Almost Home: Maroons between Slavery and Freedom in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone: Ruma Chopra, Almost Home: Maroons between Slavery and Freedom in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. viii + 313 pp.
Almost Home: Maroons between Slavery and Freedom in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone: Ruma Chopra, Almost Home: Maroons between Slavery and Freedom in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. viii + 313 pp.
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几乎到家：牙买加、新斯科舍省和塞拉利昂的奴隶制与自由之间的逃亡：鲁玛·乔普拉，《几乎到家：牙买加、新斯科舍省和塞拉利昂的奴隶制与自由之间的逃亡》。
DOI：
10.1080/00086495.2020.1763589
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发表时间：
2020
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通讯作者：
Moulton, Alex A.
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文献类型：
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作者：
Moulton, Alex A.
黑人血缘的矛盾和殖民制度的争斗。鲁马·乔普拉揭露了黑人流动和自由的令人担忧的本质，因为它与牙买加、加拿大和塞拉利昂的英国殖民者的愿望处于令人不安的紧张状态。出现的画面是特劳尼镇马龙人中的一个，他们作为高度战略的参与者，通过冲突、通融和纵容来谈判殖民政府机构。这是对大英帝国史学、非裔美国人历史、黑猩猩研究和《黑人地理》应急工作的重要贡献。乔普拉利用了马龙人故事的广泛档案，既确保了丰富性，又展示了书中的一个中心主题：马龙人指挥着大英帝国的关注和反思。马龙的存在证明了这个帝国是不可动摇的，而不是既成事实。在导言中，我们了解到马龙人在1738年和1739年与英国签署了条约，这些条约“将马龙人确立为有用的邻居”(15)。然而，正如乔普拉所展示的那样，尽管马龙人乍看起来似乎顺从了他们支撑种植园经济的角色，但他们不太愿意接受劣等的种族定位。战争爆发后，马龙人认为是一个特别有辱人格的事件：两个特里劳尼镇马龙人殴打“被马龙人之前抓获的一个奴隶监督员作为逃犯；雪上加霜的是，马龙人无意中听到附近的奴隶在说嘲讽的话”(22)。通过坚持这些细节，乔普拉强调了马龙人在种族主义殖民制度中的令人担忧的地位，这使得他们的地位不稳定，他们的忠诚度受到质疑。“猎犬”一章显示了马龙人在社会和道德地位上的矛盾。作为将马龙人从他们出没和撤退的地方挖出来的最后手段，殖民地政府引入了古巴猎犬。然而，正如乔普拉所展示的，这些发展的巧合-
contradictions of black kinship and the contestations of colonial institutions. Ruma Chopra exposes the fraught nature of black mobility and freedom as it sits in uneasy tension with the aspirations of the British colonialists in Jamaica, Canada and Sierra Leone. The picture that emerges is one of the Trelawny Town Maroons as highly strategic actors who negotiated the colonial apparatus of government through conflict, accommodation, and connivance. This is an important contribution to the historiography of the British empire, African-American history, Maroon studies and the emergent work in Black Geographies. Chopra draws on an extensive archive of the Maroons’ story both to ensure richness and to demonstrate one of the central themes of the book: Maroons commanded the attention and reflection of the British empire. Maroon existence proved the empire was pregnable rather than a fait accompli.In the introduction we learn that the Maroons signed treaties with the British in 1738 and 1739 that “established the Maroons as useful neighbours”(15). As Chopra shows, though, while the Maroons would at first seem compliant with their role of propping up the plantation economy, they were less ready to accept an inferior racial positioning. War broke out following what Maroons perceived to be an especially demeaning event: the beating of two Trelawny Town Maroons “by a slave overseer the Maroons had previously captured as a runaway; adding insult to injury, the Maroons overheard nearby slaves making jeering remarks”(22). By insisting on these details Chopra highlights the fraught position of the Maroons within a racist colonial system that made their position volatile and their loyalties questionable. The chapter “Bloodhounds” shows the inconsistencies of the perceived social and moral position of the Maroons. As a last resort to ferret out the Maroons from their haunts and retreats, the colonial government brought in Cuban bloodhounds. Yet, as Chopra shows, the coincidence of these devel-