Caribbean Crossing

Shortly after winning its independence in 1804, Haiti’s leaders realized that if their nation was to survive, it needed to build strong diplomatic bonds with other nations. Haiti’s first leaders looked especially hard at the United States, which had a sizeable free black population that included vocal champions of black emigration and colonization. In the 1820s, President Jean-Pierre Boyer helped facilitate a migration of thousands of black Americans to Haiti with promises of ample land, rich commercial prospects, and most importantly, a black state. His ideas struck a chord with both blacks and whites in America. Journalists and black community leaders advertised emigration to Haiti as a way for African Americans to resist discrimination and show the world that the black race could be an equal on the world stage, while antislavery whites sought to support a nation founded by liberated slaves. Black and white businessmen were excited by trade potential, and racist whites viewed Haiti has a way to export the race problem that plagued America. By the end of the decade, black Americans migration to Haiti began to ebb as emigrants realized that the Caribbean republic wasn’t the black Eden they’d anticipated. Caribbean Crossing documents the rise and fall of the campaign for black emigration to Haiti, drawing on a variety of archival sources to share the rich voices of the emigrants themselves. Using letters, diary accounts, travelers’ reports, newspaper articles, and American, British, and French consulate records, Sara Fanning profiles the emigrants and analyzes the diverse motivations that fueled this unique early moment in both American and Haitian history.

2023 Honorable Mention, Isis Duarte Book Prize, Haiti/ Dominican Republic section (LASA) 2023 Winner, Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award, Caribbean Studies Association An innovative study of the artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean Debates over the undocumented migration of Latin Americans invariably focus on the southern US border, but most migrants never cross that arbitrary line. Instead, many travel, via water, among the Caribbean islands. The first study to examine literary and artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean, Crossing Waters relates a journey that remains silenced and largely unknown. Analyzing works by novelists, short-story writers, poets, and visual artists replete with references to drowning and echoes of the Middle Passage, Marisel Moreno shines a spotlight on the plight that these migrants face. In some cases, Puerto Rico takes on a new role as a stepping-stone to the continental United States and the society migrants will join there. Meanwhile the land border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the only terrestrial border in the Hispanophone Caribbean, emerges as a complex space within this cartography of borders. And while the Border Patrol occupies US headlines, the Coast Guard occupies the nightmares of refugees. An untold story filled with beauty, possibility, and sorrow, Crossing Waters encourages us to rethink the geography and experience of undocumented migration and the role that the Caribbean archipelago plays as a border zone.

Caribbean Jewish Crossings is the first essay collection to consider the Caribbean's relationship to Jewishness through a literary lens. Although Caribbean novelists and poets regularly incorporate Jewish motifs in their work, scholars have neglected this strain in studies of Caribbean literature. The book takes a pan-Caribbean approach, with chapters addressing the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. Part 1 traces the emergence of a Caribbean-Jewish literary culture in Suriname, St. Thomas, Jamaica, and Cuba from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. Part 2 brings into focus Sephardic and crypto-Jewish motifs in contemporary Caribbean literature, while Part 3 turns to the question of colonialism and its relationship to Holocaust memory. The volume concludes with the compelling voices of contemporary Caribbean creative writers.

First published in 1990. This collection of essays examines the position of immigrants and minorities in Caribbean creóle society which, as M.G. Smith and Edward Brathwaite have pointed out, originated from the interaction between Europeans and Africans in the New World context during the period of slavery.

Crossing the Line examines a group of early nineteenth-century novels by white creoles, writers whose identities and perspectives were shaped by their experiences in Britain’s Caribbean colonies. Colonial subjects residing in the West Indian colonies "beyond the line," these writers were perceived by their metropolitan contemporaries as far removed—geographically and morally—from Britain and "true" Britons. Routinely portrayed as single-minded in their pursuit of money and irredeemably corrupted by their investment in slavery, white creoles faced a considerable challenge in showing they were driven by more than a desire for power and profit. Crossing the Line explores the integral role early creole novels played in this cultural labor. The emancipation-era novels that anchor this study of Britain's Caribbean colonies question categories of genre, historiography, politics, class, race, and identity. Revealing the contradictions embedded in the texts’ constructions of the Caribbean "realities" they seek to dramatize, Candace Ward shows how these white creole authors gave birth to characters and enlivened settings and situations in ways that shed light on the many sociopolitical fictions that shaped life in the anglophone Atlantic.

'I cannot imagine setting sail without it' SAIL 'A must for all aspiring ocean crossers' Yachting World We call it 'The Pond', yet the Atlantic Ocean covers one fifth of the surface of our planet and one third of its surface area of water. It is still a mighty big pond to cross! Realising the dream of an Atlantic crossing remains a challenge but the rewards are many and lifelong. The Atlantic Crossing Guide is well established as the standard reference for anyone planning an Atlantic voyage, whether via the trade wind route to the Caribbean or to Europe from the United States. The better prepared you are the greater your chances of success. Packed full of the collective wisdom of cruising sailors over four decades, this new edition has been updated to include advice on: PREPARATIONS · suitable boats, including considerations of hull integrity · equipment and maintenance · advances in navigation and communications systems · access to weather and routeing information · the balance of power input and usage · planning for hurricane season · risk management · crew harmony and health · provisioning PASSAGE PLANNING · Atlantic weather systems, including tropical waves and hurricanes · common routes and timings across the Atlantic · seasonal cruising along bordering coasts and within Atlantic island groups · fog and ice in the higher latitudes · key landfalls 'A fantastic amount of information' Yachting Monthly

A history of imperial competition, colonial cooperation, and revolutionary currents in the maritime borderlands of the early nineteenth-century Caribbean.

The Atlantic Crossing Guide is a complete reference for anyone planning an Atlantic passage in their own boat. It is described by Yachting World magazine as 'An invaluable mixture of planning manual and pilot book, and an essential investment if you're planning to cross the Pond.' From ideal timing, suitable boats, routes, methods of communication and provisioning to sources of regional weather information, hurricane tracks, currents and tides, departure and arrival ports, facilities on arrival and documentation required, the comprehensiveness of this new edition will both inspire dreamers and instill confidence in those about to depart. This is the definitive reference on the subject, relied upon by many thousands of cruisers crossing the Atlantic in both directions and packed with all the information they need. 'I cannot imagine setting sail without it' - SAIL magazine (US)