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The King v. Robert James, a Slave, for Rape: Inequality, Gender, and British Slave Amelioration, 1823–1834

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2005

Melanie J. Newton
Melanie J. Newton
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Toronto
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Extract

In December 1832, less than a year before the British Parliament passed the first imperial slave emancipation bill, an all-white jury in the British Caribbean colony of Barbados convicted a black, enslaved man named Robert James of having robbed and sexually violated Margaret Higginbotham, an impoverished white widow and mother. Since Robert James was a black man accused of raping a white woman the jury's decision could hardly have surprised anyone and his rapid dispatch by a hangman must have been universally expected.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 583 - 610
Copyright
© 2005 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History

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