Early African Caribbean Newspapers as Archipelagic Media in the Emancipation Age

Early African Caribbean Newspapers as Archipelagic Media in the Emancipation Age shows how two Black-edited periodical publications in the early decades of the nineteenth century worked towards emancipation through medium-specific interventions across material and immaterial lines. More concretely, this book proposes an archipelagic framework for understanding the emancipatory struggles of the Antiguan Weekly Register in St. John’s and the Jamaica Watchman in Kingston. Complicating the prevalent narrative about the Register and the Watchman as organs of the free people of color, this book continues to explore the heterogeneity and evolution of Black newspaper print on the liberal spectrum. As such, Early African Caribbean Newspapers makes the case that the Register and the Watchman participated in shaping the contemporary communication market in the Caribbean. To do so, this study engages deeply with both the textuality and materiality of the newspaper and presents fresh visual material.