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3 - Establishing the Steady Black Soldier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2024

David Lambert
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Even after the soldiers of the West India Regiments helped to suppress enslaved uprisings in Barbados (1816) and Demerara (1823), they continued to be objects of suspicion. This chapter examines the efforts that commanding officers and supporters of the regiments made to challenge such opposition by seeking to manage the image of their Black soldiers and portray them in a favourable light. What emerged was the ‘steady Black soldier’, an ambiguous racial-martial figure that was simultaneously soldierly yet passive. This theme is explored through both the predominant representation of the soldiers as standing ‘ready for inspection’ and the elision of any active military role. This image is placed in the context of wider debates about the figure of the Black subject that characterised the contemporaneous controversy over slavery and it will be argued that the steady Black soldier represents the military equivalent to the kneeling enslaved figure promulgated by anti-slavery advocates.

Type
Chapter
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Soldiers of Uncertain Rank
The West India Regiments in British Imperial Culture
, pp. 53 - 83
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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