The Ideal Jamiaca

“The Jamaica that Phillips visited from 1739 to 1741 and ultimately settled from 1752 until her death in 1765 stood out as exemplar of the best and worst of British civilization in the Caribbean.”

I found this sentence to be incredibly interested because it draws attention to the fact that Phillips lived during the time in Jamaica where it was considered a model for other colonies. At the same time as a civilization it also represented the worst in British colonization such as the slavery driven economy in which white people did little to no work and simply bought slaves in order to make them money.This horrible aspect of society provided for the lifestyle that white people in Jamaica had lived which was a fairly lavish one. The slave owners were know for their brutality and this led to the rebellious ideas that were placed into the slaves heads. As well as the fact that they were not treated as fellow citizens much less humans. Jamaica was represented as this beautiful lush island that was mountainous and bountiful but as said by the author, under this beauty were the shadows of slavery. Among the people on the island who were not slaves there was division, people of different ethnicity and race inhabited the island and due to the vast majority of the wealth being held by the mercantilism elites of the island almost everyone on the island was unhappy with the way things were going. Overall the quote seeks to describe the view of colonies back when they were dominated by slave powered industry and how much of these horrors were not addressed and people had possibly become desensitized to them just so that they cold live their lavish lifestyle.

How did the diversity of the colonists contribute to the instigation of the revolution?

was there a level of desensitization during this time period in order to achieve what might have been said an almost perfect colony for the upper class?