Stephen Bourne (1791–1868) was a British civil servant who served as a magistrate in Jamaica between 1834 and 1841 and as Registrar of British Guiana between 1841 and 1848. His daughter Elizabeth Campbell left England with her father in 1834, and lived in the West Indies for thirteen years. This volume contains two essays and a published letter, the essays written by Elizabeth Campbell and the letter by Stephen Bourne, discussing the effects and limits of the Emancipation Act on the economy and society of the British West Indies. The two essays by Campbell discuss the limited social effects of the Emancipation Act, with the letter by Bourne suggesting ways to improve the economic prosperity of the West Indies. The ideology of later abolitionists, who endeavoured to improve social and economic conditions in plantations to demonstrate the possibility of prosperity without slavery, is fully explored in this volume.
