Book contents
- A Caribbean Enlightenment
- Ideas in Context
- A Caribbean Enlightenment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 What Is a Caribbean Enlightenment?
- Part I Before Breadfruit
- Part II Creating Enlightened Citizens
- Part III Tristram in the Tropics: or, Reading in Jamaica
- Part IV Cultivating Knowledge
- Introduction to Part IV
- Chapter 10 “Je sçais par une longue expérience”
- Chapter 11 Agricultural Enlightenment in the Saint-Domingue Press
- Chapter 12 The Enlightened Planter
- Conclusion to Part IV
- Chapter 13 Concluding Reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 12 - The Enlightened Planter
from Part IV - Cultivating Knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2023
- A Caribbean Enlightenment
- Ideas in Context
- A Caribbean Enlightenment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 What Is a Caribbean Enlightenment?
- Part I Before Breadfruit
- Part II Creating Enlightened Citizens
- Part III Tristram in the Tropics: or, Reading in Jamaica
- Part IV Cultivating Knowledge
- Introduction to Part IV
- Chapter 10 “Je sçais par une longue expérience”
- Chapter 11 Agricultural Enlightenment in the Saint-Domingue Press
- Chapter 12 The Enlightened Planter
- Conclusion to Part IV
- Chapter 13 Concluding Reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter focuses on planters manuals beyond Saint-Domingue published by Jean Samuel Guisan and Jean-Baptiste Poyen de Sainte-Marie. Writing respectively in the very different circumstances of an underdeveloped French Guiana and an economically mature Guadeloupe, both writers urged planters to adopt technological innovations, regiment their workforce, keep detailed records, and prioritize long-term profitability over short-term profits. Publishing in close proximity to the French and Haitian Revolutions (1788 and 1792, respectively), they also had to consider increased anti-slavery sentiment, even revolutionary ferment, in expressing their pro-slavery views. They responded by promoting the ideal of an “enlightened” planter, which is contrasted to the ideas of the marquis de Casaux, published in a 1781 treatise. Appropriating the language of sentiment, Guisan and Poyen folded “humanity” into plantation management, asserting that this would harmonize with the planter’s self-interest and increase his happiness by promoting that of the enslaved. Ultimately, though, they construed the planter’s mastery differently: for Poyen, a benevolent plantation monarch ruled over his subjects while Guisan’s planter was accountable to a wider social and political order devoted to collective good.
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- A Caribbean EnlightenmentIntellectual Life in the British and French Colonial Worlds, 1750–1792, pp. 302 - 322Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023