Beyond Massa: Book Report

The book entitled “Beyond Massa - Sugar Management in the British Caribbean, 1770-1834” written by Dr. John F. Campbell seeks to examine the mechanism of the plantation life, both the enslaved and the European whites who were otherwise known as masters. It delves deeper into the reality about slavery and revisionism, as this book challenges many past events and judgments that were based on slavery, with supporting evidence. Dr. Campbell focused on the British Controlled Caribbean region of Jamaica, particularly on the Golden Grove plantation owned by Chaloner Arcedekne. He was an absentee owner and his close friend, Simon Taylor managed the plantation. For the period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were difficulties faced by masters on the sugar plantations, also, social relationships were formed between the enslaved people and their masters. These are some of the details accentuated in “Beyond Massa.” The main areas of research and discussion concerning the sugar plantations throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were focused on; the Human Resource Management practices, the enslaved elite, the role of women, and the centre of power and power centre. Human Resource Management (HRM) was the governing principle within the sugar estates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although this term was recently developed around the mid 80’s, as historians conducted additional research into sugar estates, evidence has proven that Human Resource Management was in fact prevalent on the sugar estates. “By the 1980’s, HRM meant an approach to the management of those at work with an emphasis on performance, workers’ commitment and rewards based on individual or team contribution” (Henderson). The expression Human Resource Management “refers to the design and application of formal systems in an organization to