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Struggles for Freedom: Essays on Slavery, Colonialism, and Culture in the Caribbean and CentralAmerica. By o. NIGEr. soL BOLLAND. Belize Chronicals Series, no. 4. Belize City: Angelus Press, 1997. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. 334 PP. Paper.
This important collection of essays brings together newly edited materials and previously published work by the author on the English-speaking Caribbean. Bolland, a sociologist, aims to look at the economic, political, and cultural forces that have shaped Caribbean societies from colonial times to the present day. Divided into four sections"Colonial and Creole Societies," "Colonization and Slavery," "From Slavery to Freedom," and "Class, Culture and Politics"-Struggles for Freedom is diverse in its approach and subject matter. In the introductory essay, "Creolization and Creole Societies: A Cultural Nationalist View of Caribbean Social History," Bolland makes clear that "creolization" constitutes a central dynamic of Caribbean social history, and this assertion reverberates throughout the book.
Bolland begins part 2 by looking at the colonization of Central America and the enslavement of its inhabitants, while demonstrating the economic links that existed between Central America and the Spanish-dominated Caribbean prior to 1550. He focuses on indigenous slavery and offers the generally accepted argument that the impact of African slavery in any particular region was inversely related to the availability of indigenous labor....