Jamaica staggered on in this fashion through a succession of short-lived governors until the arrival from Barbados in 1664 of the newly knighted Sir Thomas Modyford. Modyford, soon installed as governor, brought with him his enormous household, more than 1,000 slaves, and a new ambitious and positive attitude about the colony’s future. His term of office lasted seven years, during which the population tripled to 17,000 (of whom just over 9,000 were black).
Before the end of the year, he was writing to London about the excellent harbours, wonderfully ‘healthfull’ climate, and, in contrast to Barbados, the abundance of building materials and the fertility of the virgin soil. Most of the old soldiers, he conceded, had ‘turned Hunters’, but with the profits from this, ‘some of them buy Servants & Slaves and begin to settle brave Plantations’. Among them was Peter Beckford, cleverly investing proceeds from hunting and buccaneering into planting. Some ‘idle fellows’ were still drinking everything they earned, but so many were now turning to farming that there was ‘scarse any Place neere the Sea but is settled and many are gone into the Mountaines & find it the most healthful & fruit-full land which qualities doe sufficiently repay the difficulties’.
Modyford’s experience as a planter in Barbados would be crucial to the development of Jamaica as England’s most important sugar plantation colony, but this would not happen overnight. In the meantime, Mody-ford would throw himself with gusto into supporting the activities of the buccaneers, described by him in a letter to the King as ‘no less than 1,500 lusty fellows’. England was not at war with Spain, but the West Indies remained ‘beyond the line’, and Spanish officials still aimed to exclude all foreign ships from the region. Modyford found himself, therefore, ‘unwillingly constrained to reduce them to a better understanding by the open and just practise of force’. In 1664, a small party sailed up the San Juan river in Nicaragua in canoes and looted the rich city of Grenada, getting away with 50,000 pieces of eight. Soon after, St Augustine in Florida was attacked and ransacked, and the following year buccaneer admiral Edward Mansfield led 12 ships and 700 men on a daring raid on a town in the interior of Cuba. His second in command was a young Henry Morgan. The town’s inhabitants were brutally tortured to reveal the hiding places of their treasures.
While in theory fighting against the monopolistic policies of Spain, the English were coming into increasing conflict with the Dutch, whose preeminent merchant marine was still threatening the Restoration government’s vigorously held mercantilist ideas. Tension rose from 1662 onwards, and in 1664, the English Crown seized New Netherland (comprising the present-day American states of New York, Delaware and New Jersey). The greatest conflict, though, centred on rivalries in West Africa, where the English Royal Adventurers company was competing with the Dutch for the lucrative and ever-growing slave trade. An English force sent to the area at the end of 1663 to protect the Royal company’s operations there took it upon itself to launch a series of devastating raids against Dutch outposts. In response, Admiral Michiel de Ruyter raced from the Mediterranean, and his fleet recaptured all that had been lost and more, as well as booty that included nearly 17,000 pounds of ivory. He then proceeded across the Atlantic, and in February 1665 a warning was received in Barbados that the island was de Ruyter’s most likely target.
On 20 April, at six in the morning, news came to Bridgetown that the arrival of the Dutch fleet of 14 ships with 2,500 men was imminent. Just under three hours later, with the Admiral leading the way, the Dutch fleet sailed in battle order into Carlisle Bay.
De Ruyter’s force held its fire. Only when it was within a short distance of the fort did it shoot ‘a whole volley of small shott and his broade side’, according to an eye-witness, the master of the ketch Hopewell, which was in the harbour. The fort returned fire, along with other ships in the harbour, and the rapid exchange of cannon balls and other shot caused considerable damage to both sides. Although casualties were surprisingly light, shops and residences in Bridgetown were smashed as the Dutch fleet fired ‘500 great shot into the town’, some weighing as much as 30 pounds. De Ruyter, for his part, ‘lost his mayne yard and two others lost theyre Topsayles … Wee damnified theyre sayles very much’, reads the English eye-witness account.
At four o’clock, by which time the island’s defenders had used up 33 barrels of gunpowder, almost their entire stock, de Ruyter raised red bunting to his masthead, calling a council of war. For an hour the fleet rode at anchor out of gunshot, the men busily repairing damaged sails while their officers debated what to do. Then the fleet withdrew from the bay, and stood away to Martinique ‘in the confusedest manner that possibly could be’.
This was to be the only major attack on Barbados in its modern history. But de Ruyter’s mission was not a total failure: having refitted at Martinique, he steered his force for Nevis, St Kitts and Montserrat, where he captured 16 English ships before being called back to Europe.
With the departure of de Ruyter’s fleet from the theatre, the English launched a broad offensive in the Caribbean, in Charles II’s words, ‘to root the Dutch out of all places in the West Indies’.
Almost all the English islands participated, and from Jamaica, Mody-ford unleashed his Port Royal buccaneers. By the end of the year, virtually all the Dutch settlements in the West Indies were in English hands, along with valuable booty in slaves, cannon, horses and other merchandise.
Then the tide turned. In January 1666, France entered the war on the side of the Dutch. Although the move was motivated by European ambitions, Louis XIV sent out to the West Indies a substantial force of ships and men. The first blow fell on the English part of St Kitts. The English and French, living cheek by jowl on the tiny island, had come to an agreement that they would not make war on each other without explicit command to do so from home, and even then they would give three days’ notice before attacking. Neither side, it appears, took the deal seriously. The English governor, Colonel William Watts, called in reinforcements from Nevis, as well as a force of buccaneers, but before he could launch his offensive, on 10 April the French attacked from the south-west, led by a body of slaves who set fire to the canefields. The French soldiers following ‘fell upon the English on ye windward side of this Island … And Soe wasted, Slaughtered and burnt’ all the way up the island until they reached their own territory in the north.
The English, outnumbering their enemy four to one, counter-attacked on the leeward side of the island around Sandy Point, and in fierce fighting the leaders of both parties were killed or mortally wounded. But then the English force, a mixture of hard-fighting buccaneers and much less effective planters, fell out among themselves, and the next day, unaware that the French were almost out of ammunition, capitulated on humiliating terms: all arms and fortifications were to be surrendered, and anyone unwilling to swear allegiance to the King of France was to be expelled. Eight thousand English, with their slaves, left the island, a large number to Virginia. Few returned to St Kitts, which would never again have a white settler population anything like the size before the war.
From Barbados, Willoughby urged the King to send forces at least equal to those now being poured into the theatre by the French and Dutch. At the end of June, two English men-of-war arrived in Barbados with orders to retake St Kitts. Willoughby, fearing this force was inadequate, commandeered a fleet of merchant ships, and raised 1,000 men from Barbados, as well as assembling 2,000 spare sets of arms for Leeward Islands recruits. On 18 July, they set sail.
The timing was highly risky, as Willoughby must have known – the hurricane season was almost upon them. Nevertheless, with the Governor on board, the armada headed north-west, capturing prizes at Martinique before coming to anchor off Guadeloupe on 26 July. That day, without warning, a massive hurricane struck. Almost the entire fleet, together with the men on board, was destroyed, driven ashore at Guadeloupe, with wreckage washed up on Martinique as well. Of Francis Lord Willoughby there would be no trace, except a couch, recognised as his own, ‘and some peeses of
a ship’ washed ashore at Montserrat.
This devastating loss handed the French command of the seas, and doomed the English Leeward Islands to disaster. While the victors of the battle for St Kitts busily removed all the remaining sugar equipment and slaves from the English part of the island, a force of seven French men-of-war (the largest carrying 40 guns) assembled in Martinique, and at the beginning of November descended on Antigua.
Perhaps the best contemporary account, although somewhat confused on dates, comes from letters to his brother John Jr in New England written by Samuel Winthrop (who had already seen his holdings in St Kitts fall into the hands of the enemy). Having been prevented by contrary winds from attacking the main harbour and capital at St John’s, the French landed at Five Islands’ Bay, having dealt with its two forts, one being little more than an artificial mound. From there, they proceeded overland towards St John’s, burning everything they came across and capturing the island’s governor, Colonel Robert Carden. Near St John’s harbour, some 200 English soldiers faced the 600-strong French force. ‘Ye contention was verry smart for about ½ hour’, Winthrop would report, ‘& our men withstood them verry resolutedly, but, being overpowered with men, were put to flight, many slayne on both sides.’ (By this time, Winthrop had put his wife and children on a passing sloop heading for Nevis.)
Most of the English were captured or killed, but the remnants retreated to Winthrop’s house, ‘having now other place left for defence, expecting ye enemy ye next morning’. But instead, a trumpet came with a summons to surrender. The English were happy to comply, especially as a Carib force, in loose alliance with the French, had landed on the windward coast and was causing havoc. Promising to return to collect arms and ammunition due by the terms of the surrender, and releasing Governor Carden, the French departed to St Kitts, although not before urging the English Antiguans to ‘take up their armes to defend themselves against ye Indians’.
When the French returned, they found that reinforcements had been landed from Nevis and Barbados. Hearing that more English troops were on the way, they decided that they could not hold the island, but instead would ‘land, attack the enemy, and, in case of success, place the island in such a state that the enemy can draw no sort of profit from it’. However, their plans were somewhat discomforted by their being met by another surrender party carrying a white flag. Having none of this, the French formed up into battle array and advanced on the English. Only two shots were fired against them, one of which hit an English sentinel. The English commander, a Colonel Fitch (or Fitz), rushed from the battlefield to organise the evacuation of his valuable slaves.
Having once again secured the island, the French commander took over Winthrop’s house, removing all but 12 of his slaves (who had run away), but leaving his sugar works intact. Elsewhere the looting was much more thorough. After seven days, they left for Guadeloupe. ‘In this sadd condic’on wee remained’, wrote Winthrop, ‘& yt wch added to or afflictions were ye murthers & rapes wch ye Indians com’itted upon ye inhabitants after ye French departed, having, as they said, liberty to do so for five days.’
Governor Carden did his best to treat with the Caribs, but was lured away from his guard, attacked and decapitated. According to a lurid account that circulated for many years, Carden’s head was then broiled, and carried back to his house and family, who were then taken into captivity.
Samuel Winthrop ended his account with news that an English counterattack was rumoured. His livelihood depended on it: ‘If wee prevaile’, he wrote, ‘I have yet wherewth to mainteyn my sonnes at schoole … Otherwise they will be put to trade or imploymt.’
Shortly after Antigua, Montserrat, with the aid of the majority Irish population,20 fell to the enemy. Six hundred inhabitants of Montserrat arrived shortly afterwards in Jamaica, ‘extremely plundered, even to their very shirts’. In all, according to the claims later put in, the English had lost from St Kitts, Montserrat and Antigua 15,000 slaves and materials for 150 sugar works, worth a total of £400,000. Early the following year, the valuable English colony in Surinam, weakened by disease and a shortage of arms, also fell to a comparatively modest Dutch force, who proceeded to retake other islands previously under their control. French and Dutch privateers ruled the seas, and Barbados, under effective blockade, faced starvation.
But at this point Louis XIV’s priorities changed. While in the spring of 1667 Charles II sent out considerable forces to the Caribbean, Louis concentrated on his aims in Europe – namely the Spanish Netherlands (and thereby fell out with the Dutch). Led by a new Governor of the ‘Caribbees’, Francis Lord Willoughby’s brother William, the English secured Nevis, and recovered and partially resettled Antigua and Montserrat. An attack on St Kitts in June by 3,000 men ended in defeat, but Surinam was retaken from the Dutch and Cayenne seized from the French. At the end of July, the Peace of Breda was signed. This returned all the colonies to the pre-war status quo, with the exception of Surinam, which was handed over to the Dutch in return for the New Netherland colony, renamed New York in honour of the King’s brother.
The English took everything they could from Surinam and headed for the other islands. The colony’s governor, William Byam, ended up in Antigua, where, he wrote, ‘I am hewing a new fortune out of the wild woods.’ He reclaimed the land given him by Willoughby back in 1650 – Cedar Hill and Willoughby Bay – and his descendants, marrying into the Warners, would become one of Antigua’s leading families.
In 1670, the Leewards were separated from Barbados and given their own governor, and two years later William Stapleton took up the position, basing himself in Nevis, the only island to escape occupation by the French and therefore by far the most prosperous and populated. The fact that Stapleton was an Irish Roman Catholic must have helped draw together the antagonistic factions on the islands. The new governor took on large amounts of land himself and forcefully pushed the Leeward Islanders towards sugar production. As a consequence, the slave population more than doubled on the islands in the six years after 1672 to some 8,500. But it was a slow process; many of the white settlers expelled by the French never returned, and for some years half the land in Antigua and Montserrat remained unpatented and the other half scarcely developed.
In St Kitts, the French took until 1671 to hand back the English part of the island, and failed to return, as had been agreed, the slaves and sugar-making equipment they had seized. St Kitts never recovered its former population and importance. A settler wrote from the island in 1677: ‘The wars here are more destructive then in any other partes of the world; for twenty yeares’ peace will hardly resettle the devastation of one yeare’s war.’ Ten years after the invasion, ‘the sad workes’ of the destruction ‘are not halfe worne out; nor is the island a quarter so well peopled as it then was’.
After the Peace of Breda, the local French and English governors tried to put together a deal whereby whatever was happening in Europe, they would remain at peace in the Caribbean. The failure of this agreement to be ratified in London meant that tensions would continue to rise between the two communities in the West Indies. William Byam, who had become Governor of Antigua, wrote to Willoughby in Barbados that ‘the French are rampant among these islands’. Indeed, the French soon re-established naval supremacy, and continued to deploy Carib allies as their ‘bloodhounds’ in what amounted to a state of cold war with the English settlers. Continuing raids by Caribs, particularly on Montserrat and Antigua, meant a permanent state of readiness was required. In Antigua ‘are kept every night 14 files of men on Guard against the Indians, and three nights before, and so many after the full moon, they are doubled, besides wch they make continual Rounds and Patrouls of Horse’. Occasional punitive raids on Dominica failed to end the Carib threat, which would only fade by the end of the century due to the ravages of yellow fever among the ‘Indian’ population.
***
On his monument in the churchyard of Spanish Town, Sir Thomas Modyford, Governor of Jamaica from 1664 to 1671, is described
as ‘the soule and life of all Jamaica, who first made it what it now is’. (Another contemporary called him ‘the openist atheist and most profest immoral liver in the world’.) Certainly, as an experienced planter, Modyford could see the agricultural potential of the island, whose soil, was ‘rich and fat … every where incomparable apt to produce … being always Springing’. He persuaded the King to exempt the island from the 4½ per cent duty imposed on Barbados, and now the Leewards, and to waive customs duties in England until the island was properly established. In the meantime, he handed out land with abandon: some 300,000 acres, triple the size of Barbados, during his seven years in charge.
Modyford epitomises the sheer shamelessness of the planter of this early period. He ruled as an ‘independent potentate’, and gave his family members key positions on the council, the militia and the judiciary. Although in theory land was allocated on the basis of how many family members, slaves and servants immigrants brought with them, this rule, as in Barbados 30 years before, was widely ignored. The greatest beneficiaries were Modyford’s own family; his brother and two sons found themselves owners of over 20,000 acres in total.
In March 1669, Peter Beckford was granted 1,000 acres by royal patent. Other founders of great sugar fortunes taking on land at this time were Lieutenant Francis Price (frequently in partnership with Peter Beckford), and Fulke Rose.21 But very little of this acreage was sufficiently cleared for sugar production, nor was there yet the large amount of labour that the crop required. In 1667, an influx of Portuguese Jewish families from Surinam, experienced sugar producers and traders, gave the nascent industry a boost, but there were still fewer than 60 sugar works on the island by 1670. Instead, most planters grew provisions, indigo, ginger, cotton (much of which was exported to New England) and cacao. Only when his cacao walks were wiped out by a blight in 1670 did Modyford himself turn wholeheartedly to sugar.
The Sugar Barons Page 18