The Barbadians’ attraction to the mainland was easy to understand. For the small man, according to the historian Richard Dunn, migration to “Carolina opened possibilities undreamed of in Barbados.” John Collins, for example, found that the sale of his modest plot of land in Barbados allowed him to stake out 290 acres in the Carolinas. He ascended the social ladder swiftly, served on a Carolina grand jury in 1692 and became a captain of the Charleston militia in 1700. John Ladson, another arrival in 1679 of undistinguished Barbados lineage, rose to be a leading figure in the House of Assembly in the 1690s. The descendants of substantial Barbados planters did even better, according to Richard Dunn. All in all, six Barbadians were governors of South Carolina between 1670 and 1730.
The island’s imprint on the Carolinas is evident in numerous areas. Some argue that Barbadian derived linguistic influences were taken to South Carolina and are evident in the Gullah dialect. If that idea is contentious, there is no doubt about the Barbadian influence on place names in the region, from Hilton Head, named after the explorer William Hilton, to Colleton County, named after the Barbadian grandee of that name, and Barbados House in Charleston. And when the first slave laws of Carolina were enacted on 16 March 1696, it was clear that they were modelled on those ratified in Barbados in 1688.
George Ashby’s own son, also called George, tried settling in Pennsylvania during this period, probably for the same reasons as other small planters. That he ultimately returned to Barbados does not undermine the allure of migration to the mainland for white settlers from the island. As the historian John Camden Hotten concluded: “Barbados played a unique role in the settlement of colonial America. Thousands upon thousands of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen and Irishmen sailed first to that small West Indian Island before immigrating to the mainland colonies.” Whether these immigrants were rich or poor, Quakers or Jews, had lived in Barbados only briefly or came from an established family there, they would later plant deep and lasting roots right across the American mainland, from New England to New Jersey and from Virginia to Georgia.
8
Come let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it.
—BLACKBEARD
WITH NO SMALL HELP from his hard-worked slaves, George Ashby was beginning to forge a relatively prosperous life. But he couldn’t help feeling somewhat frustrated: the island kept betraying him. In seventeenth-century Barbados, it seemed as if some unexpected drama, eruption of violence or natural disaster was always occurring. And he was not alone in his dismay. George Ashby and his contemporaries had done their best to create an orderly and organized society—taming a wilderness, commissioning imposing public buildings, establishing a well-run Assembly and Senate, as well as drafting law after law designed to control everything from fornication to slave behaviour. And yet, Barbados continued to remain a dangerous and unpredictable place, threatened perpetually from without and within.
During this, the first phase of the sugar industry, Barbados was repeatedly struck by “Acts of God.” Tropical storms were an almost yearly occurrence, assaulting the islands in 1657, 1658, 1660, 1665 and 1667. And there were plagues, too. As a hub of trade, with so many people passing through from such disparate places, Barbados was, according to one historian, “a notably lethal crossroads of contagion, where the velocity of infection was swift.” Then were the follies of man. Barbados would endure three major fires in the second half of the seventeenth century. The first, in 1658, destroyed 200 dwellings and storehouses in Bridgetown, together with the colony’s records. The next, in 1670, was the worst the capital would ever suffer. Purportedly caused by a heedless boy with a candle, the fire would eventually consume between 800 and 1,000 buildings at a value of £400,000. The slow rebuilding of Bridgetown was further impeded when another conflagration broke out in January 1672, consuming more than thirty buildings and much of the island’s provisions from North America.
But the most disruptive element was war, which was particularly devastating in a Caribbean context. As one historian explained:
A few hours’ command of the sea, a few hours’ liberty to raid and plunder without opposition, could give an invader the power to do damage which could be felt for generations, even if he attempted no permanent conquest. The flimsy timber houses would burn like tinder, and so—which was even far worse—would the canes, indeed it was difficult enough to keep them from catching fire by accident. The negroes, the most important part of the planters’ capital, could be carried off quickly, for they had legs to take them where their conquerors bade them go.
In addition, the island’s produce could be seized or destroyed at great financial cost, while the crucial supplies that sustained the island’s population could be delayed or lost. Hence the incredible sense of alarm that was provoked when even a single enemy squadron was rumoured to be on its way to the Caribbean.
Conflict returned to Barbados in the early part of 1665; this time the antagonist was Holland, which in the early part of that year had dispatched an expedition against the English colonies. It was led by the most famous military figure of the age, Admiral De Ruyter, whose force was made up of twelve battleships, two fire ships and 2,500 troops. He began his offensive by battering the English settlements on the coast of Africa and then moved on to Barbados at the end of April. On the 30th De Ruyter’s squadron entered Carlisle Bay. His fleet immediately came under fire, and his own ship, the Spiegel, was disabled. After a futile attempt at landing, De Ruyter, who had lost ten men, was forced to withdraw.
But this was not the end of hostilities. At the beginning of the following year the governor of Barbados, Lord Willoughby, dispatched his nephew Francis with a force of 800 men to reinforce the settlers on St. Christopher, only to discover that the island had already surrendered. Furious at “the outrages committed by the French in conjunction with the Dutch upon the British Caribbee islands,” Lord Willoughby decided to raise his own expedition to punish the invaders. After gaining Charles II’s support, he set sail on 28 July 1666 with seventeen ships and 2,000 men, initially taking St. Lucia and then later Guadeloupe.
The progress of Willoughby’s fleet was impeded by a hurricane that started to blow on 4 August. By the time it was over only two of his ships survived. According to one historian, “the whole coast of Guadeloupe was covered with the wrecks of masts and yards, and a figure from the stern of Lord Willoughby’s ship was recognised in the water.” The governor, it seemed, had gone down with his vessel. His brother, Lord William Willoughby, took his place as governor of the islands, and to everyone’s relief the English, French and Dutch signed a peace treaty at Breda a year later on 21 July 1667.
The volatility of the Caribbean had its roots in the region’s collective history of settlement. Many of the islands were founded during the war against Spain, and were intended, in part, to act as bases for privateering. Some islands had first been stumbled upon by pirates or adventurers, who would pass the news of their discoveries on to their patrons or to wealthy merchants who could raise the money to finance a settlement or petition for a patent. These rogues may have been essential to the process of colonization; but they were rogues nonetheless. Indeed, the first trickle of European arrivals could be divided roughly into two categories: the desperate and the damned—people fleeing from justice, vagabonds or sailors who had jumped ship. Unsurprisingly, these first settlers continued to operate on the wrong side of the law, frequently supplementing their meagre income from planting with a bit of buccaneering on the side. And their new home rapidly became a centre of misadventure, smuggling and vice.
If the islands were lawless, the waters that encircled them were even more so. Comparable in size to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean Sea is part of the tumultuous waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It extends in an arc that spans from the chain of islands known as the Greater Antilles—which include Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica—south through to the Lesser Antilles, which extend from the Virgin Islands down to the coast of Venezuela. It was the Caribbean Sea that wa
s the great connector between these 7,000 islands, islets and cays; it transported its variegated population—Amerindians, black slaves, white planters and indentured servants—as they moved, ceaselessly, in all manner of crafts carrying people and supplies.
But the Caribbean waters have long swelled with danger and turmoil. Ever since the late fifteenth century, when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had sponsored Christopher Columbus in his perilous enterprise in the Indies, Spain had considered the entire region part of its empire. By treating all the non-Spanish who entered Caribbean waters as pirates, the Iberians united the other European powers against them, and for two centuries the seas reverberated with cries of “All Against Spain!” But the Spanish were not the only problem. By the early decades of the seventeenth century, virtually all the European nations had colonies in the region, so conflicts in Europe also echoed there. The Caribbean islands lay “beyond the line”—that is outside the jurisdiction of the European treaties—so were seen as legitimate prizes for European powers tussling for ascendancy in the region. It was no wonder that Henry Colt lamented: “Suerly the Deuill the spiritt of discord have great poer in America, & loose he is amongst Christians as Infidells; & wonder nott why the natives war so much, one with the other.”
The disputes of Europe continued to have reverberations in the region during the second half of the century, so the beautiful turquoise waters of the West Indies swarmed with vessels flying flags of every colour, roving to and fro on all manner of assignments both legal and illicit, frequently engaging each other in battle or raiding on land. This perpetual fighting meant that islanders like George Ashby lived in a state of constant uncertainty, never knowing when their family and livelihood would be threatened or when their hard-won lands would be seized or their property razed to the ground. The Caribbean had, according to the historian Germán Arciniegas, become an “international cockpit” in which the players “in far off Europe … [were] watching the fight from a distance, laying bets, egging on the combatants like professional gamblers.”
Pirates and pivateers were an intrinsic part of the region’s military strategy. The reasons for this were largely pragmatic: the Caribbean was simply too far away for any of the European colonizing nations to come to their territories’ aid when threatened. In the case of England, for example, it would take at least six weeks for the mother country to be notified of an incipient attack, and at least another couple of months before a force could be organized and return to the region. So the pirates and buccaneers of the West Indies became an unofficial army who could intervene at a moment’s notice; a politically expedient mercenary force, sanctioned to protect their country’s overseas interests, and wage war against their nation’s enemies.
Inevitably the pirate became the emblematic figure of the Caribbean during this era. And their histories of murder, violence and shipwrecks came to dominate both the commercial and the military life of the colonies. Clad in their signature garb of leather waistcoat and gold hooped earrings and wielding well-honed machetes, this international cast of reprobates terrorized the daily life of the region and indelibly inscribed themselves on its colourful mythology. These were the glory days of piracy, the most unpredictable and dangerous of times. The “brethren of the coast” counted among their members Indians and blacks, Jews and Catholics, as well as English, Portuguese, Dutch, French and Spanish. They came from every walk of life: some were disillusioned ex-soldiers, others were Old World pirates who found the balmy air of the Caribbean more appealing, some were escaped slaves and indentured servants for whom life as a pirate represented a step up the social ladder. The brotherhood of the coast was, concluded one historian, the Foreign Legion of the Caribbean: “a fraternity with stronger, more loyal bonds than those of many more conventional and law-abiding societies.”
They created a style of fighting that had not been seen before, raiding onshore as well as taking prizes at sea, and, when it suited them, they also became involved in poaching, smuggling and other forms of unlawful trade. The “code” or “custom of the coast” which governed their behaviour was surprisingly democratic. “When a buccaneer is going to sea,” wrote the barber-surgeon turned pirate Alexandre Exquemelin, whose book The Buccaneers of America was published in 1684, “he sends word to all who wish to sail with him. When all are ready, they go on board each bringing what he needs in the way of weapons, powder and shot.” Leaders were elected by popular acclaim and retained their position only by maintaining the esteem of their fellows. According to Exquemelin, everything taken—money, jewels, precious stones and goods—had to be shared among them all without any man enjoying a penny more than his share. Those who transgressed this rule were banished from the rovers. They also initiated a form of social security: members who were in financial difficulty were extended credit until they were back on their feet.
Their profligacy was legendary. It was said that they ate their food off plates of silver, and that their horses where shod with gold. “For that is the way with these buccaneers,” wrote Exquemelin:
when they have got hold of something, they don’t keep it for long. They are busy dicing, whoring and drinking so long as they have anything to spend. Some of them will get through a good two or three thousand pieces of eight in a day—and next day not have a shirt to their back. I have seen a man in Jamaica give 500 pieces of eight to a whore, just to see her naked.
For George Ashby these pirates were more than vibrant folklore about the sea; they were an intrinsic part of daily life on land, threatening the peace and stability of his island. He would have encountered them in the streets and taverns of Bridgetown, where their aggression was notable even in a fist-happy society like that of Barbados. And their presence on the seas meant that George Ashby could never be confident that his exports would reach their market, or that vital imports he needed to carry out his business and sustain his family, such as food and farming equipment, would reach him until the treacherous voyage was over. Pirates flying under one flag felt it was not just desirable but patriotic to raid the cargoes of ships flying under other colours. They could then sell the goods on the region’s thriving black market, where everything was traded from sugar and silk to candlesticks and alcohol. For lesser planters, working at the very edge of survival, a pirate raid could spell financial ruin. And they were a constant reminder that despite their best efforts, the society they had built was still precarious and brutal. To make matters worse, men like George Ashby were forced to stand by helpless and enraged as these outlaws’ trespasses went unpunished because of their usefulness to the political powers in Europe.
The emblematic figure of the age was “the Emperor of Buccaneers,” Sir Henry Morgan. According to Germán Arciniegas, his arrival was “the most important thing that happened in the West Indies under Cromwell.” His career began in Barbados and, in many ways, it parallelled those of sugar entrepreneurs like James Drax, except that Morgan spent more time on the wrong side of the law. Like Drax, he had fled the Old World in search of new opportunities and was willing to do anything to make his fortune. And both men would display the same initiative, persistence and ruthlessness to progress in their New World profession. In truth, the legal and extra-legal elements of the region’s life were never very far apart in the Caribbean. The region was settled by chancers who were never over-particular about how they made their money. So criminals swiftly became councillors and pirates like Morgan became public officials.
Born in Glamorgan in 1635, the adolescent Morgan was unhappy with his father’s plan to turn him into a farmer, and so fled to Bristol, where he bound himself to Barbados as an indentured servant for four years. He is said to have served his Barbadian master “with a great deal of fidelity,” and at the end of his term he joined the Penn–Venables expedition destined for Jamaica. Still in his twenties, he transformed himself from a mere foot soldier into the boldest pirate of the age. By the time he was thirty, Morgan was famous for his daring raids, adored by women and worshipped by his men. His rep
utation was fearsome. Never hesitant to utilize torture, he frequently hung his prisoners by their thumbs or crucified them with burning fuses stuck between their fingers and toes. He was even known to “hang them from their genitals until the weight of the body tore them off.” His prisoners often “threw themselves from the walls into the sea preferring death to becoming Morgan’s prisoner.”
His exploits were chronicled by Alexandre Exquemelin, who served under him for a number of years. Morgan’s raid on the Panamanian city of Portobelo in July 1688 was typical of his daring and brutality. His fleet arrived in the waters ten leagues west of the city around dusk. That night his men transferred into small craft and crept along the coast, disembarking on the outskirts of the city. Marching with his men to the city, Morgan demanded that the populace surrender. When they refused, the buccaneers rushed the city and the ensuing battle continued till the following day. Morgan considered retreating but then reinforcements arrived in the form of another pirate vessel, which joined him with cries of “Victory!” The sight of his brethren rejuvenated Morgan and his men and they redoubled their assault. All the citizens abandoned the fight except the governor, who declared that it was “better to die an honourable soldier than be hanged as a coward.” His bravery was rewarded with a bullet, and the rovers entered the town.
Sugar in the Blood Page 13