I'm a writer by profession, and am currently working on a project that's partly set in Jamaica in the 1790s. I'm having no problem finding sources about life on the sugar plantations from the perspective of the slave owners; those guys liked to write. However I'm struggling to find any comprehensive, reliable texts about life on a sugar plantation from the perspective of the slaves.
Would anyone be kind enough to hit me up with some recommendations? I'm particularly interested in the music, religion and customs that slaves had when they were away from the planation owners. Obviously slaves in a plantation would have mostly come from different African tribes so the culture they developed in Jamaica is proving a slippery thing to get my head around. All help would be very, very welcome. Thanks!
There are many on here who have more expertise in the later 18th century Caribbean than I, but I do know a few sources that you could consult.
The first issue you will confront is that there is a dearth of sources from enslaved people's point of view at any time during the eighteenth century. Olaudah Equiano's narrative is a rare example of a literate ex-slave writing about his experiences (whether he was born in Africa or not is beside the point for this question; he was enslaved and labored in the Carolinas and Montserrat, - ODNB Online). For the most part, you will be stuck with the sources left by whites in Jamaica, and have to "read against the grain". For historians, that means extracting information from source that was not the original intent of its creator.
For example, one of the most common sources for slave culture is runaway advertisements. Douglas Chambers has retyped and assembled 740 advertisements from Jamaican newspapers between 1718 and 1795 here. There is an incredible amount of information given in these sorts of advertisements - names of family memebers, any skilled trades they practiced, if they could or could not speak English, and occasionally if they played a musical instrument. The list goes on. But in using a source like this, some students or writers fall into the trap of adopting the language of the slave master - they will frequently try and take titles away from the slave, such as Abraham, who "pretends to be an Obeah-Man and Doctor" (p. 103). From this description, it seems that Abraham was born in Africa, and was brought up to be a healer of some kind (for another example of this kind of person and their importance to enslaved and free African communities, see James Sweet, Domingos Alvares). Advertisers and slave owners will also claim the slaves are perpetually drunk ("is very much given to excessive drinking" p. 120). Surely the slaves enjoyed alcohol when they had access, but be wary of taking the slave owners at their word. We can also see some of the brutality of slavery in the descriptions of some of the enslaved as "branded" or "scars on [their] back from flogging."
Another major source for slavery in eighteenth century Jamaica is the diary of Thomas Thistlewood. There is an edited down version by Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery. It is a very abbreviated version, and the original is online through Yale University here, but the text can be difficult to read. Thistlewood covers everything, from the truly horrific (rape is a common element in Thistlewood's life) to the mundane and everyday of planter's and their slaves in Jamaica.
There are some letters published from a slave factor in Jamaica, Simon Taylor for the period 1765-1775 (Wood, Travel, Trade, and Power in the Atlantic, 1765-1884)
Some secondary works worth considering are Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire; Brown, The Reaper's Garden; Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations, Higman, Slave Population and Economy, 1807-1834, and Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica.
Hope this gives you a jumping off point!