And their appetite for it was insatiable. In 1700, Britain imported 10,000 tons of sugar; by 1800, consumption had increased to 150,000 tons—a rise of 1,500 per cent. In this period the saying “as wealthy as a West Indian” became proverbial. Hence the tale of George III, who was driving one day outside London when he encountered a Jamaican planter whose carriage and liveried outriders were even more astounding than his own, and is said to have exclaimed: “Sugar, sugar, eh! … All that sugar!”
The member of the Ashby clan who would really transform the family’s fortunes was born in 1776. Robert Cooper Ashby was part of the fifth generation of the family to be born on the island, and was George Ashby’s great-great-great-grandson. He was the son of the recently relocated Robert Moore Ashby and Mary Arthur, and was born two years into their union. Robert Cooper’s earliest years would coincide with a watershed period in the evolution of the West Indian colonies when a backdrop of persistent turmoil, dubbed by historians “The Age of Revolution,” caused the fate of the sugar islands to darken.
The first of these clashes, the American War of Independence (1775–83), began the year before Robert Cooper was born. It had been brewing for some time. The Americans, like many of the other British colonies in the region, had long resented the controls imposed on them by the mother country. And in that year the Thirteen States explicitly rejected the British Parliament’s right to govern them without representation. The following year they claimed sovereignty over their own affairs and declared themselves a new nation with the name of the United States of America. The British government inevitably rejected this development and a state of war was declared. France, which had been supplying arms and ammunition to the rebels surreptitiously since the beginning of the conflict, eventually declared war on Britain, and was swiftly joined by Spain and the Dutch Republic.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. The West Indians were already jittery. In the years immediately preceding the conflict, slave revolts had ignited across the region like fireworks: in 1768 there was one in Montserrat, in Tobago there were three between 1771 and 1774, while in 1776 there were eruptions in Jamaica, Nevis and Montserrat. Now they had to contend with a war on the American mainland, with all the disruption, bloodshed and anxiety that entailed. What they feared most was the impact that the American rebellion and the rebels’ rhetoric of freedom would have on their already unsettled slaves, especially when the British began in 1775 and 1776 to aggressively recruit enslaved Americans to fight on the side of the Crown. Enticed by promises of liberty and land, tens of thousands fled the plantations; even George Washington’s own slave, Henry, crossed over to British lines. The initiative, courage and judgement shown by these black warriors dismayed the Caribbean planters, who felt that they might inspire their own captives to take up arms.
The American struggle put the islanders in an awkward position in other ways. On the one hand, Britain was the mother country to which the Barbadians still felt strong ties of loyalty. More pragmatically, they did not feel confident in their ability to stand alone, either economically or militarily. On the other hand, the Barbadians were not without sympathy for the “Americans”: they too had chafed under Britain’s heavy hand. Indeed, the American rebels’ slogan, “No taxation without representation,” was one that the Barbadians could easily have espoused themselves. In addition, the North American states were important trading partners for the island: not only would millions of pounds’ worth of trade be endangered, the island would be deprived of essential goods.
So the Barbadians attempted to tack an uneasy furrow in these churning waters. And soon they found themselves cut off from crucial supplies, both foodstuffs and material for the sugar industry, which traditionally came from the American colonies. The situation was exacerbated by the reappearance of pirates in the region, a reminder that war could break out at any time. By the middle of 1776, the year that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Cooper, was born, the island was in severe distress. Food shortages were so acute that contemporaries referred to the poor, both black and white, “dropping down in the streets, or silently pining and expiring in their cottages.” The pervasive deprivation heightened the colonists’ perennial fear of slave revolt, and by the latter part of 1777 the Barbadians had no choice but to approach Britain for assistance. But the response was slow; large consignments of flour, beans, peas and fish arrived only in early 1778. By this time the colonists, wrote one observer, “seemed to be much in a desponding way,” and the overall state of the island was “decayed and impoverished.”
Meanwhile, the military conflict rolled on. Even before the official American Declaration of Independence, the French had made their sympathies with the rebels clear. Animated by the romance of the American cause and longing to avenge the humiliation they had suffered in the Seven Years War against Britain, French nobles like the Comte de Rochambeau, the hero of Saratoga, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who would achieve a generalship in Washington’s army, rallied to the cause. France’s enthusiasm for America’s ambitions was soon evident in their colonies, and Martinique, Barbados’s neighbour, was drawn into the conflict when it became an illegal hideout for American corsairs in between their maritime forays against the British troops. Thus in 1777 the governor of Barbados was forced to warn his Martinican counterpart not to harbour “the rebels, pirates or others who engaged themselves in the conflict.” But it was too late: nothing could turn back the tide of hostilities.
And so, early in 1778, confidential instructions were sent to the British governors in the region directing them to prepare “in every way possible for the defence of their colonies.” The official entry of France into the war on the side of the Americans, and the outbreak of hostilities between Spain and England the following year, only made the situation worse. Many of the Caribbean islands fell into enemy hands, including St. Vincent, Grenada and Tobago, while Britain took the island of St. Lucia in December 1778. Barbados inevitably became one of the centres of operation for British forces in the region, and a garrison was established there early in February 1780. Its neighbour Martinique took on the same role for the French and was garrisoned with an extra 2,000 troops. America’s War of Independence was the genesis of major change across the globe; indeed, the historian Simon Schama wrote that “without any question, the [French] Revolution began in America.”
And, just as in George Ashby’s time, Barbados was also at the mercy of nature. On 10 October 1780, the most violent hurricane of the eighteenth century devastated the island. There was little indication on the night before that anything was amiss, except for an unusually red and fiery sky and a heavy shower of rain. But by ten o’clock the next morning the wind and rain had worsened and all the ships docked in Bridgetown’s harbour fled out to sea, hoping to escape the ferocity of the storm. By six o’clock that evening the velocity of the winds had increased so much that trees were uprooted and blown away. It was becoming clear that the colony was about to be battered by a truly appalling tempest.
Across the island, householders like the Ashbys took what precautions they could to guard against the force of the storm, barricading doors and windows, or fleeing to the sturdiest buildings on their lands. But there was no safety to be found. Even the most robust constructions, such as Government House, with its three-foot-thick walls, were overwhelmed. The morning brought little respite to the exhausted and bleary-eyed populace, and the storm continued, virtually uninterrupted, for nearly forty-eight hours. At its most powerful the strength of the gale was such that it carried a twelve-pound cannon a distance of 140 yards and levelled almost all of the island’s public buildings as well as its fortifications. It was difficult initially to make any accurate calculation about how many people had perished in the catastrophe, but it was clear that the numbers were considerable. Many were buried in the ruins of their own homes and a large number were washed away by the sea. The British troops stationed on the island were also hard hit, with both the barracks and the hospital blown down earl
y in the storm. The number of dead bodies that lay interred or washed up from the sea prompted public health concerns. The British Parliament immediately dispatched £80,000 to help the islanders, but it was just a drop in the ocean. This single hurricane was eventually estimated to have cost the region 22,000 souls, and killed at least 211 horses and 6,606 cattle.
Two army officers stationed on the island left their record of the storm. Major General Vaughan wrote in a dispatch: “The strongest colours could not paint to your Lordship the miseries of the inhabitants; on the one hand the ground is covered with the mangled bodies of their friends and relations, and on the other, reputable families, wandering through the ruins, seeking for food and shelter; in short, imagination can form but a faint idea of the horrors of this dreadful scene.” Admiral Rodney was also stupefied by the extent of the destruction: “The whole face of the country appears an entire ruin, and the most beautiful island in the world, has the appearance of a country laid waste by fire, and sword and appears to the imagination more dreadful than it is possible for me to find words to express.”
After the shock had subsided, the entire island was mobilized to clear debris, replant crops and bury the dead. The injury to the Ashbys’ property is unknown but it would have been unavoidable: one official report noted that “no one house in the island is exempt from damage.” The family therefore would have had to put up with makeshift arrangements for some time, and their finances must have been devastated by the destruction that the hurricane had wrought. They would have found that even if they could raise the money for repairs, lumber and other materials were so scarce and expensive that rebuilding could only take place slowly. To make matters worse, the colony was simultaneously ravaged by outbreaks of yellow fever and smallpox, and by ruinous new duties imposed by Britain. By the end of the American War of Independence in 1783, “the economic position of Barbados was still poor, and a number of planters left the island rather than undertake to repair the damage done by the hurricane.”
Robert Cooper at the age of four was probably only vaguely conscious of these problems: his world extended little further than his house, his parents and the three younger siblings that would follow. Nothing remains of his childhood homestead but an inscription on an eighteenth-century map. It reads simply “Ashby,” and marked beside it is a drawing of a single windmill, signifying the estate’s limited ability to process sugar. But it was most likely typical of the majority of middling sugar plantations at that time. The nucleus of the property, the “great house,” would have been modest: a single-storey wooden construction perched on large square stones with the ubiquitous veranda around the sides and front; while the neatly kept garden would have been dominated by tropical trees like frangipani, tamarind and cedar. The planter’s house was traditionally guarded by a hedge of flowering shrubs like hibiscus, which marked it out as separate from the rest of the plantation and indicated its privileged position on the property. Beyond the compound the land was divided into cane fields, pastures for the plantation’s livestock and plots of land the slaves cultivated for their own sustenance. Dotted across this landscape was a higgledy-piggledy collection of livestock, outbuildings and slave quarters.
Here Robert Cooper and his siblings applied themselves to the job of being young. Despite some material deprivation it was a cosseted upbringing, since even relatively small plantations had a glut of domestic servants to cater to the family’s needs. Robert Cooper, who was addressed as “Massa Robert” from his earliest infancy, would have enjoyed the attentions of his own nanny, whose efforts were supplemented by other helpers who bathed and dressed, walked and coddled him. Even the slave children he played with would yield to his every whim. This indulged upbringing, argued one contemporary, explained the Creole’s volatility and lack of self-control:
Children, in these West-India islands are, from their Infancy, waited upon by Numbers of Slaves, who … are obliged to pay them unlimited Obedience; and … when they have thus their favourite Passions nourished with such indulgent Care, it is no Wonder that by Degrees they acquire … an overfond and self-sufficient Opinion of their own Abilities, and so become impatient as well as regardless of the Advice of others.
The Ashby children lived almost entirely outdoors, where there were trees to climb, lizards to chase and horses to ride. On the plantation there were peaceful places: ponds shaded by trees where Robert and his companions could lie and read or chat and dream. There were thrilling places: ravines and dark, vine-draped pockets of tropical forest, which they could explore with all the attendant dangers—and excitements—of snakes, scorpions and huge hairy-limbed spiders. There were mysterious places in which to hide: nooks and crannies created by fallen trees or mudslides. Robert Cooper’s youth was one dominated by intense sensations: the warmth of sun-baked skin, the feeling of being free and unencumbered, and above all, that incomparable quality of light.
This childhood idyll was punctuated by the rhythms of sugar cultivation. Robert Cooper would learn to sleep through the sound of the bell that summoned the slaves to the fields just before sun-up, and he took for granted the sight of slave gangs working in the cane fields. The emblematic image of the colonies—women carrying bundles of cane upon their heads—was mundane to him. And like all locals, he was able to ignore the crack of the whip and the strangled cries of the slaves: a selective deafness that would amaze newcomers to the island.
Meanwhile, another storm was brewing across the Atlantic that would have a profound impact on my ancestor’s future. This was the emergence of the abolitionist movement, which had been kick-started by Granville Sharp, an ordnance clerk at the Tower of London, who championed the cause of a slave called James Somerset originally from Virginia. Hoping to prove that it was illegal to ship him from England back to the Americas, Sharp went to court. The case eventually ended up before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in a trial that one historian described as “high theatre.” At last, the ugly question of slavery, which was something most Britons saw as taking place on the other side of the world, was brought to their doorstep. The court was filled to overflowing when judgement was given in favour of Somerset.
The burgeoning anti-slavery movement was jubilant; Mansfield’s decision was interpreted as meaning that slavery was illegal on English soil. This was not the Lord Chief Justice’s intention: he strove only to prove that it was unlawful for the slave to be transported abroad. But whatever the legal subtleties, blacks and abolitionists exulted, and at least fifteen English slaves were freed by judges who cited Somerset as their precedent.
In 1787, the year Robert Cooper turned eleven, the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was officially formed. Granville Sharp was among its leaders, along with the ex-slaver John Newton, who penned the hymn “Amazing Grace,” and the ex-Anglican priest James Ramsay, who had ministered to slaves in St. Kitts. They were joined by Cambridge scholar Thomas Clarkson, who would persuade the politician and philanthropist William Wilberforce to join the movement. Their numbers were further swelled by the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, and the great Quaker potter Josiah Wedgwood, who created the symbol of the movement: a plaque which depicted a kneeling slave in chains, arms raised towards heaven, pleading “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?”
At last the gauntlet had been thrown down and the battle for abolition was truly on. It would be a long and passionate drama, replete with innumerable setbacks and victories, not least because the forces ranged against the abolitionists were truly formidable.
The abolitionists employed many strategies to counter their enemies, some of the most powerful of which were religious, reflecting the fact that many of the abolitionists’ intellectual ideas were underpinned by profound spiritual convictions. Their vigorous mobilization of Christian ethics to justify the abolitionist cause was a complete departure from the past, when the Bible, in particular the story of Ham, had been exploited to support the cause of enslavement and the church had expressed very little concern about the instit
ution of slavery. In Barbados, for example, the Anglican church saw no contradiction between its religious ethics and slave ownership, particularly when it was left two lucrative estates in the will of the planter Christopher Codrington. The church ran these plantations, which had over 700 slaves, for several decades. They branded their charges with their own custom-designed mark, and treated them with no greater compassion than many other slave owners. Most of the early missionaries preached that slavery was ordained by God, and even the island’s Quakers frequently owned slaves, justifying their slave ownership with the argument that it provided black pagans with exposure to Christianity’s civilizing influence.
Now, however, Granville Sharp remarked, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self … this is the sum and essence of the whole law of God.” The movement attracted a diverse range of followers. There were blacks—both slaves and free—philosophers and artists, Quakers and missionaries, the white working class, women, even free-traders. So it was hard initially to decide on a plan of action, but in the end they decided that their first goal should be the abolition of the trade in slaves, which would at least eliminate the horrors of the Middle Passage. They also wondered how best to present the slaves to the public so as to elicit the most support. They chose to downplay the slaves’ own efforts to gain their freedom and instead presented them as long-suffering victims in need of rescue. After prolonged debate, they evolved a strategy of such sophistication that it would provide the model for citizens’ rights movements up to the present day.
When it came to making the most compelling case, the abolitionists carried out widespread research into the iniquities of the trade. They collected now-famous images, such as that of the slave ship Brookes with the captives crammed like cod beneath deck, and the sketch of a ship’s captain whipping a naked female slave, suspended upside down, while three black women wept abjectly in the background. To persuade the uncommitted, Clarkson travelled the country with a grisly collection of slave paraphernalia, including handcuffs, shackles and iron masks designed to prevent starving slaves from eating cane. The movement also produced an endless stream of advertisements, articles and pamphlets; indeed the pamphleteers were the bloggers of their day and their writings most accurately reflect the intellectual passions of the era.
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