The labouring body

Abstract

This chapter explores how French texts echoed shared ideas about labour in the plantation context. Plantation labour employed the bodies of slaves in new, proto-industrial processes. Within this context the concept of accumulation was central to understanding slaves and the free. Commentators show the importance of numeracy to colonial knowledge, which organised labour, space, and productivity. This knowledge implied forms of belonging and exclusion. Slave labour remained human labour and could be disrupted by social dynamics and desire. The distinctions between slave and free even encompassed time, which was inseparable from accumulation and power. Comparison with free indentured labourers illustrates the condition of the slave, and comparison with animals demonstrates what was gratifying or repellent about slave labour.