"I wish they would sell her to me": Domination, Resistance and 'Intimacy' in Jamaica during the Period of Slavery

Among the myriad consequences of European incursions into the Caribbean at the end of the fifteen century were the decimation of the region’s indigenous populations, the establishment of competing models of colonization and the introduction of commercial agriculture which engendered centuries of labour exploitation, especially through the enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants. While the vast majority of enslaved persons were perceived and deployed as ‘productive units’ who satisfied the demands of capital accumulation, primarily through the production of tropical staples, some were required to labour for the comfort and social reproduction of those who controlled their labour, and many were required to do both. In this context of extreme abuse, legalized violence and vulgar dehumanization, some members of the enslaving classes established ‘intimate’ sexual and personal connections with those whose labours and bodies they legally owned and controlled. Always cognizant of the naked power relations which obtained in the context of chattel slavery, and through a conspiracy of law and custom, these connections ranged from episodes of brutal rape through short-term coerced associations to longer-term ‘relationships’. This paper explores the complicated world of ‘intimacy’ in Jamaica during the period of slavery where individuals imposed, resisted, confronted and negotiated the personal and political worlds of sexual and personal ‘relationships’ in contexts of skewed and contested power dynamics.