The Sugar Barons

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by Matthew Parker

‘in some parts of this town a man is not able to walk’: Lieut. Col. Barrington, 14 July 1655, quoted in Firth, Narrative of General Venables, xxxv.

  p. 102

  ‘The enemie lye still on the mountains, expecting our deserting this country’: Anon., Letters Concerning the English Expedition, 140.

  p. 102

  1,000 men were killed by ambushes: Burns, History of the British West Indies, 254.

  p. 102

  ‘did the English spare any of the dogs, cats, colts or donkeys’: Marks, Family of the Barrett, 23.

  p. 103

  a combination of ‘flux’ and ‘fever’: Firth, Narrative of General Venables, 103.

  p. 103

  which he saw as the Lord’s punishment for his own iniquity: Haring, Buccaneers in the West Indies, 87.

  p. 103

  he had shut himself in his room and become ill: Hill, God’s Englishman, 185.

  p. 103

  ‘fret, fume, grow impatient’: Long, History of Jamaica, 1: 242.

  p. 103

  Tools were also required, he wrote: Firth, Narrative of General Venables, 63.

  p. 103

  ‘all known, idle, masterless robbers and vagabonds, male and female, and transport them to that island’: Cal Col 1574–1660, pp. 431, 441; Long, History of Jamaica, 1:244.

  p. 104

  ‘… a chief end of our undertaking and design)’: Cal Col 1554–1660, pp. 429–30.

  p. 104

  ‘… the skulking Negroes and Spaniards’: Long, History of Jamaica, 1:258.

  p. 104

  ‘they lived more comfortably like Englishmen than any of the rest of the Plantations’: Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 191n.

  p. 105

  ‘… to annoy and infest the Enemies of our Nation’: Firth, Narrative of General Venables, 65.

  p. 105

  ‘… is not honorable for a princely navy … though perhaps it may be tolerated at present’: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 236.

  p. 105

  ‘a cruel, bloody, and ruinating people … worse than the Spanish’: Taylor, Western Design, 138.

  p. 105

  ‘fair beginnings of a town’: ibid., 131.

  p. 106

  ‘a place which abounds in all things’: Long, History of Jamaica, 1:256.

  p. 106

  ‘… do anything, however necessary, for their own benefit’: ibid., 1:247.

  p. 106

  3,720 were still alive, besides 173 women and children: Firth, Narrative of General Venables, xxxii.

  p. 106

  ‘… out of a strange kind of spirit, desir[ing] rather to die than live’: Long, History of Jamaica, 1:254.

  p. 106

  ‘Poore men I pitty them at the heart … it is a very Golgotha’: Anon., Letters Concerning the English Expedition, 142.

  p. 107

  ‘there scarce a week passeth without one or two slain’: Taylor, Western Design, 102.

  p. 107

  ‘industry, unanimity, perseverance, and good order’. Long, History of Jamaica, 1:221.

  p. 107

  ‘very scum of scums, and mere dregs of corruption’: ‘I.S.’, A brief and perfect Journal, 492.

  p. 108

  Other prominent figures in the island’s early history: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 176.

  p. 111

  it was equipped with six cannon, each firing four-pound shot: Taylor, Western Design, 171.

  p. 111

  Three hundred Spanish soldiers were killed, against some 50 English: Long, History of Jamaica, 1:276.

  p. 111

  ‘extreme want and necesitie’ on the island: BL Egerton MSS 2395, fol. 242.

  p. 111

  ‘All the frigates are gone’: Cal Col 1574–1660, p. 485.

  10. The Restoration

  p. 115

  For at least two years after his departure from Barbados, Drax remained in London: Cal Col 1574–1660, p. 451.

  p. 115

  ‘a Gentleman of much worth, and of great Interest in Plantations at the Barbadoes, where he formerly lived for some years’: Mercurius Politicus Compromising the Summ of All Intelligence, 31 December 1657 (issue 397).

  p. 116

  ‘ministers that precht for the Parson’: MacMurray, Records of Two City Parishes, 391.

  p. 117

  ‘It hath pleased the Lord of his mercy and goodnesse’: Drax will, PRO Prob 11/307.

  p. 117

  the average annual wage at the time was about £8: Faraday, Herefordshire Milita, 17.

  p. 117

  ‘the greatest Dominion in the World … win and keepe the Soveraignty of the Seas’: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 306.

  p. 118

  Molesworth’s petition was ordered to be ‘laid aside’: Lords’ Journal, 9:297.

  p. 118

  ‘and inform themselves of the true state of the Plantations in Jamaica and New England’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 3.

  p. 119

  ‘ringin ye Great Bell for Sr James Drax’: MacMurray, Records of Two City Parishes, 390.

  p. 119

  Henry would write down a series of instructions: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’

  p. 119

  ‘adept at figures, and all the arts of economy, something of an architect, and well-skilled in mechanics’, as well as ‘a very skilled husbandman’: Martin, An Essay upon Plantership, vi–vii.

  p. 120

  ‘distinguished not only by gentle birth but by many virtues’: MacMurray, Records of Two City Parishes, 316.

  p. 120

  ‘intelligible … and of no faction, which is rare in Barbados’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1819.

  p. 120

  expanding the Drax estates as established by his father: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 1101ii.

  p. 120

  his Barbados estates yielded income: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 317; Lord Atkins to Lords of Trade and Plantations, 4 July 1677. PRO CO 29/2, 181

  p. 120

  his will, written in 1682: B. Arch. RB6/12, 358.

  p. 120

  ‘by the consent of her brother Henry Drax and her uncle William Drax esq. guardians’: Foster, London Marriage Licences, 1222.

  p. 120

  ‘Planters and Merchants trading to Barbados’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1342.

  p. 120

  He was 24, she was 20: Foster, London Marriage Licences, 419.

  p. 121

  scattered mentions of them in wills: Codrington wills, reprinted in Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1:142–75.

  p. 122

  ‘being of a debonaire liberal humour’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 549.

  p. 122

  ‘divers goods, wares, and merchandizes … being of great value’: Jesse, ‘Barbadians Buy St Lucia’, 181.

  p. 122

  ‘He is well beloved … and free from faction, an ingenious young gentleman’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1283.

  p. 122

  ‘that fair jewell of your Majesty’s Crown’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1204.

  p. 122

  then producing more than 85 per cent of the sugar imported to England: Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 398; Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 202–3.

  p. 122

  ‘worth all the rest … which are made by the English’: Gragg, Englishmen Transplanted, 1.

  p. 122

  ‘the most flourishing Colony the English have’: Anon., Great Newes from the Barbadoes, 3, 14.

  p. 122

  ‘A mean planter … thinks himself better than a good gentleman fellow in England’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1871.

  p. 122

  ‘by a rational estimate’ that the ‘plates, jewels, and extraordinary household stuffs’ on the island were worth about £500,000. Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.

  p. 122

  ‘splendid Planters …’: Anon., Great Newes from the Barbadoes, 6.

  p. 123

  ‘The Devel was in the English-man’: ibid.
, 6–7.

  p. 123

  ‘The Masters … live at the height of Pleasure’: Blome, Description of the Island of Jamaica, 84.

  p. 123

  ‘the most inconsiderable of the … endeavour[ing] to outvye one the other in their entertainments’: Davies, History of the Caribby-Islands, 198–9.

  p. 123

  ‘built after the English fashion … now general all over the island’: Cal Col 1681–5, no. 136.

  p. 124

  ‘very fair and beautiful … like castles’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.

  p. 124

  ‘Delightfully situated … pleasant Prospects to the Sea and Land’: Ogilby, America, 379.

  p. 124

  ‘to Strangers at their first coming: [was] there scarce tolerable’: Anon., Great News from the Barbadoes, 5.

  p. 124

  ‘abundance of well-built houses’: Blome, Description of the Island of Jamaica, 80.

  p. 124

  ‘Costly and Stately’: Anon., Great Newes from the Barbadoes, 5.

  p. 124

  ‘many fair, long, and spacious Streets … noble structures … well furnish’d with all sorts of Commodities’: Davies, History of the Caribby-Islands, 9.

  p. 125

  ‘not a foot of land in Barbados that is not employed even to the very seaside’: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 973.

  p. 125

  ‘a design full of accident’: BL Sloane MSS 3984, fol. 217, quoted in Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 75.

  p. 125

  ‘strange and unusual caterpillars and worms’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 578.

  p. 125

  ‘The island appears very flourishing … what they owe in London does not appear here’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 549.

  p. 125

  by as much as half between 1652 and the end of the century: Menard, Sweet Negotiations, 69.

  p. 125

  about 20 per cent on their capital for the rest of the century: Craton, Sinews of Empire, 138–9.

  p. 126

  ‘the fewer the better’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 587.

  p. 126

  a labour force of 327 black slaves and only seven white servants. Hotten, Original Lists of Persons of Quality, 462.

  p. 126

  3,075 slaves to Barbados in the seven months after August 1663: Thomas, Slave Trade, 201.

  p. 126

  the retail price slipping from 1.25 shillings a pound … per capita consumption in 1650 was barely a pound: by the end of the century it was five pounds: Shamas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 81.

  p. 126

  England was importing 23,000 tons of sugar a year: Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 40; Menard, ‘Plantation Empire’, 316.

  p. 126

  ‘Slavery is so vile and miserable a state of man’: Locke, Two Treatises on Government, 1.

  p. 127

  nearly half of all products from the West Indies by value: Zahedieh, ‘Overseas expansion’, 404.

  p. 127

  The Crown, for one, made £300,000 a year from sugar duties by the mid-1670s: Menard, ‘Plantation Empire’, 315.

  p. 127

  some 700 by 1686: Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 40.

  p. 127

  consumed three times more by value than their cousins in the mainland North American colonies: ibid., 41.

  p. 127

  ‘the centre of trade … but also draw profits from them’: Cary, An Essay on the State of England, 68–70.

  p. 127

  A street near the wharf in Bridgetown was renamed New England Street: Smith, Slavery, Family and Gentry Capitalism, 19.

  p. 128

  His letter book: Sanford, Letter Book of Peleg Sanford.

  p. 128

  ‘afatting of the swine’: ibid., 35 (19 October 1667).

  p. 128

  ‘not be very Beeg in the head’: ibid., 45 (10 January 1667).

  p. 128

  ‘Ronged onboard’: ibid., 68 (21 December 1668).

  p. 128

  more than half of the ships entering and clearing Boston were involved with the Caribbean trade: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 336.

  p. 129

  ‘to treat with the natives … or if injurious or contumacious, to persecute them with fire and swords’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 489.

  p. 130

  ‘The Caribbeans have tasted of all the nations that frequented them’: Bell, ‘Caribs of Dominica’, 21.

  p. 130

  Thereafter, Carib raids on Antigua became an almost annual affair: ibid.

  p. 130

  ‘Mrs Cardin and children’: Flannigan, Antigua and the Antiguans, 15.

  p. 130

  In 1655 the Governor wrote to London that unless they were sent some servants, they would have to abandon the colony. Cal Col 1654–60, p. 439, 443.

  p. 130

  ‘a reall Winthrop and truely noble to all’: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 125.

  p. 130

  Warner, the story goes, then imprisoned his wife: ibid., 24.

  p. 130

  ‘I doe not find this country good for children’: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 399.

  p. 131

  ‘the most beautiful and fertile part of the West Indies and perhaps of the world’: Williams , From Columbus to Castro, 81.

  p. 131

  ‘the dispute will be whether the King of England or of France shall be monarch of the West Indies’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 823.

  11. Expansion, War and the Rise of the Rise of the Beckfords

  p. 132

  ‘Next day, when the March began’ Esquemeling, Bucaniers of America (1771 ed.), 203.

  p. 132

  ‘The great Tom Fuller come to me to desire a kindness for a friend of his’: Pepys, Diary, 1:147.

  p. 132

  another 1,000 acres in St Elizabeth in 1673: MSS Beckford b.8, fols. 8–9.

  p. 132

  ‘singularly fit’: Cal Col 1681–5, no. 1553.

  p. 133

  ‘burn their Canes for want of hands’: BL Add. MSS 11410, fols. 19–21.

  p. 133

  about 18 by 1663: Bridenbaughs, No Peace beyond the Line, 296.

  p. 133

  a lighter and finer-grained sugar: Oldmixon, British Empire, 2:325.

  p. 133

  ‘dull tedious way of planting’. BL Add. MSS 11410, fols. 19–21.

  p. 133

  including Peter Beckford: Cal Col 1702, no. 743.

  p. 133

  inflamed’ to ‘leave planting and try their fortunes … [and] causes frequent Mutinies & disorders’: Cal Col 1654–60, p. 480.

  p. 133

  the population tripled to 17,000 (of whom just over 9,000 were black): Long, History of Jamaica, 1:316.

  p. 133

  the abundance of building materials and the fertility of the virgin soil: BL Add. MSS 11410, fols. 19–21.

  p. 134

  ‘no less than 1,500 lusty fellows’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 786.

  p. 134

  ‘unwillingly constrained to reduce them to a better understanding by the open and just practise of force’: Marsden, ‘Early Prize Jurisdiction’, 54.

  p. 134

  booty that included nearly 17,000 pounds of ivory: Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 68.

  p. 135

  ‘a whole volley of small shott and his broade side’: PRO CO 1/19, no. 50, quoted in Harlow, Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies, 109.

  p. 135

  ‘in the confusedest manner that possibly could be’: ibid., 110.

  p. 135

  ‘to root the Dutch out of all places in the West Indies’: Israel, ‘Empire: The Continental Perspective’, 432.

  p. 136

  ‘fell upon the English on ye windward side of this Island’: Harlow, Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies, 21.

  p. 136

  ‘and some peeses of a ship’ washed ashore at Montserrat: Harlow, A History of Barbados, 167.

&nb
sp; p. 137

  ‘Ye contention was verry smart for about ½ hour’: letter of April 1667, quoted in Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1:xxxvi.

  p. 137

  ‘place the island in such a state that the enemy can draw no sort of profit from it’: ibid., 1:xxxv.

  p. 138

  Carden’s head was then broiled, and carried back to his house and family: Flannigan, Antigua and the Antiguans, 37.

  p. 138

  ‘If wee prevaile … Otherwise they will be put to trade or imploymt’: Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1:xxxvii.

  p. 138

  15,000 slaves and materials for 150 sugar works, worth a total of £400,000: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 520.

  p. 138

  proceeded to retake other islands previously under their control: Harlow, Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies, 221–2.

 

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