The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery

Winner of the Merle Curti AwardWinner of the James A. Rawley PrizeWinner of the Louis Gottschalk PrizeLonglisted for the Cundill Prize“Vincent Brown makes the dead talk. With his deep learning and powerful historical imagination, he calls upon the departed to explain the living. The Reaper’s Garden stretches the historical canvas and forces readers to think afresh. It is a major contribution to the history of Atlantic slavery.”―Ira BerlinFrom the author of Tacky’s Revolt, a landmark study of life and death in colonial Jamaica at the zenith of the British slave empire.What did people make of death in the world of Atlantic slavery? In The Reaper’s Garden, Vincent Brown asks this question about Jamaica, the staggeringly profitable hub of the British Empire in America―and a human catastrophe. Popularly known as the grave of the Europeans, it was just as deadly for Africans and their descendants. Yet among the survivors, the dead remained both a vital presence and a social force.In this com