The Sugar Barons
Page 52
p. 138
‘I am hewing a new fortune out of the wild woods’: quoted in Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 191.
p. 139
doubled on the islands in the six years after 1672 to some 8,500: Higham, Development of the Leeward Islands, 154.
p. 139
‘The wars here are more destructive’: Jeaffreson, A Young Squire, 1:215.
p. 139
‘the French are rampant among these islands’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 508.
p. 139
‘bloodhounds’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 906.
p. 139
‘are kept every night 14 files of men’: Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua 1:lii.
p. 140
‘the soule and life of all Jamaica … and most profest immoral liver in the world’: quoted in Burns, History of the British West Indies, 328.
p. 140
‘rich and fat … being always Springing’: Blome, Description of the Island of Jamaica, 3.
p. 140
‘independent potentate’: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 155.
p. 140
Peter Beckford was granted 1,000 acres by royal patent: Alexander, England’s Wealthiest Son, 29.
p. 140
Francis Price (frequently in partnership with Peter Beckford), and Fulke Rose: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 270.
p. 141
‘look on us as intruders and trespassers wheresoever they find us in the Indies and use us accordingly’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1265.
p. 141
‘divers barbarous acts’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 697.
p. 141
his drinking and carousing reached new epic levels: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 673.
p. 141
who in 1676 took over the 1,000 acres in St Elizabeth: MSS Beckford b. 8, fols. 8–9.
p. 141
at the age of 33, Peter Beckford had 2,238 acres in sugar and cattle: Deerr, History of Sugar, 1:175.
p. 142
His first son, another Peter … then, in 1682, another son, Thomas: Howard, Records and Letters of the Family of the Longs, 15–16.
p. 142
‘a great incendiary’: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 1699.
p. 142
‘ruthless, unscrupulous and violent’: Alexander, England’s Wealthiest Son, 30.
p. 142
‘great opulance … superiority over most of the other Planters’: Redding, Memoirs of William Beckford, 1:4.
p. 142
Custos of Kingston, a member of the assembly for St Catherine’s: Cal Col 1675–6, nos. 521, 536.
p. 142
from 1675, Secretary of the Island: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 484.
p. 142
‘carrying and using, too, a large stick on very trivial provocations’: Redding, Memoirs of William Beckford, 2:101.
p. 142
1,700 white children and about 9,500 Africans, almost all enslaved: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 155.
p. 142
Thus, the second Drax Hall plantation estate came into existence: Armstrong, The Old Village and the Great House, 24.
p. 142
‘in any of the Caribbee Islands, by reason the soil is new’: ‘Observations on the Present State of Jamaica’, 14 December. 1675, PRO CO 138/2, p. 110.
p. 142
‘renders not by two-thirds its former production by the acre; the land is almost worn out’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1788.
p. 142
1.35 tons an acre in 1649 to less than a ton per acre by 1690: Menard, Sweet Negotiations, 78.
p. 143
‘greatt Qwantaty of Dung Every year … dunging Every holle’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 589.
p. 143
but Barbados needed two: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 301.
p. 143
Another planter decreed that 150 cows: Belgrove, Treatise on Husbandry, 32.
p. 143
some 400 windmills in operation by the 1670s: Anon., Great Newes from the Barbadoes, 6.
p. 143
an issue also addressed by Henry Drax in his ‘Instructions’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 571.
p. 143
‘like Ants or Bees’: Littleton, Groans of the Plantations, 18.
p. 143
‘not halfe so strong as in the year 1645’: BL Sloane MSS 3662, fol. 54.
p. 144
‘interested men’ with property to protect: Cal Col 1671, no. 413, p. 162.
p. 144
‘In 1643, [the] value [of Barbados], sugar plantations being but in their infancy’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.
p. 144
From a high of 30,000 in 1650, the white population had shrunk: Menard, Sweet Negotiations, 25.
p. 144
‘courage to leave the island, or are in debt and cannot go’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.
p. 144
‘Intemperance’ and ‘Gluttony’ of the planters. At one feast, he reported, more than 1,000 bottles of wine were consumed: Tyron, Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters, 49–53.
p. 144
‘There are hundreds of white servants in the Island who have been out of their time for many years’: Cal Col 1693–6, no. 1783.
p. 145
‘Since people have found out the convenience and cheapness of slave-labour’: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 1558.
p. 145
‘30 sometimes, 40, Christians – English, Scotch and Irish’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.
p. 145
358 sugar works producing in the 1680s exports more valuable than those of all of North America combined: Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 137.
p. 145
‘a miserable place of torment’, a ‘land of Misery and Beggary’: Menard, Sweet Negotiations, 44.
p. 145
‘rogues, whores, vagabonds, cheats, and rabble of all descriptions, raked from the gutter’: Souden, ‘“Rogues, Whores and Vagabonds”?’, 24.
p. 145
remaining popular with the assembly thanks to lavish dinners: PRO CO1/26 no. 6, Cal Col 1669–74, no. 388.
p. 145
pushing for the money raised in Barbados to be spent there as well as working for representation of the island in Parliament: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 236.
p. 145
‘very glad to find himself so well backed’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 48.
p. 146
‘poorer sort of this Island’ … and laws to prevent accidental cane fires: Acts of Assembly passed in the Island of Barbados, nos, 114–73.
p. 146
Henry Drax … sent on trips to England to push the interests of the Barbadians: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 413.
p. 146
‘the Committee for the Public Concern of Barbadoes’: ibid., no. 558.
p. 146
skilled trades should be reserved for whites: ibid., no. 357.
p. 146
‘The Deputy Governor is not an ordinary man’: ibid., no. 55.
12. ‘All slaves are enemies’
p. 147
‘All slaves are enemies’: Roman proverb, quoted in Davis, Inhuman Bondage, 46.
p. 147
‘I feare our negroes will growe too hard for us’: quoted in Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 214.
p. 147
‘much greater from within’: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 969.
p. 147
more than three slaves for every white person: Eltis ‘British Transatlantic Slave Trade’, 48.
p. 148
‘Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes’: PRO CO/30/2, fols. 16–26.
p. 148
the only penalty being a fine, and this was easily evaded: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 239.
p. 148
‘white’ was ‘the general name for Europeans’: Godwyn, Negro’s and Indians Advocate, 84.
p. 149
did not simply use their superior numbers to seize control of the island:
Ligon, A True and Exact History, 46–7.
p. 149
that ‘the safety of the plantations depends upon having Negroes from all parts’: quoted in Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 236.
p. 149
‘passionate Lovers one of another’: Davies, History of the Caribby-Islands, 202.
p. 149
‘the whole may be endangered, for now there are many thousands of slaves that speak English’: Cal Col 1661–8, no. 1657.
p. 149
‘who had bene ane Exelentt Slawe and will I hope Continue Soe in the place he is of head owerseer’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 600.
p. 149
‘brittle, gay and showy society’: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 116.
p. 150
‘our whole dependence is upon Negroes’: 6 April 1676, PRO CO 29/2, fols. 29–36.
p. 150
‘the weak hands must not be pressed’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 586.
p. 150
‘The Kittchin being more usefull … then the Appothycaries Shopp’: ibid., 583.
p. 150
‘Noe man deserved a Corramante that would not treat him like a Friend rather than a Slave’: PRO CO 152/4, no. 73; Cal Col 1701, no. 1132.
p. 151
precisely because he could control his ‘passin’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’, 588.
p. 151
‘Sugar, Molasses or Rum … when threatened do hang themselves’: ibid., 587.
p. 151
‘If some go beyond the limits … makes them shriek with despair’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 67.
p. 151
‘The drunken, unreasonable and savage overseers … than that of a horse’: Connell, ‘Father Labat’s Visit to Barbados in 1700’, 168–9.
p. 152
‘led to a cycle of deformed human relationships which left all parties morally and aesthetically maimed’: King, West Indian Literature, 9.
p. 152
‘It is true that one must keep these kinds of people obedient’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 67.
p. 152
‘compelled to exceed the limits of moderation’: Connell, ‘Father Labat’s Visit to Barbados in 1700’, 169.
p. 152
called the slave trade ‘barbarous’: Davies, History of the Caribby-Islands, 20–2.
p. 152
‘never smile upon them, nor speak to them’: BL Add. MSS 18960, p. 38.
p. 153
‘they think nothing too much to be done for them’: Blome, Description of the Island of Jamaica, 84–5.
p. 153
Samuel Winthrop, ‘being convinced, he and his Family received the Truth’: Edmundson, A Journal of the Life, Travels, Sufferings and Labour, 61.
p. 153
Fox appealed to the planters to ‘deal mildly and gently with their Negroes, and not use cruelty toward them’: Nickalls , Journal of George Fox, 1803 ed., 97.
p. 153
‘And did not Christ taste Death for every man? And are they not Men?’ Fox, To the Ministers, Teachers and Priests, 5.
p. 154
‘most false Lye’: ibid., 77.
p. 154
‘a thing we do utterly abhor and detest in and from our hearts’: Nickalls, Journal of George Fox, 604.
p. 154
‘reasonable Creatures, as well as you’: Baxter, A Christian Directory, 557.
p. 155
‘their Amputations of Legs, and even Dissecting them alive’: Godwyn, Negro’s and Indians Advocate, 41.
p. 155
The ‘brutality’ of the ‘Negro’: ibid., 23.
p. 155
‘To tell the truth, they have almost no religion’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 68.
p. 155
only 11 ministers for 20,000 Christians: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 103.
p. 155
‘The disproportion of the blacks to whites … it would be necessary to teach them all English’: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 1535.
p. 156
‘so many and so close together, that we can hardly breathe’: Tyron, Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters, 82–3.
p. 156
‘sometimes most part of our Bodies’: ibid., 89.
p. 156
‘our luxurious Masters stretch themselves on their soft Beds and Couches’: ibid., 122–7.
p. 156
‘there is no one commodity whatever, that doth so much encourage navigation, [and] advance the Kings Customs’: ibid., 183.
p. 157
‘and cut their Throats … starv[ing] them for want of Meat and Cloathes convenient’: Edmundson, A Journal of the Life, Travels, sufferings and Labour 86.
p. 157
‘Buccararoes or White Folks’: Craton, Testing the Chains, 109.
p. 157
‘it was a great pity so good people’: Anon., Great Newes from the Barbadoes, 11–13.
p. 157
‘trumpets … a chair of state exquisitely wrought and carved after their mode’: ibid., 6–10.
p. 158
‘And such others that have more favour shown them by their masters, which adds abundantly to their crimes’: Handler, ‘Barbados Slave Conspiracies of 1675 and 1692’, 323.
p. 159
‘The white women … Whores Cooks & Chambermaids of Others’: Craton, Testing the Chains, 114.
p. 159
‘fully overheard … talking of … their wicked design’ only ten days before the uprising was scheduled to take place. Handler, ‘Barbados Slave Conspiracies of 1675 and 1692’, 320.
p. 159
‘Many were hang’d … according to the sentence of the commissioners for trial of rebellious negroes’: ibid., 322.
p. 160
‘these villains are but too sensible of … our extreme weakness’: ibid., 322.
13. The Cousins Henry Drax and Christopher Codrington
p. 162
more than twice as many white people were buried than baptised in Barbados. A comparative analysis …: Dunn, ‘Barbados Census of 1689’, 71.
p. 162
‘snatched away (alas!) too quickly’: MacMurray, Records of Two City Parishes, 316.
p. 162
‘Jamaca peper welle pickled in good wineger … green ginger and yams’: Drax, ‘Instructions which I would have observed’ 601.
p. 162
‘Honor, Thomas Warner commander’: Hotten, Original Lists of Persons of Quality, 363.
p. 162
he left £2,000 for the establishment of a ‘free school and college’ in St Michael: Henry Drax will, B. Arch. RB6/12, 358.
p. 162
‘utterly debauched both in Principallls and Morals’: ibid.
p. 162
‘the gaiety of their dress and equipage’: Schomburgk, History of Barbados, 111fn.
p. 164
‘fell into a violent burning of the stomach’: Hughes, Natural History of Barbados, 55.
p. 164
‘fraudulent proceedings’: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 277.
p. 164
‘needless impositions’: Willoughby to Thomas Povey, 14 November 1672, BL Egerton MSS 2395, fol. 483.
p. 164
was also stripped of his command of one of the island’s militia regiments: Cal Col 1669–74, nos. 1104, 1054.
p. 164
‘a great prejudice against Codrington … and has the power … and the will to ruin him’: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 878.
p. 164
‘was no fit man to be councilor’: Schomburgk, History of Barbados, 295.
p. 165
Christopher is recorded as owning 600 acres in the parish: Cal Col 1669–74, no. 1101.
p. 165
a still-house containing four large rum stills: Butler, ‘Mortality and Labour’, 49.
p. 165
the largest covered punch bowl ever recorded: Oliver, History of the Isl
and of Antigua, 1:153.
p. 165
‘Christopher Codrington of this Island … lett them come with what Authoritie or force they could’: Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, 1:241.
p. 165
‘guided only by his owne will’: John Style letter, January 1669, PRO CO 25/1, p.2.
p. 166
influential courtiers in London: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 1501.
p. 166
to pay back nearly £600 of allegedly stolen money: Cal Col 1681–5, no. 832.
p. 166
she would later unsuccessfully try to retrieve her property: Cal Col 1677–80, no. 468.
p. 166
two whites and 10 black slaves registered as living on the property in 1678: Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1, lix.
p. 166
60-square-mile island of Barbuda, previously granted to James Winthrop in 1668. ibid.,1:170.