Froudacity
Froudacity: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude is an 1889 polemic written by John Jacob Thomas as a rebuttal to James Anthony Froude's 1888 book The English in the West Indies. Froude's travelogue attacked the British West Indian colonies for wanting to establish self-government, arguing that if the majority black population were allowed to vote on leaders they would choose leaders that would repress the white population. Like many of his West Indian contemporaries, Thomas was outraged at the inaccuracies of Froude's text as well as the racist arguments that Froude uses as justification for his beliefs. He decided that writing a refutation to Froude was his patriotic duty and that it would act as self-vindication for West Indian blacks. Froudacity was Thomas' last and most significant work. Thomas finished writing it shortly before succumbing to pneumonia. Background From the middle of the 17th century to 1866, Jamaica had a self-ruling mode of government referred to as the 'Old Representative System'. However, after an outbreak of rebellion Jamaica was put under the crown colony system of government in 1866. A number of other West Indian colonies such as Trinidad and Dominica were established as crown colonies in the late