First edition, a rare copy in the original printed boards of this important work of 19th century Caribbean scholarship and self-representation by one of the most vital post-emancipation figures in Caribbean scholarship.
John Jacob Thomas (1841-88) was an important Black Trinidadian scholar, educator, and linguist, widely noted for his spirited intellectual defense of Black West Indian culture. He was extraordinarily talented and “mastered the English language, French, Spanish, French Creole, Latin, Greek and his first book-length publication appeared before he was thirty. He is rightly accorded the status of being one of the founders of creole linguistics” (Lewis, 48).
As a young anglophone schoolteacher in the 1860s, Thomas undertook a serious study of the French-Trinidadian patois spoken by his students, which he came quickly to understand as a grammatically fixed, rich, and fully-developed language in its own right. His first published book, Creole Grammar, is an astonishingly clear and thorough introduction to the grammar and writing system of West Indian Creole, and established the largely self-taught Thomas as an important linguistic scholar on the international stage.
Not least, Thomas “emerged at a time when the Caribbean colonies were well on the way [...] towards developing distinctive creole nationalities. By this is meant that the experience of over three centuries of slavery had created new nationalities” (ibid, 52).
In 1889, Thomas received yet greater attention and acclaim for his book, Froudacity, an historic attack on James Anthony Froude’s chauvinist account of blacks in the West Indies. It’s hardly a surprise that he became a notable influence on the likes of C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, and Eric Williams.
Printed in Port-of-Spain, this work has appeared just a handful of times at auction. Not in Sabin, not in Thompson ; Lewis, R., “J.J. Thomas and Political Thought in the Caribbean” in Caribbean Quarterly , Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (June, 1990), pp.46-58.
