Vincent Brown looks at how Mortuary Politics shaped the course of history for the contending groups in Jamaica. Brown looks at how death shaped daily life, and how it bleeds over into property, authority, morality, territory, and belonging is the base of the book. Brown is coming from an Atlantic perspective, claiming the history of Jamaica can be seen clearer in the wider web of the connections and comparisons with other parts of the Atlantic basin.

What is mortuary politics? The social meaning from beliefs and practices with death and how they are employed. Brown says the linkage with death makes the dead integral to social and political organization and mobilization, and therefore vital to historical transformation.

Brown uses a plethora of source material: tombstone inscriptions, wills, diaries, parish vestry mins, plantation account papers, court returns, travellers reports, assembly mins, visual images, archaeology of burial sites.

Shared experiences of death and dislocation helped form common assumptions, idioms, and beliefs that would shape meaning in the new world among African persons.