Voluntarism and Political Conflict in Barbados, 1814–33*

Abstract The impact in British Caribbean colonies of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 have been well documented, yet parliamentary intervention in these colonies during the decades between merits further investigation. This article addresses the 1815–16 debates on the failed Slave Registry Bill and the 1824 creation of the Anglican diocese of Barbados and their influence on the associational practices of the island colony. It uses parish, diocesan and voluntary society records from Barbados as well as pamphlets and parliamentary minutes from the metropole to ask why representatives of the colonial government, the new diocese, resident planters and free people of colour saw voluntarist charity as an effective response to the changing political environment of the early 19th century. Moreover, it inquires as to how conflicts within and between these groups laid bare the fissures of white supremacist governance leading up to emancipation. This article suggests that in response to revolt, reform and parochial decline, colonial elites appropriated proslavery redefinitions of notions like ‘humanity’ in organising voluntarist charities simultaneously to meet the expectations of metropolitan sensibilities and to exclude free people of colour from an emergent civil society.