Chap 1 Flashcards
Omnipresent
(of a deity) having unlimited power.
“God is described as omnipotent and benevolent”
synonyms: all-powerful, almighty, supreme, most high, pre-eminent; More
having great power and influence.
“an omnipotent sovereign”
This omnipresent mountain could be seen everywhere on the island.
Verdant
(of a deity) having unlimited power.
“God is described as omnipotent and benevolent”
synonyms: all-powerful, almighty, supreme, most high, pre-eminent; More
having great power and influence.
“an omnipotent sovereign”
The verdant foothills that swept down to the sandy beach made the island a natural fortress for the British.
Marginal
relating to or at the edge or margin.
“marginal notes”
2.
minor and not important; not central.
“it seems likely to make only a marginal difference”
synonyms: slight, small, tiny, minute, low, minor, insignificant, minimal, negligible
“the difference is marginal”
We see that these West Indian Islands were far from marginal, or unimportant.
Maritime
connected with the sea, especially in relation to seaborne trade or naval matters.
“a maritime museum”
synonyms: naval, marine, nautical, seafaring, seagoing, sea, ocean-going
“maritime law”
The West Indian setting was far from marginal, the crossroads of a bitter maritime rivalry for mastery of a lucrative sugar trade.
Lucrative
producing a great deal of profit.
“a lucrative career as a stand-up comedian”
synonyms:
The sugar trade was extremely lucrative for a few white people on Nevis.
Imbibed
Drank
They grew sugarcane to sweeten the coffee, tea, and cocoa imbibed in fashionable European capitals.
Vacillated
waver between different opinions or actions; be indecisive.
“I vacillated between teaching and journalism”
The Brits vacillated about swapping Canada for the Island of Guadeloupe.
Engendered
cause or give rise to (a feeling, situation, or condition).
“the issue engendered continuing controversy”
Sugar engendered a brutal world for black slaves.
Sweltering
Hot and humid.
Most Europeans would not swelter all day in the West Indies heat. So slaves persisted.
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude was a labor system in which people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a fixed term of years. It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North America and elsewhere.
Cosseted
care for and protect in an overindulgent way.
“all her life she’d been cosseted by her family”
While other founding fathers were cosseted on large slave plantations in Virginia, Hamilton grew up in a hellhole.
Fractious
typically of children) irritable and quarrelsome.
Hamilton grew up in a land of dissipated whites and fractious slaves.
Dissipated
(of a person or way of life) overindulging in sensual pleasures.
Alluded
suggest or call attention to indirectly; hint at:
His early family history is hardly spoken of, alluded to in only a couple of cryptic letters.
cryptic
Having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure: he found his boss’s utterances too cryptic.
He turned his early family history into a taboo topic, alluded to in only a couple of cryptic letters.
chattel
a personal possession.
In the slave-based economy, physicians often attended the auctions, checking the teeth of the human chattel and making them run, lead, and jump to test whatever strength remained after the grueling middle passage.
pervasive
spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people. (especially an unwelcome influence or physical effect.)
No white in the sugar island was entirely exempt from the pervasive taint of slavery.
inequitable
unfair; unjust: the present taxes are inequitable.
The 4000 slaves on Nevis outnumbered whites by a ratio of 4 to 1, making inequitable carnal relations between black slaves and white masters a dreadful commonplace
carnal relations
sexual relations
petite bourgeoisie
Name comes from Marxist theory. These people are employers who typically work with their employees. As opposed to Haute (high) Bourgeoisie who do not.
Denuded
strip of its covering, possessions, or assets.
Nevis was denuded of much of its vegetation due to a plant disease.
marred
spoiled.
Their marriage was marred by perpetual squabbling.
annuity
fixed sum of money paid to someone each year, typically for the rest of their life.
Mary renounced all rights to her husband’s property in exchange for an inadequate annuity of 53 pounds.
Sephardic
Spanish or Portuguese Jew.
affluent
having a great deal of money. Lavien was a flashy dresser who tried to look like an affluent suitor.
vindictive
having an unreasonable desire for revenge.
A vindictive Lavien ranted in a later written divorce decree . . .
nemesis
the inescapable agent of someone’s downfall.
One of Hamilton’s journalistic nemeses branded him “the son of a camp-girl”
pretensions
a claim or assertion of a claim to something.
I have better pretensions than most of those who in this country plume themselves on ancestry.
arable
land suitable for growing crops. As opposed to rocky hillsides, etc.
The family estate encompassed half the arable land in the parish.
apothecary
a person who prepared and sold medicines and drugs. Not commonly used today.
lackadaisical
lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy.
Easy going and lackadaisical, devoid of the ambition that would propel his spirited son, James Hamilton did not seem to internalize the Glaswegian ethos of hard work and strict discipline.
hapless
unfortunate.
For many years these men would tirelessly bail out the hapless James Hamilton from recurrent financial scrapes.
onerous
involving a great deal of effort, trouble, or difficulty. Heavy obligations. An onerous task.
The onerous four-year contract was a form of legal bondage that obligated him to work as a servant.
without reproach
no criticism can be made.
but his character was otherwise without reproach and his manners those of a gentleman.
indolence
avoidance of activity or exertion; laziness.
He retained his father’s pride, though not his indolence.
perennial
lasting for a long time, or continually recurring.
Perhaps embarrassed by his perennial bungling, James Hamilton seems to have concealed the scope of his financial troubles.
mulatto
a person with one white and one black parent.
vertiginous
extremely high or steep.
They were both scarred by early setbacks, had suffered a vertiginous descent in social standing, and had grappled with the terrors of downward social mobility.
profligate
recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources.
Alexander’s illegitimacy was a mere legal technicality and had nothing to do with negligent or profligate parents.
implacable
unable to be appeased.
He received his brains and implacable willpower from his mother, not from his errant, indolent father.
consigned
Put in a place in order to be rid of it (or in this case, him.)
Alexander was able to daydream that he was not merely a West Indian outcast, consigned forever to a lowly status, but an aristocrat in disguise.
gradations
a scale or a series of successive changess, stages, or degrees.
In this highly stratified society, with its many gradations of caste . . .
Decalogue
Ten commandments (deca means 10)
French Huguenot
French protestant of the 16th and 17th century. Highly persecuted by the French Catholic church.
Incessant
Neverending.
He was well situated to witness the clash of European powers, with incessant skirmishes among French, Spanish, and English ships and swarms of marauding pirates and privateers.
marauding
going about in search of things to steal or people to attack
He was well situated to witness the clash of European powers, with incessant skirmishes among French, Spanish, and English ships and swarms of marauding pirates and privateers.
cutthroats
a murderer or other violent criminal.
cutlasses
a short sword with a slightly curved blade used by sailors.
impertinent
not showing proper respect; rude.
he called him “an impertinent puppy”–words prompting a duel.
barbarous
extremely brutal.
The barbarous whippings of slaves.
genteel
being exceptionally polite or refined.
Plantations in the American south were almost genteel by comparison.
sadism
A tendency to derive pleasure from inflicting pain.
Eventually unfazed by this sadism, a local jury acquitted him of all wrongdoing.
incongruously
Not in harmony or keeping with the surroundings or other aspects of something.
All of the horror was mingled incongruously with the natural beauty of turquoise waters.
cede
give up. Having run out of money he was forced to cede his plantation.
plaintiff
A person who brings a case against another in a court of law.
The Plaintiff in the case says that the defendant is a known liar.
reprisals
an act of retaliation.
She feared further reprisals from Lavian, and so did not show up or refute the allegations.
mitigate
make something less severe, serious, or painful.
Her sons were unable to mitigate the stigma of illegitimacy.
innuendo
a sly, gossipy hint that is typically a slur.
Did Lavien conduct a smear campaign and poison the air with innuendo?
transient
lasting only for a short time; impermanent.
John Hamilton intended to be a transient visitor to St. Croix.
filial
Relating to or due from a son or daughter.
There is a possible reason why J Hamilton may have felt less than paternal toward his son and A less than filial toward him.
largesse
generosity in bestowing money or gifts upon others.
A later testified to the Lyttons’ indispensable largesse, saying that his father’s departure “threw me upon the bounty of my mother’s relations, some of whom were then wealthy.”
besieged
surrounded and harassed.
They were besieged by successive problems.
abysmally
extremely bad.
This business venture failed so abysmally that he fled to the Carolinas to avoid prison.
melange
Varied mixture.
Alexander was exposed to a rich racial melange of blacks, whites and mulattoes.
licentious
promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters.
Christiansted erupted into a roaring licentious bedlam of taverns and brothels overflowing with rebels and sailors.
bedlam
Scene or uproar and confusion.
Christiansted erupted into a roaring licentious bedlam of taverns and brothels overflowing with rebels and sailors.
depravity
moral corruption.
Alexander was exposed to abundant savagery and depravity, but he also saw an elegant way of life.
patina
the impression or appearance of something.
A gloss or sheen on wooden furniture produced by age and polish.
She tried to give her household a patina of civility.
succumbed
fail to resist a negative force.
She succumbed to a raging fever and died.
emetic
a medicine that causes vomiting.
sequestered
isolated.
Five agents from the probate court hastened to the scene and sequestered the property, sealing off one chamber, and attic, and two storage spaces in the yard.
ambivalence
having mixed feelings about something. T
This may have explained his ambivalence towards church attendance.
implacably
unable to be appeased.
No less implacably vengeful than his father, Peter Lavien returned and took possession of his small inheritance.
tawdry
showy but cheap and of poor quality, unpleasant.
Life as a ward of Peter Lytton proved yet another merciless education in the tawdry side of life for A.
stupefying
astonishing and shocking to the point of being unable to think or feel properly.
Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths . . .
enigma
a person or thing that is difficult to understand.
We must ponder another enigma of A’s childhood.
scuttlebutt
rumor or gossip.
extant
still in existence.
No extant picture of Edward enables us to probe any family resemblance.
