The History of the Island of Dominica

Atwood, Thomas, -1793Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
246K words
Chapters
25

Tags

English Originals World History Human GeographyHistorical ReappraisalGeography RecordsCaribbean IslandDominicaExotic CultureColonial HistoryLocal Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The History of the Island of Dominica by Thomas AtwoodAuthor: Atwood, Thomas, -1793,Language: English, Class: F1900: West Indies local history: Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Release Date: May 2, 2015

Editor's review

This is a local history of the island of Dominica. Its author, Atwood, held a post on the island in the late eighteenth century, and the book records its natural environment, colonial settlement, administration, and the social conditions of the time. Its value lies first in its source material: the author was an eyewitness and provides firsthand observations from the Caribbean colonial period, making it useful to readers studying the local history of the West Indies, colonial governance, and plantation society. Second, the account carries pronounced period biases, and readers should remain critical, noting how the author's attitude toward the colonial order shapes the narrative. The prose is eighteenth-century English with long sentences, making it more demanding than ordinary modern historical writing. It is best read as a primary source rather than an introduction to general history, and alongside related scholarship on Caribbean history, so that observation and prejudice can be more clearly distinguished.

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Reading tips

  1. Read introductory background material first to understand the author's identity and period before the main text
  2. Mark the author's value judgments while reading and record them separately from factual description
  3. Read by topic—natural environment, administration, society—rather than insisting on cover-to-cover reading

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25

FAQ

Is this book a general history or a primary source? It is closer to a local-chronicle primary source written by an eyewitness. The author held a post on the island and records the natural, administrative, and social conditions he observed, with personal bias and period limitations. It is suited to research use rather than as a neutral, complete introduction to general history.
Is eighteenth-century English difficult to read? It is harder going than modern English, with long sentences and period spelling and usage. Read a few pages first to judge; if it proves difficult, read it alongside modern works on Caribbean history and treat the original as supplementary source material rather than the only entry point.
What should readers pay most attention to? The author's standpoint. The descriptions of colonial settlement and local society carry pronounced period attitudes; readers should separate observation from value judgment and avoid taking the author's personal views as objective fact, cross-checking against other sources where necessary.

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About the author

Atwood, Thomas, -1793 Author · British

Thomas Atwood (Atwood, Thomas, -1793) was a British colonial official about whom relatively little is publicly known. Available sources indicate that he served as a judge on the Caribbean island of Dominica, where he was directly involved in and observed the judicial and administrative affairs of the local colonial society. His best-known work, The History of the Island of Dominica, is the only title by him held in the collection. Written from a first-hand perspective, it describes the island's natural geography, social structure and colonial governance, and combines the features of a local chronicle with colonial history, offering primary reference material for later understanding of eighteenth-century Dominica and the British Caribbean colonies. Because details of his life, including birth and death dates and early career, are largely unknown, systematic scholarly study of him and his work remains limited, and the value of his writing lies chiefly at the level of historical sources.