Randy M. Browne in Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) uses the overlooked archives of the fiscal, a legal legacy from Dutch colonialism, and protector of slaves to reveal the political dynamics of slavery in the British colony of Berbice during amelioration. By minutely mining these sources, Browne is able to uncover the multifaceted strategies of survival that enslaved people used to attempt to live through the deathtrap of plantation slavery. In doing so, Browne complicates the slave-master relationship and offers an alternative to the paradigm of slave resistance.

Louise Moschetta is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, working on Indian indentured labour in the British imperial world and beyond.
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