Jamaican People 1880-1902: Race, Class and Social Control

This book describes the period in Jamaica's history that follows the abolition of slavery, up to the introduction of universal adult suffrage. These years, which have been called the "quiet years", between the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865 and the labour disturbances of the 1930s, are the least studied of Jamaica's modern history. Bryan provides a penetrating analysis of the social, intellectual and political history of this era.

Crown colony government, law and order, religious and social structure, labour, health and poor relief, the black middle class and the ideas of the black intelligentsia are explored in the context of race, class and ethnicity. Bryan charts the development of working class politicization out of which Garveyism emerged as a response to which hegemony and black underprivilege.