Conclusion to Part IV

Summary

The Conclusion to Part IV briefly summarizes the findings of the chapters on agricultural Enlightenment in the French Caribbean, characterizing it as, in James Livesey’s terms, a “knowledge culture.” It then underscores the absence of the enslaved’s expertise and knowledge in Caribbean agricultural literature. In the words of Beth Fowkes Tobin, these author-practitioners constructed two classes in their writings: “the managerial class—the planter and his agents—who possess knowledge about technology and labor and yet do not labor physically, and the laboring class—the slaves—who are described as having no knowledge of their own.” The enslaved also possessed considerable skill in cultivating their own food on provision grounds – indeed, their surpluses stocked colonial markets. But their horticultural knowledge went unmentioned. We can hardly be surprised, then, that Guisan and Poyen de Sainte-Marie obliged the planter to look to the enslaved’s happiness without requiring him to ask them in what that consisted.