Sugar cane plantations had operated across almost every island in the West Indies since the seventeenth century. Run by British planters, they relied on slavery as their main source of labour. A surgeon and Anglican minister, James Ramsay (1733 89) witnessed at first hand the exploitation of African slaves in Britain's West Indian colonies. Working there for over twenty years, as both a Christian missionary and a practising surgeon, he became keenly involved in the campaign to improve the welfare of slaves. This extended essay, first published in 1784, was an early and highly influential...
Sugar cane plantations had operated across almost every island in the West Indies since the seventeenth century. Run by British planters, they relied ...
