Jean-Baptiste Philip

Jean-Baptiste Philip (1796–1829), sometimes spelled "Phillipe," was a Trinidad-born medical doctor and the leader of an activist group formed in Trinidad in 1823, which fought against the racist attitudes of colonial authorities through letters and petitions. He was a complex figure as he fought against racist attitudes of colonial authorities in Trinidad while also belonging to a Black slave-owning family.

Early life Philip was born in Trinidad in 1796. His family were members of the wealthy Black elite and owned sugar plantations in Naparima. Between 1806 and 1810, Philip left Trinidad to study literature in England, becoming the first Trinidadian to formally study literature abroad.

Work in the Caribbean

Around 1815, Philip returned to Trinidad to practice medicine as one of the first Black doctors to work in the Caribbean. Moreover, many doctors owned enslaved people. One doctor, William Wright, wrote that the abolition of the slave trade would be "fatal to our commerce".

Despite this, Philip sought to challenge the racial discrimination he faced in the medical profession in the Caribbean and critiqued the many inequalities between the Black and the White population. The text was a call on the British governor of Trinidad, Bathurst to grant the "coloured population" of the island the same "civil and political privileges as their white fellow subjects." The use of the term "coloured" in the text refers to the free Black population, but excludes slaves. Philip states that the text aims to highlight the prejudices free Blacks in Trinidad face in order to inspire Bathurst to act.

Philip writes that after the Spanish capitulated Trinidad to the British in 1797, the condition and treatment of the free Black population was undermined by a misinterpretation of Spanish colonial policies and the introduction of additional repressive laws.