This book is the first attempt to analyse records of people of
Afro-Caribbean origin who appealed against repatriation during the
painful period after Britain's 1919 race riots. Revealing personal
letters and petitions from the West Indies, West Africa, and the UK,
Jane Chapman demonstrates that conflict adjustment involving individual
voices needs to be highlighted. She asks, what was the human
environment, the dilemmas and the racist compulsions making
transnational experiences in the British Empire so poignant? Analysing
both the opinions of civil servants on appellants' statements of
hardship and requests for financial help, and the voices of the
appellants themselves, this book aims to rediscover black people's
hidden heritage.