Review of Jamaica in 1850 or, the effects of sixteen years of freedom on a slave colony by John Bigelow

This book is an insightful first-hand account of postslavery Jamaica in 1850 by John Bigelow (1817-1911), an American journalist who was an editor at the New York Evening Post and an organizer of the Free-Soil Party. The
introduction by Robert J. Scholnick, a professor of English and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, highlights the significance of the book (first published in 1851 in New York and London, where it received a mixed reception) “for the ongoing transatlantic dialogue on slavery” (p. lii).