,000 free people, half white and half black, lived among 77,000 slaves who worked the colony's 60 plantations. On August 17, 1823, 9,000- 12,000 slaves, inspired by the recent French, American, and Haitian revolutions, surrounded plantation houses throughout the colony, smashing windows, menacing masters and overseers, and seizing weapons. The uprising provoked a savage reaction from colonial authorities: In over three days of fighting, more than 255 slaves were killed, while during the few days the slaves held power only three whites were slain. Da Costa views the crisis from multiple viewpoints (of course, accounts by whites dominate the record): Planters who defended the colony's inhumane economic system blamed English missionaries for fueling the rebellion, while the missionaries, who decried the slave system, condemned the oppressiveness of the masters. Da Costa describes the career and political trial of John Smith, a missionary who defended and identified with the slaves: Smith was condemned to death for inciting the rebellion, then died in prison while his appeal for clemency was pending. In the end, while Parliament declined to censure the Demerara authorities, the rebellion and the excesses of the planters ``gave a boost to the abolitionist movement'' and hastened the end of slavery in Demerara and elsewhere in the empire. A first-rate account of a little-known episode that had large consequences for Britain and for the world: careful, professional scholarship married to a well-told story. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Extraodinarily moving and analytically nuanced....This book certainly represents an impressively significant contribution to the historiography....Among the outstanding achievements of this work is its common accessibility to specialists across a variety of disciplines as well as the general reader. Eminently readable and solidly researched, this work deftly explores the multifaceted links between individuals and groups, colony and metropolis, and divergent views of the world."--American Historical Review

"A first-rate account of a little-known episode that had large consequences for Britain and for the world: careful, professional scholarship married to a well-told story."--Kirkus Reviews

"A riveting drama and a magnificent historical tract."--Booklist

"A riveting account of the rebellion that gave new urgency to the British Anti-Slavery Movement."--Quarterly Black Review

"Da Costa triangulates brilliantly between the worlds of the slaves, the slave owners, and the missionaries to bring alive the irony and tragedy of this great rebellion. I know of no other study that goes so searchingly and movingly to the ideological heart of a slave revolt."--James C. Scott, author of Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance

"With thorough, judicious research, Yale history professor da Costa reconstructs one of the greatest slave uprisings...of the New World.'"--Publishers Weekly

"In a narrative of extraordinary depth, da Costa has not simply recounted the horrors exposed in a major slave revolt and its suppression, she has used the revolt to explore the complex web of human relations, the hopes and fears, the hatred and compassion, that lie beneath the formal structure and outward activities of every society."--Edmund S. Morgan, author of American Slavery, American Freedom and The Challenge of the American Revolution

"[Viotti da Costa] has made effective use both of the background material and of a considerable mass of both primary and secondary sources....This book is a skillful representation of an important episode into which many attitudes and strands of feeling and their interaction were woven."--Labor History

The night of August 17, 1823 saw the start of one of the most massive slave rebellions in the history of the Western Hemisphere, the uprising in the British colony of Demerara (now Guyana), in which nearly twelve thousand slaves took up arms against their masters. In Crowns of Glory, Emilia Viotti da Costa tells the riveting story of this pivotal moment in the history of slavery. Studying the complaints brought by slaves to the office of the Protector of Slaves, she reconstructs the experience of slavery through the eyes of the Demerara slaves themselves. Da Costa also draws on eyewitness accounts, official records, and private journals (most notably the diary of John Smith, one of four ministers sent by the London Missionary Society to convert Demerara's "heathen"), to paint a vivid portrait of a society in transition, shaken to its foundations by the recent revolutions in America, France, and Haiti. Casting new light on the nuances of racial relations in the colonies, the inevitable clash between the missionaries' message of Christian brotherhood and a social order based on masters and slaves, and the larger historical forces that were profoundly eroding the institution of slavery itself, Crowns of Glory is an original and unforgettable book.

2 halftones, 2 maps, 7 linecuts

A native of Brazil, Emilia Viotti da Costa is Professor of History at Yale University, and the author of The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories.