What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

When the attorney Alexander Barclay visited the slaving plantation of Holland, Jamaica, in 1813, he addressed a Black boilerman as “You Sir” and was rebuked: “Who do you call You sir; have I not a name?” Not one that Barclay knew. Miranda Kaufmann refuses to replicate Barclay’s ignorance: she therefore checks five possible boilermen’s names in the estate records. In such ways, this meticulously researched book is filled – in text, footnotes, end…