Caribbean free villages: Toward an anthropology of blackness, place, and freedom

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the 1950s, Sidney Mintz carried out a short study of Caribbean settlements known as free villages. These communities were designed by Baptists as postemancipation social and economic living spaces for formerly enslaved Afro‐descendant peoples. Mintz was ultimately interested in establishing a village typology, describing how the church shaped villagers’ social and moral lives and gauging the communities’ capacity as a site of Afro‐Caribbean peasant resistance to plantations. This work influenced later studies of creolization, land, and the peasantry in free villages, as well as inquiries into the contemporary political‐economic and historical context of Afro‐Caribbean villages generally. Mintz's analysis can also be helpful for thinking through questions about social processes of rural place‐making and investments in freedom among people of African descent. [peasantries,land,place,community,freedom,Sidney Mintz,Caribbean]

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