‘I felt like a man’: West Indian troops under fire during the First World War

Anna Maguire

doi:10.1080/0144039X.2018.1489944

‘I felt like a man’: West Indian troops under fire during the First World War

Anna Maguire

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Abstract

This article examines representations of the British West Indies Regiment’s service during the First World War to explore how limits on their service were negotiated and how tropes of ‘martial races’ were adapted to ensure the contributions of West Indian men were recognised. The article examines West Indian experiences in Europe and the Middle East, drawing on a rich variety of textual and visual sources: official histories of West Indian regiments, memoirs written by padres who served with the troops, letters from the men as published in newspapers like the Daily Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, and official photographs. It argues that ‘combat gnosticism’ was replicated in another form within these representations to construct a definition of military service that included these black men and validated their contributions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	602-621
Number of pages	19
Journal	Slavery and abolition
Volume	39
Issue number	3: Africa’s Sons Under Arms Journal homepage
Early online date	21 Aug 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2018.1489944
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 21 Aug 2018

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10.1080/0144039X.2018.1489944

I felt like a man_MAGUIRE_Firstonline21August2018_GREEN AAM
“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Slavery & Abolition online in 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0144039X.2018.1489944”
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Cite this

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‘I felt like a man’: West Indian troops under fire during the First World War

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