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Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
BOOKArt and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18620
Coinciding with the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade, this multi-disciplinary volume chronicles the iconography of sugar, slavery, and the topography of Jamaica from the beginning of British rule in 1655 to the aftermath of emancipation in the 1840s. Focusing on the visual and material culture of slavery and emancipation in Jamaica, it offers new perspectives on art, music, and performance in Afro-Jamaican society and on the Jewish diaspora in the Caribbean. Central to the book is Sketches of Character (1837–38)—a remarkable series of lithographs by the Jewish Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario—the earliest visual representation of the masquerade form Jonkonnu. Innovative scholarship traces the West African roots of Jonkonnu through its evolution in Jamaica and continuing transformation today; offers a unique portrait of Jamaican culture at a pivotal historical moment; and provides a new model for interpreting the visual culture of empire.
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Print publication date December 2007 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300116618
EISBN 9780300248067
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Illustrations 440
Print Status out of print
Publisher (out of print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton: Pinkie
  • The Rev. William Knibb
  • Image of Hope End Mansion, the Moulton-Barrett residence in Herefordshire
  • West India Dock
  • Montpelier Estates, St James, The Property of C.R. Ellis Esqr M.P.
  • George Hibbert
  • Monument of the Late Thomas Hibbert Esq.
  • Harbour Street, Kingston
  • The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840
  • The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, detail of Edward Barrett
  • The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, detail of Henry Beckford
  • Highgate, Jamaica
  • A View of the Town and Harbour of Montego Bay, in the Parish of St. James, Jamaica, taken from the Road leading to St. Ann’s
  • Cudgelling Match between English and French Negroes in the Island of Domenica
  • Campbellsfield Penn, Jamaica
  • Driver, cold Morning
  • Woman beating Cassava
  • Digging Corn holes; La Duchesse
  • Fishpot of Split Bamboo; in foreground at Brailesford’s
  • Monument to William Beckford
  • Fonthill
  • The Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen
  • Portrait of George Robertson
  • The Spring Head of Roaring River
  • The Watering Place
  • The Voyage of the Sable Venus, from Angola to the West Indies, ca. 1793, from Bryan Edwards, "The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies," vol. 2, London: John Stockdale
  • Medallion produced for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
  • A View in the Island of Jamaica of Roaring River Estate, belonging to William Beckford Esqr near Savannah la Marr
  • Lucky Valley Estate in the Parish of Clarendon, Jamaica. The Property of Edward Long Esq Surveyed in October 1816 by B Haynes
  • View of Lucky Valley Estate Buildings, Clarendon
  • View of Negro Village
  • Sheet of drawings including a possible self-portrait
  • Rose-Hall
  • Montpelier Estates, St James, The Property of C.R. Ellis Esqr M.P.
  • The Attack of the Rebels on Montpelier Old Works Estate in the Parish of St James’s, the Property of Lord Seaford
  • Good Hope
  • Cocoa Walk Estate
  • Vale of St. Thomas, Jamaica
  • Frances, Lady Rowe
  • Sir John Taylor, His Wife Elizabeth, His Brother Simon Taylor, and Four of Their Six Children
  • Title page
  • Preface
  • Water-Jar Sellers
  • City of Kingston from the Commercial Rooms, Looking Towards the South
  • The Patent Chimney-Sweep Cleaner
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe
  • Milkwoman
  • Chimneysweeper
  • May-Day: A Street Strolling Clown
  • May Day in London
  • Lovey, alias Liverpool
  • The Portrait
  • London Curtezan
  • The Effect of the Fire from the Parade, Kingston
  • Fire in London
  • House with Walled Garden
  • Bush cow mask. Face of the Do society (Siginkuru-Ayna)
  • Carved image of a standing woman in red
  • Jánkúnu mask
  • Mask surmounted by a miniature house
  • Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe
  • French Set-Girls
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Vèvè (Haitian sacred ground blazon)
  • Two miniature North Kongo habitations
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green
  • Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe
  • Mask of a man with a house
  • Jonkonnu House made for Christmas Fear Festival
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe, detail
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Editorial article advocating folkloric revival of John Canoe
  • Advertisement for an island-wide John Canoe competition
  • Jonkonnu [Jankunu] House (Ceremonial Frame House)
  • Instruments used in Jankunu performance: bass or band drum, and gumbay drum
  • Advertisement
  • Map of Spanish Town, Kingston, and Surroundings
  • Announcement for a concert at the Kingston Theatre
  • A Grand Jamaica Ball! or the Creolean Hop à la Muftee
  • Beau Jenkins practising the Militia Band in the new German Waltz, detail from Martial Law in Jamaica
  • Nuptial ceremony of Johnny and the charming Rosa, detail from Adventures of Johnny Newcome
  • Banyan Tree (Jamaican folk song); Schubert, Sechs Ländler
  • Don’t Cry Too Much
  • Dandy Shandy
  • Oh Samwel Oh!
  • Bell a Ring a Yard
  • Interior of Bevis Marks Synagogue, London
  • Devotion in Duke’s Place or Contractors returning thanks for a Loan
  • Harbour Street, Kingston
  • Kingston, & Port Royal, from Windsor Farm
  • Ruins of the Fire at Kingston, Jamaica
  • Silver tankard presented by the Jewish community to Moses Delgado
  • Svcerie
  • A Man and a Woman of Oonalashka
  • Sunday Morning in Town
  • List of Subscribers
  • Old Clothes!
  • Jewish Shop
  • Chimneysweeper
  • Water-Jar Sellers
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy, detail showing "Henriques" shop sign
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • The Parade and Upper Part of Kingston from the Church, looking towards the Port Royal Mountains
  • Johanaan, l’Évangéliste
  • Negro Aroused
  • She Ain’t Holding Them Up, She’s Holding On (Some English Rose)
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Naming the Money, detail
  • Naming the Money, detail
  • A Ship Called Jesus
  • Ghosting
  • Ghosting
  • Sweetness and Light: Great House People (no. 4)
  • Sweetness and Light: Great Head People (no. 3)
  • Front cover, Sketches of Character, no. 1
  • Insert
  • Title page
  • Preface
  • List of Subscribers
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls, description
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the Green, description
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green (cont.) and Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe, description
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe, description
  • Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe
  • Errata slip
  • Front cover, Sketches of Character
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy, description
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy, description
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • French Set-Girls
  • French Set-Girls, description
  • French Set-Girls, description
  • Lovey, alias Liverpool
  • Lovey, description
  • Lovey, description
  • Front cover, Sketches of Character, no. 3
  • Water-Jar Sellers
  • Water-Jar Sellers, description
  • Milkwoman, description
  • Milkwoman
  • Chimneysweeper, description
  • Chimneysweeper, description
  • Chimneysweeper
  • Creole Negroes
  • A New and Accurat Map of the World, 1651, from Speed, Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World
  • A New Map of the English Plantations in America
  • The Island of Jamaica
  • Fidicula Indorum & Nigritarum
  • A View of the Town and Harbour of Montego Bay, in the Parish of St. James, Jamaica, taken from the Road leading to St. Ann’s
  • A View of Charles Town the Capital of South Carolina in North America, from Scenographia Americana
  • West India Dock
  • Sugar Bowl
  • Sugar nipper
  • Advertisement of Slave Sale by Alexandre Lindo
  • View of the Roaring River Cascade
  • An Indian Cacique of the Island of Cuba, addressing Columbus concerning a future state
  • Bryan Edwards
  • The Spring Head of Roaring River
  • A View in the Island of Jamaica of Roaring River Estate, belonging to William Beckford Esqr near Savannah la Marr
  • A View in the Island of Jamaica of the Bridge crossing Cabaritta River on the Estate of William Beckford Esqr
  • A View of the Iron Bridge
  • An Iron Work for Casting of Cannon
  • Old Cudjoe making Peace
  • Pacification with the Maroon Negroes
  • Trelawney Town, the chief residence of the Maroons
  • The Maroons in Ambush on the Dromilly Estate in the Parish of Trelawney, Jamaica
  • Diagram, or Plan of the Town, Inhabited by the Runaway and Rebellious Negroes, Called by Them, We No Sen’, You No Come
  • Map of the Abolition movement
  • Medallion produced for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade; Abolitionist seal; Bracelet
  • Antislavery halfpenny token
  • Description of a Slave Ship
  • Shackles
  • Collar
  • Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African
  • The Slave Trade
  • African Hospitality
  • Barbarities in the West Indias
  • Anti-Sacharrites, or—John Bull and his Family leaving off the Use of Sugar
  • The Abolition of the Slave Trade
  • A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallow
  • Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave
  • Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807
  • Immediate, not Gradual Abolition; or, An Inquiry Into the Shortest, Safest, and Most Effectual Means of Getting Rid of West-Indian Slavery
  • A Representation of the Sugar Cane and the Art of Making Sugar
  • Halse Hall
  • The court-house
  • Digging, or rather hoeing, the cane-holes
  • Planting the cane
  • Cutting the sugarcane
  • The Mill Yard
  • The Boiling House
  • Exterior of the Boiling House
  • Exterior of the curing house and stills
  • Interior of the distillery
  • Carting and putting sugar hogsheads on board
  • Llanrumny Estate St Mary’s Jamaica
  • Mill Yard, Holland Estate, St. Thomas in the East
  • Account of Clothing Served to Old Montpelier Estate’s Slaves/this 17th Day of May 1827
  • Page from the Radnor Estate Journal (recto and verso)
  • Plantain Walk
  • View of Negro Village
  • Negro Hut with Figures in Plantain Walk
  • Sheet of drawings including a possible self-portrait
  • Planting Corn; Old Driver; Planting Corn; House Negro Digging Corn Holes
  • Sixteen drawings of slaves
  • Maverly Works and Part of Liguanea Mountains (St Andrews)
  • Slave Carrying Plantains on Pole
  • Woman beating Cassava
  • Man Stripping Cane
  • Driver, cold Morning
  • Digging Corn holes; La Duchesse
  • Fishpot of Split Bamboo; in foreground at Brailesford’s
  • Piazza and Stairs at Four Paths (Clarendon)
  • Costume of Jamaica / Watchman, sketch for title page
  • The Collier
  • Negro Heads with Punishments
  • Protector of Slaves Office (Trinidad)
  • The Torrid Zone. Or, the Blessings of Jamaica
  • A Grand Jamaica Ball! or the Creolean Hop à la Muftee
  • Segar Smoking Society in Jamaica!
  • Johnny Newcome in Love in the West Indies
  • Adventures of Johnny Newcome
  • John Fuller
  • Rosehill
  • Plymouth Dock from Mount Edgecumbe
  • Cascade of Terni
  • Holland Estate, St. Thomas in the East, View from the Change of Air House
  • Lyssons Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica
  • Holland Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica
  • Haughton Court, Hanover, Jamaica
  • Study for Patrons and Lovers of Art
  • Bridge over the Rio Cobre, Spanish Town
  • Waterfall on the Windward Road
  • Montpelier Estates, St James, The Property of C.R. Ellis Esqr M.P.
  • The Attack of the Rebels on Montpelier Old Works Estate in the Parish of St James’s, the Property of Lord Seaford
  • The Destruction of Roehamton Estate in the Parish of St James’s in January 1832 the Property of J. Baillie Esqr
  • A View of Montego-Bay, Taken from Reading Hill. The Rebels Destroying the Road; and Reading Wharf in Flames
  • Montego Bay from Reading Hill, from A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica, from Drawings Made in the Years 1820 and 1821
  • Proclamation of Governor Belmore Requesting That Negroes Surrender
  • Encampment of Regulars at Shettlewood Penn
  • Calendar of Prisoners for Hanover, Special Slave Court
  • A Run away negro. Jamaica
  • Emancipation, 1st August 1834
  • King’s Square, St. Jago de la Vega
  • The First of August
  • Caricature No.1, The Contrast
  • Emancipation
  • An Interior View of a Jamaica House of Correction
  • A Plan of Good Hope Estate
  • Plan of the Hospital for Sick Slaves at Good Hope
  • Quarterly inventories of slaves and stock on John Tharp’s Estates, 28 June 1795–28 Dec. 1796
  • Inventory of Good Hope estate: (a) tools &c in estate offices (b) slaves (c) cattle, mules etc, 1804
  • Document relating to claim for compensation for freed slaves on abolition of slavery, 14 December 1835
  • Two plates bearing Tharp family crest
  • Good Hope
  • Weston Favel Estate
  • Friendship Estate
  • Sugar Works at Kelly’s Estate
  • Sugar Works at Kelly’s Estate
  • View of Kelly’s Estate
  • Cocoa Walk Estate
  • Cocoa Walk District
  • Highgate, Jamaica
  • Interior of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, London
  • Interior of Bevis Marks Synagogue, London
  • Synagogue, Duke’s Place, Houndsditch
  • An Elevation, Plan, and History of the Royal Exchange of London
  • Stock Exchange
  • A report of the trial of Arthur Hodge, Esquire
  • Studies of Haymakers
  • Title page
  • Etchings of Rustic Figures for the Embellishment of Landscape
  • Exhibition Room, Somerset House
  • Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Watercolours
  • Scene on the River Mole, with Cattle (?)
  • Road Scene with Cattle
  • Hilly Landscape with River and Cattle
  • Evening, Bayswater
  • Letter from Jacob Mendes Belisario (?) to John Linnell, 29 April 1819
  • Letter from Jacob Mendes Belisario (?) to John Linnell, 12 July 1819
  • Letter from Jacob Mendes Belisario (?) to John Linnell, 12 July 1819
  • Letter from Jacob Mendes Belisario (?) to John Linnell, 12 July 1819
  • Untitled engraving
  • Miss E. Tree in the Character of Mrs Cregan in Eily O’Connor
  • City of Kingston from the Commercial Rooms, Looking Towards the South
  • Frances, Lady Rowe
  • Portrait of Unknown Man
  • House with Walled Garden
  • Portrait of Adolphe Duperly (1801–1864)
  • Portrait of Benjamin Caractacus Pathey
  • The Revd Isaac Lopez
  • The Parade and Upper Part of Kingston from the Church, looking towards the Port Royal Mountains
  • The Theatre, Kingston
  • Front cover, Sketches of Character, no. 1
  • List of Subscribers
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green (cont.) and Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe, description
  • Front cover
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green
  • Jack in the Green or the 1st of May
  • Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • French Set-Girls
  • Lovey
  • Untitled [Jewish mendicant]
  • Water-Jar Sellers
  • Milkwoman
  • Chimneysweeper
  • Sweep
  • Creole Negroes
  • The Merry Milk Maid
  • Milk Below Maids
  • Milk Below!
  • Sweep Soot 0
  • Old Clothes!
  • Slippers!
  • Milk Woman
  • Charles McGee
  • Billy Waters
  • The Butter and Milk Man
  • The Negro Banjo Player
  • The Patent Chimney-Sweep Cleaner
  • The Negro Woman
  • Country Fair
  • Bartholomew Fair
  • Panoramic view round the Regent’s Park, London, detail
  • The West India Flower Girl
  • A Negroes’ Dance in the Island of Domenica
  • No. 1, 2, 5 & 6, Negro, 3 & 4, Indian Characters
  • Queen or ‘Maam’ of the Set-Girls
  • Red Set-Girls, and Jack-in-the-Green
  • Portrait of Okao Aiwerioghen, Benin City, Nigeria
  • Sowei-type mask
  • Akwete cloth
  • De stadt van Louango (The City of Louango)
  • Nganga with minkisi
  • Untitled engraving
  • Manchioneal Bruckins’ Party
  • Mr. Paul Pride costumed as Pitchy Patchy at the National Jonkonnu Competitions
  • Pitchy Patchy Jonkonnu Costume
  • Pitchy Patchy Jonkonnu Costume
  • Pailles De Banane
  • Horse-Head Jonkonnu costume
  • Horse head from Lacovia, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica
  • Jaw-Bone, or House John-Canoe
  • Mask of a man with a house
  • Boat with Figures
  • Costume and mask
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • Joseph Johnson
  • Model of a canoe
  • Jonkonnu House made for Christmas Fear Festival
  • Jonkonnu House
  • House Jonkonnu, Coker (Saint Elizabeth) Jonkonnu Group
  • House Jonkonnu, Edna Manly School Jonkonnu Group
  • Fan for the Goddess Osun
  • Koo-Koo, or Actor-Boy
  • White ancestor mask
  • Ngar Ball Traditional Masquerade
  • Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe
  • Goombah (gumbay) drum
  • Fife from Lacovia, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica
  • Kumina Drum (Playin Cyas)
  • Kumina Drum (Kbandu)
  • Rattler
  • Sticks
  • Shell
  • Abolition of Slavery in Jamaica
  • Celebration of the 1st August 1838 at Dawkins Caymanas near Spanish Town, Jamaica
  • Commemorative of the Extinction of Slavery in Jamaica, on the First August 1838
  • The Rev. William Knibb
  • The Ordinance of Baptism as administered by the missionaries connected with the Baptist Missionary Society to 135 persons near Brown’s Town, in Jamaica
  • Baptist Chapel, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica
  • King Street Chapel, Falmouth, Jamaica
  • A Diagram of the Burnt District of the City of Kingston
  • James’s Foundry, & Messrs DaCosta & Maxwell’s Steam Sawing-Mills, Kingston Jamaica. Destroyed by fire on the 26th of August 1843
  • The Trinity Church in Kingston Jamaica. Destroyed by fire on 26 of August 1843
  • The Effect of the Fire from the Parade, Kingston
  • The Windward Falls, near Kingston
  • Lethé Estate on Great River, St James and Hanover
  • Belle Vue, Residence near Kingston, Stoney Hill in the Distance
  • Mountain Cottage Scene, Cocoa Nut Trees in the Fore Ground
  • Stewart Castle Estate
  • Montego Bay from Upton Hill
  • Richmond Terrace, Surrey
  • A View of the Ordnance Yard (taken from the Wharf), Daguerrian Excursions
  • A View of the Court-House (taken on the day of an Election), Daguerrian Excursions
  • A View of King Street, Daguerrian Excursions
  • Market Falmouth, Daguerrian Excursions
  • Holland Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Daguerrian Excursions
  • Golden Grove Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Daguerrian Excursions
  • Edward John Eyre
  • George William Gordon
  • Morant Bay, the Scene of the Negro Insurrection; Kingston, Jamaica with Newcastle in the Distance; and The Hordley Estate, Morant Bay, Jamaica, 1865
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Contents
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Contents
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.001
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18621
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Director’s Foreword
Amy Meyers
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~This publication and the exhibition to which it relates are the results of an innovative collaboration that began within Yale University and has grown to include a network of academic and curatorial scholars and collectors across the world. The origins of the collaboration lie in a graduate seminar, “Art and the British Empire,” taught in...
Author
Amy Meyers
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.002
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18622
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Free
Chronology
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Chronology
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.003
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18623
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Introduction
Tim Barringer and Gillian Forrester
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
At the core of this book—physically and intellectually—lie twelve hand-colored lithographs, published under the title Sketches of Character, In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation, and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica. They were created by Isaac Mendes Belisario in Kingston, Jamaica, in late 1837 and early 1838. Small in size, and printed on fragile...
Author
Tim Barringer and Gillian Forrester
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.1-6
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.004
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18624
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanSlavery--JamaicaMasqueradesIllustrated books--History--19th centuryJamaica--Civilization--African influences

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Britain, Jamaica, and Empire in the Era of Emancipation
Catherine Hall
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
This essay sets the scene for Isaac Mendes Belisario’s life and work by exploring the intimate interconnections between Britain, Jamaica, and the wider British Empire in the troubled decades of the 1820s and 1830s. Its focus is on white society in Jamaica and its symbiotic relation to the “mother country.” It first tells the story of an Anglo-Jamaican family, the Barretts, and...
Author
Catherine Hall
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.9-24
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.005
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18625
Chapter subject tags:Jamaica--Social conditionsSlavery--JamaicaSlaves--EmancipationSugarcaneAbolitionists--Great Britain

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Work, Culture, and Creolization: Slavery and Emancipation in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Jamaica
Verene A. Shepherd
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Although, as Barry Higman has observed, “representations of the past occur in a wide range of social contexts and employ many different levels of knowledge and analysis,” the written word has come to be the dominant mode of producing...
Author
Verene A. Shepherd
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.27-38
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.006
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18626
Chapter subject tags:Jamaica--Social conditionsSlavery--JamaicaSlaves--EmancipationSlave insurrectionsAbolitionists--Great Britain

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Picturesque Prospects and the Labor of the Enslaved
Tim Barringer
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
The aesthetics of the picturesque continually informed visual and verbal representations of the Jamaican landscape, and especially of the plantation, throughout and beyond the period of slavery. The picturesque was a genre of cultured amusements—an aesthetic category based on the idea of the...
Author
Tim Barringer
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.41-61
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.007
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18627
Chapter subject tags:Nature (Aesthetics)Slavery--JamaicaLandscape painting, EnglishPicturesque, The, in artArt, Jamaican

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Mapping a New Kingston: Belisario’s Sketches of Character
Gillian Forrester
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Stuart Hall has observed that the Caribbean “is a place where nobody is, in the obvious sense, ‘at home,’ where everybody is to some extent dislocated, and that sense of being ‘not at home,’ or...
Author
Gillian Forrester
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.65-85
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.008
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18628
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanIllustrated books--History--19th centuryEthnic costumeMasqueradesSlavery--Jamaica

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Charters for the Spirit: Afro-Jamaican Music and Art
Robert Farris Thompson
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Isaac Mendes Belisario’s prints indelibly document the Afro-Jamaican masked festival known as Jánkúnu. During recent research on Kongo art...
Author
Robert Farris Thompson
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.89-100
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.009
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18629
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--Civilization--African influencesKongo (African people)MasqueradesJonkonnu (Festival)

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Sketches of Memory: Visual Encounters with Africa in Jamaican Culture
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Just as the Caribbean itself is an intricate layering of cultures that continually migrate and merge, the region’s art is a dynamic and constantly changing force—adapting to, responding to, and interacting with lived experience. An examination of regional artistic practice across a range of media highlights the role of religion in providing artists all over the Caribbean with access to...
Author
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.103-117
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.010
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18630
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--Civilization--African influencesArt, CaribbeanMasqueradesJonkonnu (Festival)

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More Than Met the Eye: African-Jamaican Festivities in the Time of Belisario
Kenneth Bilby
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Jamaica hangs in a nervous state of suspension. It is the mid-1830s. The abolitionists have triumphed, and slavery is on the way out. Although the colony no longer seems vulnerable to massive revolts like the “Christmas Uprising” that shook the island at the beginning of the decade, a definite edginess remains. Emancipation was declared in 1834, but many of the enslaved have yet to be...
Author
Kenneth Bilby
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.121-133
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.011
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18631
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--Civilization--African influencesDrummers (Musicians)MasqueradesJonkonnu (Festival)

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Anglophone Musical Culture in Jamaica
Stephen Banfield
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Britain changed enormously in the 1830s. In October 1831 Bristol was in flames from rioting; the passing of the Reform Act the following June newly enfranchised more than two hundred thousand males...
Author
Stephen Banfield
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.137-148
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.012
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18632
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--Civilization--African influencesSlavery--JamaicaMusic--Great Britain--19th Century--History and criticismMusicians, Black

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Customs of an Unruly Race: The Political Context of Jamaican Jewry, 1670–1831
Holly Snyder
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Jamaica’s Jewish community, which could openly date itself back to the beginnings of English civilian settlement but likely predated the English conquest, had a peculiar relationship to the island’s evolving racial caste system. Although Jews were nominally of free European origin and therefore experienced...
Author
Holly Snyder
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.151-159
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.013
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18633
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--ReligionJewish diasporaJews--England--HistoryJews--Social life and customs

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Belisario’s “Kingston Cries” and the Refinement of Jewish Identity in the Late 1830s
K. Dian Kriz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
When Isaac Mendes Belisario returned to his native Jamaica in the early 1830s from London, where he had grown up and trained as an artist, he was entering a colony preoccupied...
Author
K. Dian Kriz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.163-174
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.014
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18634
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanJamaica--ReligionJews--EmancipationIllustrated books--History--19th centuryJews--Social life and customs

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Afterword: Legacies of Anglo-Caribbean Culture—A Diasporic Perspective
Stuart Hall
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
In what sense could the gaze that Isaac Mendes Belisario brought to bear on his Jamaican subjects be described as “diasporic”?On the diasporic, see Stuart Hall, “Thinking the Diaspora,” small axe, no. 6...
Author
Stuart Hall
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.179-194
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.015
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18635
Chapter subject tags:Art, JamaicanArt, CaribbeanCross-cultural orientationAfrican diasporaArt, Modern--21st century

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Sketches of Character, In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation, and Costume of the Negro Population in the Island of Jamaica, by Isaac Mendes Belisario
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Sketches of Character
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.197-258
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.016
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18636

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Catalogue: Jamaica, Britain, and Slavery
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Catalogue
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.263-309
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.017
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18637

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Catalogue: Life and Labor in Jamaica, 1807–34
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~~Jamaican society at the beginning of the nineteenth century was profoundly divided along racial lines. The central fact was that of slavery. A small white minority held a virtual monopoly on political power and land ownership. Among the island’s population, there were also people categorized as “free black” and...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.311-361
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.023
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18645

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Catalogue: Emancipation, Apprenticeship, and the Plantation
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
In 1823 Thomas Fowell Buxton declared in the House of Commons that “the state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British constitution...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.363-392
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.024
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18646

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Catalogue: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~~Isaac Mendes Belisario was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1795 into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish or Portuguese origin. Expelled from Spain in 1492, the majority of Sephardim settled in Portugal and in 1497 were...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.395-423
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.025
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18647

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Catalogue: Sketches of Character
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~~After his return to Kingston from London in the early 1830s, Isaac Mendes Belisario seems to have focused primarily on making commissioned...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.425-461
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.026
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18648

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Catalogue: Jonkonnu/John Canoe
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~Through public performance across the Caribbean, African cultures found common ground to express both their varied origins and shared experiences. Public art became an outlet for the ever-changing identities of the region’s populations and the traditions they sought to preserve. Jonkonnu is the Jamaican reformulation of the tradition of the masquerade, a...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.463-496
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.027
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18649

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Catalogue: Emancipation and its Aftermath, 1838–65
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
~~Apprenticeship ended on the first of August 1838, and the remaining vestiges of the legal bonds of slavery were removed. Festivities were held, as in 1834, in Spanish Town and across the...
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
Related print edition pages: pp.503-540
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.028
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18650

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Appendix: Slave-owner Compensation to Sketches of Character Subscribers
Nicholas Draper
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Under the 1833 Act that abolished slavery in most British colonies, the British government paid £20 million in “compensation” to the owners or mortgagees of enslaved men and women. Such compensation to slaveholders for the emancipation of the enslaved in Jamaica totalled £6 million, representing an average payment of some...
Author
Nicholas Draper
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.018
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18638

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Bibliography
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Bibliography
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.019
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18639
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Contributors
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Contributors
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.020
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18640
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Index
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Index
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.021
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18641
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Photography Credits
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
Description: Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
Photography Credits
Author
Tim Barringer, Gillian Forrester, Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz
PublisherYale Center for British Art
Copyright© Yale University, 2007
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00018.022
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-18642
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Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds
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