Book description
>For two and a half centuries after the Pope divided the world
between Spain and Portugal, the navies of Britain, France, Spain and
occasionally the Netherlands fought in the Caribbean. Most of the
islands changed hands at least once. Europe discovered the delights of
coffee, tea and cocoa; sugar boomed; fortunes were made and lost; the
slave trade flourished. But after the Napoleonic Wars prosperity
receded, the conscience of the world awoke and slavery was abolished,
ending the halcyon days of European colonialism in the Indies.
A Family of Islands
is full of fabulous people: Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Philip II of
Spain, Elizabeth I; Henry Morgan, the pirate who was later knighted and
made governor of Jamaica; Haiti s tragic trio: Toussaint L Ouverture,
Dessalines and Henri Christophe. It is full of stories about witch
doctors and obeah spells and the unspeakable abominations of the slave
trade.
With a sure sense of the exciting, Alec Waugh has written a perceptive
and entertaining account of the history and humanity of a vivid part of
the world where life can be as tranquil as a sunbeam or as tumultuous as
a hurricane.> >For two and a half centuries after the Pope
divided the world between Spain and Portugal, the navies of Britain,
France, Spain and occasionally the Netherlands fought in the Caribbean.
Most of the islands changed hands at least once. Europe discovered the
delights of coffee, tea and cocoa; sugar boomed; fortunes were made and
lost; the slave trade flourished. But after the Napoleonic Wars
prosperity receded, the conscience of the world awoke and slavery was
abolished, ending the halcyon days of European colonialism in the
Indies.
A Family of Islands
is full of fabulous people: Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Philip II of
Spain, Elizabeth I; Henry Morgan, the pirate who was later knighted and
made governor of Jamaica; Haiti s tragic trio: Toussaint L Ouverture,
Dessalines and Henri Christophe. It is full of stories about witch
doctors and obeah spells and the unspeakable abominations of the slave
trade.
With a sure sense of the exciting, Alec Waugh has written a perceptive
and entertaining account of the history and humanity of a vivid part of
the world where life can be as tranquil as a sunbeam or as tumultuous as
a hurricane.>
