Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics after Slavery

Reproducing the British Caribbean, by Juanita De Barros, maps the new concerns that emerged after slavery in the British Caribbean over control of the size of the population and focuses on the territories of Barbados, Jamaica, and Guiana. In the words of its author, “This book examines ideas about reproduction and the size and health of Caribbean populations in the British Caribbean from the early nineteenth century to the 1930s” (p. 14). This anxiety over the size of the population had profound effects on the development of policymaking, which governed the work of midwives as well as issues concerning health, hygiene, and sanitation and which also had implications for the building of infant welfare clinics in the region. It was in this sociohistorical context that colonial reproductive policies were formed. The primary apprehension of the postemancipation period revolved around “the effects...