Other 1898s connects four histories from three islands to compose a portrait of working-class politics in the Caribbean in the late nineteenth century. After the legal end of slavery in the Americas, deepening imperialism and profound economic difficulty provoked debates over development, massive migration, and revolutionary projects. Piecing together and interpreting a fragmentary archive, decades into emancipation, Anne Eller recovers the rhythm of daily life, considers how Caribbean publics responded to the rising tide of colonial violence in Africa, and illustrates the growing influence of the United States throughout the Caribbean. Showing the interconnection of working-class movements in remote coasts, plantations, and growing cities, she details how communities found small political openings and achieved some hard-won victories. Rising market pressures engulfed every island. Eller reveals how, as political conflicts culminated in the fateful summer of 1898 and foreign warships circled, freedom contests across the Caribbean grew all the more urgent.

Anne Eller is Associate Professor of History and Affiliate Professor of Black Studies and Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. She is the author of We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom, also published by Duke University Press.

“Other 1898s is a brilliantly crafted and unique book that will make a major contribution to an expanding and thriving area of Caribbean Studies. Shattering the linguistic and political boundaries that often define Caribbeanist scholarship, Anne Eller has engaged with often overlooked archives to expertly unearth and share profoundly compelling individual and collective histories.”
-- Laurent Dubois, co-author of Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean