The Sugar Barons

by Matthew Parker

  On the death of each commissioner from England, military command in Jamaica was taken up by Edward D’Oyley. He was aloof and a harsh disciplinarian, but, as it turned out, an effective and astute leader of the colony in its hours of greatest danger.

  In October 1656 he instigated a plan whereby land around Spanish Town and beyond was allocated to the soldiers regiment by regiment, in the hope that they could be ordered by their officers to start the cultivation of provisions and crops for export. At last, some cassava and tobacco was planted. It was hoped that this wider occupation would also squeeze the provision supplies of the enemy guerrilla force.

  But D’Oyley’s greatest concern now was the threat of reconquest by regular Spanish forces. Jamaica, however poor and backward, had been an integral part of the Spanish empire. Its apparent loss to a rival European power was a dangerous precedent Madrid was determined to reverse. Only internal rivalries within the Caribbean empire, and the spread of sickness from the English army to the Spaniards and thence with them to Cuba, had prevented an immediate counter-attack. But crack Spanish troops were known to be on their way from Europe, and the Governor of Cuba, at last receiving reinforcement and weapons from the Viceroy of Mexico, was massing soldiers and transport for a counter-invasion.

  D’Oyley’s answer to this threat was not to seek more soldiers, who could not yet be fed, but to look for a strong naval force to guard the coasts and prevent a Spanish army being conveyed from Cuba. It was hoped, furthermore, to put the enemy on the back foot with a continual campaign of harassment at sea and hit-and-run raids across the Spanish islands and Main. Goodson’s handful of frigates and couple of hundred marines could only do so much. To achieve this aim, D’Oyley needed the buccaneers.

  Even more directly than the planter pioneers, the buccaneers were the spiritual descendants of those English ‘corsairs’ who, during the Anglo-Spanish war of 1585–1604, had carried back a fortune from the Spanish Main in looted sugar, hides, logwood, indigo, silver, gold and pearls, and had thereby won themselves a place in the mythology of English adventures overseas. The nucleus of the buccaneers came from the Spanish expulsion of the English and French settlers from St Kitts back in 1629. Those who escaped capture or declined to return to their ruined tobacco plantations relocated to deserted places in the Spanish Caribbean and vowed to take revenge on Spain, while at the same time guarding their independence and paying tribute to no one. An independent and international force, though almost always directed against Spain, they operated either out of Providence Island, near modern-day Nicaragua, or Tortuga, off Hispaniola’s north coast, which was well placed for interception of Spanish ships in the Windward Passage. Over time, they attracted to their strength a large number of debtors, desperadoes and criminals, on the run from the various European settlements in the region.

  Expelled from Providence Island, and periodically driven away from Tortuga, many buccaneers formed camps on the deserted northern shore of Hispaniola. There, they survived by hunting wild cattle and selling to passing ships the meat they had processed into dried strips on their ‘boucans’ or barbecues, hence their name. Sheltering under leaf-roofed sheds and sleeping in sacks to keep off the insects, they looked, said a French observer, like ‘the butcher’s vilest servants, who have been eight days in the slaughter house without washing themselves’. Soon, it was apparent that the best way to raise themselves above subsistence level was by taking over ships and selling the cargoes to the highest bidder. Even more profitable was raiding the peaceful Spanish coastal settlements. Thus developed the Caribbean’s most formidable amphibious assault force, moreover one that expected no mercy from their Spanish enemies, nor granted any in return. Atrocities on both sides escalated in ferocity and horror.

  Threatened by Spanish reconquest of Jamaica, Edward D’Oyley decided to make what later turned out to be a pact with the devil: he invited the buccaneers to come to the new Port Royal to dispose of their prize cargoes and loot, and to refit and spend the proceeds of their raids. In return they would act as ‘freelance’ auxiliaries to the official English naval force, who, of course, shared their goals: to snatch loot and generally cause chaos among the Spanish in the Caribbean. The chance to base themselves in a good, well-defended harbour at the strategic centre of the Caribbean Sea was welcomed. Within a short time, more than 1,000 buccaneers were operating out of Port Royal, with their loot and prize cargoes often reloaded on to New England or Bermudan ships as payment for provisions.

  So the buccaneers now operated under commissions, or letters of marque or reprisal – official sanction from the English authorities. While still primarily motivated by the hope of Spanish pieces-of-eight and by the charisma and dash of their particular leaders, their efforts were led by the handful of English naval vessels left behind after the departure of Admiral Penn.

  The deputy of this force was Captain Christopher Mygns, an aggressive and popular commander. Sent by D’Oyley on a wrecking mission against the Spanish Main, he was advised to attack settlements in secret and under cover of darkness. Instead, he arrived at midday with drums thundering and trumpets blasting, much to the terror of the Spaniards. After one raid with 300 men he returned to Port Royal with an estimated £200,000-300,000 sterling of booty, mainly in silver snatched during a descent on the Spanish town of Coro. Much of the treasure stuck to the fingers of Mygns and his men, causing the temporary disgrace and recall of the Captain, but his aggression and confidence were infectious.

  In October 1658, the English came within a whisper of catching the elusive treasure fleet. Lying in wait at anchor between Cartagena and Porto Bello in Panama, they sighted the galleons on 20 October, but only two frigates were on hand to intercept them, the rest being away collecting water. The two vessels engaged the rear of the fleet, hoping to scatter the merchantmen, but the Spanish ships kept their formation and the silver proceeded unmolested to Europe.

  Yet there were enough successes for the proceeds of prizes and raids to go a long way towards underwriting the young colony, in a way that planting could not yet achieve. They were Jamaica’s only true income, and the demand from the buccaneers and privateers for naval supplies, provisions and entertainment drove the development of Port Royal and its hinterland.

  In early 1657, the first crops planted by the regiments were ready for harvest. Helped by early rains, the yield was good, particularly for those Leeward islanders who had struggled on around Port Morant. In addition, fustic and other dye woods were now being gathered and sent back to England. In terms of simple survival, a corner had been turned. But in the same year warning came, through captured letters, that the plans of the Viceroy of Mexico to retake the island were now ready for launch.

  D’Oyley took 500 men, and sailed in search of the enemy, whom he found on the north side of the island near Ocho Rios. About 500 Spaniards had landed and fortified themselves with trenches and a stockade of tree trunks. Undaunted, D’Oyley’s men advanced, hacked their way into the stockade and drove the Spanish out. More than 100 Spaniards were killed and many more wounded. Some escaped back to Cuba, but most fled into the woods. English losses, though, were light.

  The Spanish continued to land small parties of men from Cuba, and in May the following year, a larger party of nearly 1,000 established a new fort on the north coast at Rio Nuevo. This provided a sterner test for attackers: on high ground and protected by a deep river, it was equipped with six cannon, each firing four-pound shot.

  D’Oyley didn’t hear about the new Spanish base on the island until 12 days later; as before, rather than brave the hostile interior, he took a force of 750 by sea, landing a short distance from the Spanish position. Then, by circling round through thick woods behind the fort, he managed to find a weak spot. As his vanguard threw crude grenades into the palisade, scaling ladders were rushed up, and the fort breached. Three hundred Spanish soldiers were killed, against some 50 English.

  The Spanish would not land again in such numbers, but the guerrilla war continued, with ne
ws of the death of Cromwell in September 1658 adding to the uncertainty of the English. Then, in 1660, a renewed effort against the guerrillas led to the discovery of a hidden, richly fertile valley where 200 acres had been planted in provisions to sustain the Spanish and their local allies. Soon afterwards came a decisive breakthrough when a key maroon leader, Juan Lubolo, was contacted and successfully persuaded to change sides. His men now hunted down the Spaniards and their allies, and by the end of the year, after one final unsuccessful landing of some 150 men, the Spanish at last abandoned their attempt at reconquest. Many hostile maroons, however, remained at large in the interior.

  The performance of the English army in Jamaica over these three years was impressive, especially considering they were underfed, had still not been paid, and many did not even have shoes. D’Oyley continued to plead with London, describing a state of ‘extreme want and necesitie’ on the island. He wrote home that he feared ‘sickness will reduce’ the population ‘to a small number; supposes it proceeds from excessive drunkenness.’ He complained ‘of merchants bringing strong liquors from all parts.’ He was also vexed by the large numbers of men who, instead of planting, were joining the evergrowing privateering fleet operating out of Port Royal. Immigrants were not arriving in sufficient numbers to replace those dying of sickness. For one thing, settlement was discouraged by the widely held view that, after all their struggles, the restored King of England, Charles II, would hand the island back to his friends the Spanish without a shot being fired.

  On 26 July 1660, D’Oyley wrote to London: ‘All the frigates are gone, and neither money in the treasury, victuals in the storehouses, nor anything belonging to the State is left … the island has a sense of being deserted by their own country, which fills the minds of the people with sad and serious thoughts.’

  PART TWO

  The Grandees

  10

  THE RESTORATION

  ‘Riches enlarge rather than satisfy appetites.’

  Thomas Fuller, 1608–61

  After his lavish send-off from Barbados in the spring of 1654, James Drax was given a warm welcome back in England from his friends in politics and business. He was soon involved in a partnership with his old friend and Barbados neighbour, Thomas Middleton, also in England, in a lucrative deal to deliver muskets to the island to replace those shipped out with Penn and Venables’ ill-fated force. Other trading ventures – including slaves – almost certainly followed. For at least two years after his departure from Barbados, Drax remained in London, becoming a prominent member of the prototype committee of West India merchants and planters who met at the Jamaica Coffee House in St Michael’s Walk near the Exchange in London. His bust shows a solid Puritan grandee in his later years, strikingly resembling well-known portraits of Cromwell, with shoulder-length hair below a short fringe, a prominent nose and fleshy lips. Evidence of his famous dinners can be seen in his large double chin; his expression is one of authority, but not without humour and kindness.

  In gratitude for his partisanship during the Cavalier–Roundhead face-off in Barbados, and in recognition of his new but spectacular wealth and influence, James Drax was called in for an audience with the Protector in December 1657. Cromwell took the opportunity to bestow on him a knighthood. A contemporary account reporting the event described Drax as ‘a Gentleman of much worth, and of great Interest in Plantations at the Barbadoes, where he formerly lived for some years’. Sir James, as he now was, took the chance to plead with Cromwell to prevent interference in Barbados from London, for free trade, the right to choose their own governor and to be allowed to spend their revenue as they saw fit – effective independence.

  The death of Oliver Cromwell in late 1658 left a power vacuum and lack of direction to the colonies from the metropolitan centre, and Barbados and the other islands went about their business unmolested. In the meantime, Sir James seems to have worked hard on his new portfolio of English properties, all purchased thanks to the extraordinary profits from his Barbados plantations. A manor house and acreage were snapped up near Boston in Lincolnshire; property was purchased in Coventry and in Kent; while in Yorkshire, Ellerton Priory in Swaledale came under his control, along with adjoining lands.

  It seems likely that this last purchase, and possibly some of the others, consisted of James Drax taking over the ownership from another part of the family – a Gabriel Drax is listed as the owner of Ellerton at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and Drax’s family had originated from the Coventry area. Such a transaction was, of course, all about demonstrating that a new branch of the family was now dominant. Other nouveau riche sugar planters would follow this pattern.

  Nevertheless, the centre of gravity for James Drax remained London, particularly the City and north-eastwards towards the smart merchant suburb of Hackney, where he must have had a residence, or at least some land. His local church, though, was St John of Zachary, which stood on the north side of Gresham Street, Aldersgate, and included the leading West India merchant Martin Noell in its congregation (it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and not rebuilt). At least one of Drax’s sisters married there. He gave money for wine for the sacrament and for the ‘ministers that precht for the Parson’. He also buried there three small boys – Bamfield, Joseph and Alexander – given him by his second wife, Margaret. At last, in 1658, a healthier child, Jacob, was born.

  In 1656, Drax’s eldest son was apprenticed to his cousin Abraham Jackson, a goldsmith. It was normal for the sons of gentry to be split between university, the Inns of Court and apprenticeships. In established families, the younger sons learnt a trade, while the eldest would go to university; in the newly rich Drax family, only the youngest two sons later matriculated, at Oxford. For reasons unknown, James the younger did not complete his apprenticeship. Instead, soon afterwards, his father sent him, aged about 18, to Barbados to run the plantations, for which he would receive an eighth share of the profits. He does not seem to have stuck at this either (or might have taken ill), as he was back in London by April 1659. This was when Sir James Drax, aged 50, made his will.

  ‘It hath pleased the Lord of his mercy and goodnesse’, he wrote, ‘to bestow upon me … Lands, Tenements, Goods chattels … both in England and in the Island of the Barbadoes and else where.’ His wife Margaret and her sole surviving son Jacob were to get his estate in Yorkshire, while the Barbados plantations were to be divided between the two eldest sons, James and Henry, the latter of whom had just turned 18. Clearly the sugar business was far and away the most important asset. All the annuities were to be paid from its profits: £100 a year each to seven younger children (a sizeable sum: the average annual wage at the time was about £8), and the same sum to his brother William and his wife Ursula. Other bequests bring the total up to more than £1,000 a year coming out of the sugar profits. (The poor of the parish of St John of Zachary were given £100, and there was £150 to buy cows for the poor of Coventry.)

  The Restoration, though, presented Drax, and many others who had supported and prospered under the Protectorate, with a serious threat. Charles II returned to England in May 1660. As in Jamaica, in Barbados there were rumours of a deal done in exile in Spain – that the island would be allowed to fall into Spanish hands and the enslaved Africans taken as payment. In fact, Charles had no intention of handing over either valuable island. Instead, he wanted them under tighter central control and working harder for the benefit of the mother country.

  Charles came to an agreement with the planters. Their sometimes makeshift land purchases of the turbulent previous 30 years were recognised, proprietory dues ended, and their sugar was given protected status. Foreign sugars were to be taxed to the point of unprofitability, thus delivering to the English sugar islands a monopoly of the home market. In return, Charles would receive customs revenue from the island at 4½ per cent of the value of all exports, and he insisted that the colonists buy manufactured goods only from England. Everything had to be transported in English or English colonial ships
and tropical produce such as sugar could only be carried to England or another English colony, even if it was to be subsequently re-exported to the Continent. The Interregnum Navigation Act was therefore reapplied with stricter terms, subordinating the interests of the colonies to the idea of a self-sufficient empire engined by a mercantile marine, protected by a powerful well-manned navy. Just like Cromwell, Charles believed that the key to creating ‘the greatest Dominion in the World’ was to ‘win and keepe the Soveraignty of the Seas’.

  These Navigation Acts would determine policy for a century, and were, in fact, similar to the Spanish model, which sought to exclude foreigners from trade. The French, whose imperial policy was now led by Louis XIV’s Controller General of Finances, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, created a similar protectionist system shortly afterwards, setting the scene for confrontation to come.

  Along with these new rules came a return to Barbados of a number of its former Royalist leaders, expelled after the descent on the island of Ayscue. Francis Lord Willoughby was appointed Governor of ‘Barbados, St Christopher’s, Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua, and the several islands of the province of Cariola’ (which presumably included St Vincent and Dominica). While Willoughby delayed in London, he appointed Humphrey Walrond acting governor. The Royalists now went after Thomas Mody-ford, hated above all others for his treachery in 1651. Modyford, who had very briefly been governor at the end of the Protectorate, was tried for treason, but saved in the end by his kinship with the influential General Monk, Duke of Albermarle. When Willoughby at last reached the island in August 1663, he arrested Walrond for corruption. Walrond fled the island, but on reaching England was thrown into the notorious Fleet prison.

  In England, Sir James Drax also had to face the events of 10 years earlier. Sir Guy Molesworth had barely survived his forced expulsion, and now blamed the ‘malice and false suggestion’ of Drax for his ordeal. The case came before the Lords, with Drax pleading the Act of Indemnity. But no one really wanted to open the can of worms of the plots and counterplots in Barbados at the end of the 1640s and beginning of the 1650s. The Lords decided they could not establish what had really happened, and Molesworth’s petition was ordered to be ‘laid aside’. Drax’s friendship with Modyford and Popham, both related to General Monk, may have also assisted his cause.