A study of the West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century, this book draws together the experiences of more than a dozen different sugar colonies and forms them into a coherent historical account. The first part of the book examines the West Indies on the eve of emancipation in 1830-1865, a key passage in West Indian history. Green presents a clear general picture of the sugar colonies, society, economies, law and places British governmental policy toward the region in the context of Victorian attitudes toward colonial questions. He also looks at the great experiment: emancipation, apprenticeship, a free society, free labour, the impact of free trade, immigration (from India, China, Portugal as well as Africa), religion, education, colonial politics and constitutional reform.