The paper describes the nature and role of accounting during apprenticeship – the transition period from slavery to waged labor in the British West Indies. Planters, colonial legislators, and Parliamentary leaders all feared that freed slaves would flee to open lands unless they were bound to plantations. Thus, rather than relying entirely on economic incentives to maintain viable plantations, the Abolition Act and subsequent local ordinances embodied a complex synthesis of paternalism, categorization, penalties, punishments, and social controls that were collectively intended to create a class of willing waged laborers. The primary role of accounting within this structure was to police work arrangements rather than to induce apprentices to become willing workers. This post-emancipation, pre-industrial formalization of punishment, valuation, and task systems furnish powerful insights into the extent of accountancy's role in sustaining Caribbean slave regimes.
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1 December 2005
Research Article|
December 01 2005
ACCOUNTING, COERCION AND SOCIAL CONTROL DURING APPRENTICESHIP: CONVERTING SLAVE WORKERS TO WAGE WORKERS IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES, C.1834–1838
David Oldroyd;
David Oldroyd
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
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Richard K. Fleischman
Richard K. Fleischman
JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY
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Received:
March 01 2004
Revision Received:
November 01 2004
Accepted:
December 01 2004
Online ISSN: 2327-4468
Print ISSN: 0148-4184
© 2005 American Accounting Association
2005
Accounting Historians Journal (2005) 32 (2): 201–231.
Citation
Thomas N. Tyson, David Oldroyd, Richard K. Fleischman; ACCOUNTING, COERCION AND SOCIAL CONTROL DURING APPRENTICESHIP: CONVERTING SLAVE WORKERS TO WAGE WORKERS IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES, C.1834–1838. Accounting Historians Journal 1 December 2005; 32 (2): 201–231. https://doi.org/10.2308/0148-4184.32.2.201
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