‘Practical Sympathy’: Disaster Response in the British Caribbean 1812-1907

Informed by environmental history, this thesis sets out to examine what shaped British
colonial responses to disaster in the nineteenth and twentieth century Caribbean. To answer
that question, the thesis uses colonial documents and contemporary travel writing to first
examine the environmental change that British colonialism wrought on the region. Those in
control of the colonies were primarily driven by their desire to extract profit from them and
the sugar plantation emerged as the primary vehicle by which to do it. Plantation monoculture
was intensively expanded through deforestation and exhaustive use of soils. Those in control
of the region could not conceive of any other way to derive profit from the region, thus
locking in this system and precluding more sustainable enterprise. What is more, these
enduring alterations forced upon the islands made their inhabitants more vulnerable to the
region’s hazards. This thesis argues that this unchecked desire to extract wealth was one of
the primary shapers of relief. First-hand accounts and colonial office records show that, in the
short term, colonial responses were ad-hoc, and fraught with anxiety due to the need to
respond to shortages of food and materials. These shortages ultimately stemmed from the
deleterious effects of intensive plantation agriculture. Furthermore, a deep racist fear of
African-Caribbean insurrection meant that in these moments of flux the desire to ensure
white control was another central shaper of colonial responses. This thesis concludes that in
the long term, as the plantation remained the foundation of the economy, Parliament
primarily offered relief, not to address human suffering, but as a form of ‘practical sympathy’
to ensure that plantations were rebuilt and control over the labouring population was retained.