Women ' s Work , Family Formation and Reproduction among Caribbean Slaves by Marietta Morrissey Texas

It is hypothesized that labor availability and related low levels of demand for women in agricultural work explain the high incidence of nuclear family formation in some Caribbean slave societies, as well as occasional high birth rates. Three paired comparisons, reflecting differing levels of labor supply, are examined: The Leewards and the Bahamas; Martinique and Barbados; and Cuba and Jamaica. As hypothesized, women were drawn more into field labor with increasing labor shortages. There is no relationship, however, between labor surplus and nuclear family formation or high crude birth rate. The hypothesized relationship between labor shortage, mother-child domestic units and low crude birth rate is confirmed in only one case. Nor is family organization consistently related to reproduction patterns for the six slave societies. It is suggested that Caribbean slavery is structurally different from other social systems studied by materialist scholars, who have found fairly constant relationships between women's contributions to production and their conjugal and reproductive experiences.