White Creoles, “Bad” Grammar, and the Birth of Dialect Literature

Abstract

This chapter investigates the origins of Creole literature in the early writings of the white creoles of the Caribbean, most of whom were hostile to Emancipation during the slavery era. Early literary dialect used forms of racial ventriloquism or pseudo-transcription to argue against the freeing of the enslaved blacks. These ventriloquists, and those that they ventriloquized, yielded a lasting template for an original Caribbean narrative form. The chapter explores the “dialect war” between the abolitionist English author J.B. Moreton and pro-slavery white creole author Samuel August Mathews. White stereotypes of strong black Caribbean women as vectors of Creole speech are discussed.