Beyond Massar by Dr John Campbell

Felisha Ramjohn

Dr. Campbell

Foun 1101

6 November 2014

        Beyond massar, a schloarly book written by Dr John Campbell, published by calaloux publications in 2012 carries us on an indept journey into the complex world of chattel slavery in the British Caribbean during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Campbell a lecturer in the department of history at the university of the west indies received his second Masters of philosophy as well as his Ph.D from Cambridge University. England. Since 2001, Dr Campbell a reputable and highly intelligent lecturer has passionately lectured at the UWI where he specializes on aspects of Caribbean civilization and culture.

        Beyond massar in its entity,can be described as a revisionist book, revisionism is critically examining established theories and hypothesis in order to test their validity. It revises the standard notion, that control and submission of the enslaved people was merely achieved through chains and whips and that the enslaved were completely helpless and powerless to the schemes of the white managers.Being wholly impartial it offered insight on the experiences of the female enslaved population and their important role on the plantation. According to sociologist C wright Mills the sociological imagination requires us above all to 'think ourselves away' from the familiar routine of our daily lives in able to look at them a new.

In context  Beyond Massa requires readers to think themselves away from the familiar literature that has lived for so long in order to look at them through  new lenses.             

                    Carribbean history has forever been complicated when ask what is Caribbean history ? There is some level of confusion as to what this really means.Caribbean history is one that is eurocentric in nature in that it has been written through the  whites  perspective. The history of the Caribbean is distorted and corrupt and biased on all levels. Taken for exoample is a letter written by a planter”maliciously given in all their dealing deceitful great drunkards seldom at peace with their neighbors ignorant of discipline hardly above beasts”(Campbell 50).

          Only until the arrival of the whites has Caribbean “history” been officially documented. When speaking about history it's important to ask, whose story ? Is it merely his story, and  who is he, is he the white elite man or the enslaved indgenous or African man? Further what about her story?It has been a challenge for the Caribbean person, one searching for his/ her identity in knowing  the “truth”. According to Mark Twain  “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” 

        Beyond Massar is definitely not the first to revise the system of plantation  slavery, works like Eugene Genovese's Roll jordan Roll, William Dusinberre's Them Dark Days have all sought to include the enslaved perspective into their accounts of plantation life and management(11). However  these were  basesd on the American south .This book has been written to bridge the gap in the analysis of managerial  stategies from the perspective of the enslaved in any of the British West Indian sugar colonies,hence one can see the importance of such a book.

                  The author's purpose of this book is to firstly redefine history, in the process of doing this an inducing and effectual argument is developed, to prove that even though the enslaved was branded as chattel and seen as merely a commodity or “uncivilised animals,” coercion could not  have never been the only means used by the sugar managers to exercise contorl over the enslaved. The book is not stating that it was not often used but rather, the system and structure of the sugar industry was far more complex and organised than it documented. The the social relationships that occured betwen enslaved workers and white managers is also highlighted. The argument that may take the reader by surprise is that, in relation to the  “center of power” the elite enslaved men, and women both white and black had some form of authority in the daily running of the plantation. To increses the credibility of the text the author examined archival materials in Trinidad, Jamaica, and the united kingdom.

     “ Parliment, prior to the legislation (the abolition of the slave act ), had been already passed over 100 laws accommodating the slave trade those laws allowed the slaves to be treated as property, not as people.Many died, yes some were murdered in the most criminal circumstances, with no redress. “

          To some readers the book may come across as drawing away from the brutal reality of slavery which most persons will want to know of. It is true that things like branding and beheading occurred.However,not with the intention of downplaying the evils of slavery which can be fully understood when read ,Beyond Massar simply draws attention to another aspect of this harsh cold reality of the slave production.This book builds a most impressive, elucidate,  clear cut, logical but complex argument which states that  managers had no choice but to implement the HRM(human resouce management) strategy to it's management style and turn away from coercive measures as the dominant method of control .This point was a persausive one put across by the writer, and could be understood by one who may have only believed that management syle was one based only on coercion, it effevctively opens the reader's mind  to another side of the plantation system.

        One who is familiar with managemet studies would be familiar with the human resourse this  perspective is one that diverges from the scientific management approach which believed that “workers could be retooled like machines, their physical and mental gears recalibrated for better productivity.” this approach to management ignores the social context and workers needs which led to increased conflict and sometimes violent clashes between manager and employees( Daft 38).

        This can describe the way in which managers treated the enslaved people, and because of this there was a constant struggle between masters and slaves manifested in the slave revolts to be specific the roaring marron community.  A large part to play in these revoltts was the ideologial clarity of the enslaved. Th enslaved Aficans coming out of west African were not foreign to slavery, what they were haunted by was the dehumanisation of this form of chattel slavery,which they resisted in every way possible. So clearly the Africans did not simply sell themselves into this type of slavery hence the revolts and the established marron communities,This is only another misconception that has been fed to Caribbean people. They actually thought that this type of slavery was akin to that which occurred in African society, which maintained the humanity of the enslaved.