This article focuses on the period between 1812 and 1834, when the British Empire introduced protection measures to mitigate the suffering of slaves from planter brutality, but also to protect planters from slave rebellion. By examining the impact and influences wielded by Edmund Burke’s Sketch of a Negro Code (1780), this article studies protection as an alliance between the abolitionists and planters who, despite contestations, found in Burke’s Code a means to attain their separate ends. Through the workings of the Office of the Protector, instituted by the imperial authorities in the slave colony of Trinidad, this study examines how it granted slaves the humanity of ‘rights’ against their masters, while also protecting the right to property (in slaves) of the planters. I argue that the paternalistic practice of protection was, as is in the present, at the center of the exploitation of subjugated groups.

本文着重介绍1812年至1834年之间的时期，当时大英帝国采取了保护措施，以减轻奴隶因种植园主的残酷而遭受的苦难，同时也保护种植园主免受奴隶的叛乱。通过研究埃德蒙·伯克（Edmund Burke）的《黑人法典素描》（1780）所产生的影响，本文将保护视为废奴主义者和种植者之间的联盟，他们尽管存在争议，但在《伯克法典》中发现了一种达到各自目的的手段。通过帝国政府在特立尼达的奴隶殖民地建立的保护者办公室的工作，本研究考察了它如何赋予奴隶针对其主人的“权利”人性，同时还保护财产权（在奴隶中）的种植者。我认为，像现在这样，家长式保护的实践处于被征服群体的剥削中心。