Show Notes
How did a few minutes of shaking destroy Jamaica’s commercial capital and expose the limits of colonial disaster response? Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; United States Geological Survey historical earthquake records; Jamaica Legislative Council papers; British Colonial Office dispatches; National Library of Jamaica
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Why did Haiti’s first democratically elected president fall within months, and what did the coup reveal about the struggle over civilian power? Sources: Organization of American States reports; United Nations Security Council resolutions; United States Congressional records; National Commission for Truth and Justice of Haiti; Amnesty International reports
Why did a courthouse protest in 1865 become a colonial massacre, and how did the aftermath transform Jamaica’s government? Sources: National Library of Jamaica; UK National Archives Colonial Office files; Morant Bay Rebellion Commission records; Governor Edward Eyre correspondence; Jamaica Archives
Why did an oilfield strike in southern Trinidad spread into a colony-wide confrontation over wages, race, and political power? Sources: Trinidad and Tobago National Archives; Butler Papers; Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Trinidad, 1937; British Colonial Office reports; Trinidad Guardian archive
How did strikes by sugar workers in 1938 become the turning point that created Jamaica’s modern labor movement and accelerated self-government? Sources: Jamaica Labour Department reports; Jamaica Gleaner archive; UK Colonial Office reports; National Library of Jamaica; Norman Manley papers
How did enslaved workers in Demerara organize across plantations, and why did the colonial government respond with military force and mass executions? Sources: British Parliamentary Papers; Colonial Office records; Guyana National Archives; The Missionary Register; Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood