p. 166
he raised a mortgage on the Barbados properties of just over £4,000, and another £7,000 the next year: Harlow, Christopher Codrington, 15n.
p. 166
‘if estate lost or taken by enemies …’: John Codrington will, B. Arch. RB6/40, p. 167.
p. 167
‘Keeps Continually about him a Seraglio of mulatoes and negro women and has by them no less than 4 or 5 bastards’: PRO CO 152/2/83.
p. 167
‘Mary Codrington … & £200 to the latter at 21’: Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua 1:151.
p. 167
Antigua had a population …: ibid., 1:lxi.
p. 167
fewer than 70 slaves per man, while in Barbados the island’s councillors had nearly 200 each: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 128.
p. 167
‘armed with guns’ flee to the interior of Antigua: Cal Col 1685–88, no. 1175.
p. 167
‘his leg cut off’: ibid., no. 1189.
p. 167
‘Negroe George’, captured and sentenced to ‘be burned to ashes’: ibid., no. 1193.
p. 168
‘the spawne of Newgate and Bridewell’: Jeaffreson, A Young Squire, 1:258.
14. God’s Vengeance
p. 169
‘If thou didst see those great persons that are now dead upon the water’: quoted in Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 187.
p. 169
‘made slaves … and there used with the utmost of Rigor and severity’: Robertson, ‘Re-writing the English Conquest of Jamaica’, 834.
p. 169
‘and in return receive only ingratitude’: Cal Col 1681–85, no. 16.
p. 169
‘are daily taking all ships they can master, and are very high’: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 735.
p. 170
‘then took away with him her maiden daughter, Rachel Barrow of about 14 years’: PRO CO 137/1, 193–6.
p. 170
A map drawn in 1677 shows a duel with pistols in motion: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 149.
p. 170
‘had always been his friend, but the drink and other men’s quarrels made them fall out’: BL Add. MSS 12430, fol. 30.
p. 170
only four priests for the entire island: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 380.
p. 170
‘As to the present state of the Island’: Cal Col 1675–6, no. 735.
p. 170
having increased tenfold since 1671: Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 169.
p. 170
from 57 in 1671 to 246 in 1684: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 295.
p. 171
some £4,000 a year from his sugar plantations: 25 February 1684, Cal Col 1681–5, no. 1553.
p. 171
The Drax Hall estate would soon have more than 300 slaves: Armstrong, Old Village and the Great House, 36.
p. 172
slaves that cost £17 in Barbados, Beckford complained, were priced at £24 in Jamaica: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 259.
p. 172
‘The Royal Company now begin to supply us well, there being two Shipps with 700 Negroes in port’: ibid, 262.
p. 172
by 1680, the black population of Jamaica had surpassed that of the white: ibid., 227.
p. 172
‘many families were murdered … destroyed most the Plantations in St Mary’s parish’: PRO CO 140/2, 447–9.
p. 172
‘so trusty a negro … I would have put my life in his hands’: quoted in Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 169.
p. 173
‘master live at ease at full feed tables’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 266.
p. 173
‘All matters considered, I judge our husbandmen in Connecticut’: Bridenbaughs, No Peace Beyond the Line, 218n.
p. 173
‘misery of the slaves’, ‘whom the sun and tormenting insects in the field are like to devour’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 247.
p. 173
castrated or had a foot or hand chopped off. Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands: 1:lvii.
p. 173
‘the fire was upon his breast he was burning near 3 hours before he died’: quoted in Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 168.
p. 174
‘After they are whipped till they are raw’: Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands, 1:lvii.
p. 174
the word ‘sometimes’ perhaps betraying his unease: Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 170.
p. 174
‘for the wasps, merrywings and other insects to torment’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 270.
p. 174
‘unaccessible mountains and rocks’: PRO CO 138/5, 87–102.
p. 174
‘great troble and expence’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 278.
p. 174
‘so scandalous an Assembly was never chosen’: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 1689.
p. 175
‘the Store House or Treasury of the West Indies’: Cundall, Historic Jamaica, 51.
p. 175
In one year in the late 1680s, 213 ships docked at Port Royal: Colley, Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, 4.
p. 175
‘as dear-rented as if they stood in well-traded streets in London … but only made up of a hot loose Sand’: Blome, Description of the Island of Jamaica, 31–2.
p. 175
‘being sumptuously arrayed and served by their Negroa slaves’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 238.
p. 175
‘English servants to manage their chiefe affaire and supervise their Negroa slaves’: ibid., 245–7.
p. 176
‘live here very well, earning thrice the wages given in England’: ibid., 241.
p. 176
‘with a couple of Negroes at her tail’: Bush, ‘White “Ladies”, Coloured “Favourites” and Black “Wenches”’, 249.
p. 176
‘many taverns, and an abundance of punchy houses, or rather may be fitly called brothel houses’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 239.
p. 176
living with his young family in Port Royal: Cal Col 1681–5, no. 1311.
p. 176
‘In his debauches, which go on every day and night, he is much magnified’: ibid., no. 1348.
p. 176
Black Dogg, Blue Anchor, Catt & Fiddle, Sign of Bacchus: exhibition in Jamaica Institute, Kingston.
p. 177
‘Lean, sallow coloured, his eyes a little yellowish … sitting up late’: Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands, 1:xcviii.
p. 177
‘very loose … by reason of privateers and debauched wild blades which come hither’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 240.
p. 177
constant orders from London for the suppression of their ‘mischief’: Cal Col 1681–5, no. 11.
p. 177
force all the onlookers at pistol point to drink: Leslie, A New and Exact Account of Jamaica, 101.
p. 177
‘by giving themselves to all manner of debauchery’: Esquemeling, Bucaniers of America, 1:106.
p. 177
‘now more rude and antic than ‘ere was Sodom’: Buisseret, Jamaica in 1687, 240.
p. 177
‘to keep up some show of religion among a most ungodly and debauched people’: Anon., A full Account of the Late Dreadful Earthquake, 1.
p. 177
‘whole streets sinking under Water’: Anon., A True and Perfect Relation, 1.
p. 177
‘a great part of the inhabitants [were] miserably knocked on the head or drowned’: June 20 1692, Cal Col 1689–92, no. 2278.
p. 178
‘hanging by the hands upon the Rack of Chimney, and one of his Children hanging about his Neck’: Anon., A True and Perfect Relation, 1.
p. 178
‘some inhabitants were swallowed up to the Neck, and then the Earth shut upon them; and squeezed them to death’: Anon., A full Account of the Late Dreadful E
arthquake, 2.
p. 178
One so trapped was Peter Beckford: Anon., A True and Perfect Relation, 1.
p. 178
‘intolerable stench’: Anon., The truest and largest account of the late Earthquake, 5.
p. 178
‘Mr Beckford’s two daughters’: Anon., A True and Perfect Relation, 1.
p. 178
‘as a Fore-runner of the Terrible Day of the Lord’: Cal Col 1689–92, nos. 2302, 2278.
p. 178
‘many of the old Reprobates are become New Converts; those that use to Mock at Sin, Now Weep bitterly for it’: Anon., A True and Perfect Relation, 1.
p. 178
emptying their pockets or cutting off fingers to get at rings: Anon., The truest and largest account of the late Earthquake, 6.
p. 178
‘threw down all the churches, dwelling houses and sugar works in the island’: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 2278.
p. 179
‘the hurtful Vapours belch’d from the many openings of the earth’: Cundall, Historic Jamaica, 150.
p. 179
‘lying wet, and wanting medicines … they died miserably in heaps’: Sir Hans Sloane, quoted in Renny, An History of Jamaica, 229.
p. 179
‘our strongest Houses demolisht, our Arms broken … might be stirred up to rise in Rebellion against us’: Anon., The truest and largest account of the late Earthquake, 11.
15. The Planter at War: Codrington in the Leeward Islands
p. 180
‘[These colonies’] whole past history’: quoted in Ragatz, Fall, ix.
p. 180
a number of French inhabitants joined in the ‘burning and ravaging’: Cal Col 1689–92, nos. 212, 237, 262, 312.
p. 181
‘of great estate here and in Barbados’: Johnson to Lords of Trade, 15 July 1689, ibid., no. 256.
p. 181
‘so good is the spirit of the garrison’: ibid., no. 312.
p. 181
‘We are not unprofitable appendages to the Crown … turn our mourning into joy’: 31 July 1689, ibid., no. 312.
p. 182
he knew enough about the self-interest of planters … the value of their own sugar crop: ibid., no. 789.
p. 182
‘most turbulent and ungovernable’: ibid., nos. 548, 789.
p. 182
‘We are greatly discouraged by the long neglect of us at home’: ibid., no. 789.
p. 182
‘I have inspected the muskets and think them as bad as ever came to these parts’: 4 June 1690, ibid., no. 927.
p. 182
‘fittest for marching and accustomed to rugged paths’: ibid., no. 977.
p. 182
‘they have a grievance against you, and doubtless hope for revenge’: 18 February, 1690, ibid., no. 789viii.
p. 183
‘an almost inaccessible hill … forced to use our Hands as well as our Feet in climbing up’: Spencer, A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces, 8.
p. 183
‘pulling themselves forward by the bushes’: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 977.
p. 183
‘made all the heels they could’: ibid.
p. 183
‘Liquors’ be ‘secured in a convenient storehouse’: Spencer, A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces, 9.
p. 183
On 4 July, Codrington reported to London that morale in his force was excellent: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 977.
p. 183
‘riddling the houses like sieves’: ibid., no. 1004.
p. 183
‘The King and Queen’s healths were drank’: Spencer, A true and faithful relation of the proceedings of the forces, 8.
p. 184
‘disbursed large sums for the public service’: Cal Col 1689–92, no. 1004.
p. 184
10 acres apiece so as to guarantee an adequate white militia and ‘middle class’: ibid., no. 1756.
p. 184
He had been too kind to the French, it was alleged: ibid., no. 1212.
p. 184
‘repaid only by murmuring and discontent’: ibid.
p. 185
‘At the taking of St Christophers’: ibid., no. 1608.
p. 185
all this was carried on in sloops for whose use in the national interest Codrington promptly charged the English government nearly £5,000: ibid., nos. 1609, 1613.
p. 185
‘run off in distraction at midnight’: ibid., no. 1630.
p. 186
‘in consequence of the heavy complaint against him’: ibid., no. 1623.
p. 186
‘All turns on mastery of the sea’: ibid., no. 1756.
p. 186
a powerful French fleet had arrived at Martinique: ibid., no. 1993.
p. 186
‘far the richest production and most shining ornament [Barbados] ever had’: quoted in Schomburgk, History of Barbados, 112.
p. 186
‘Children, in these West India Islands are, from their infancy, waited upon by Numbers of Slaves’: Hughes, Natural History of Barbados, 9–15.
p. 187
‘No spark had walk’d up High Street bolder’: quoted in Harlow, Christopher Codrington, 48.
p. 187
‘So early and so continued a pre-eminence’: ibid., 39.
p. 188
‘I have always thought it very barbarous’: Cal Col 1699, no. 458.
p. 188
‘his freedom & £500 at 21, he to be sent to school in England’: Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1:150.
p. 189
‘This heart ablaze, this spirit’s surging foam’: Harlow, Christopher Codrington, 81.
p. 189
He also repeated his requests for settlers from the northern colonies for St Kitts, but it appears that few were forthcoming: Cal Col 1693–6, no. 2193.
p. 190
He had traded illegally with the French and Dutch, even during the war, and this had continued since, it was said: PRO CO 152/2, pp.205–10.
p. 190
‘minded nothing but plunder … From a Governour, planter, trader without breeding, word, honour, and religion, good Lord deliver us’: ibid., p. 83.
p. 190
‘the exercise of almost unlimited authority over a turbulent community turned his head’: Harlow, Christopher Codrington, 36.
p. 190
‘we are not sensible of any mismanagement or irregularities’: PRO CO 152/2, p. 75.
p. 190
were moved to publicly chastise Codrington. Cal Col 1697–8, no. 817.
16. The French Invasion of Jamaica
p. 192
‘the enemy daily infests our coasts’: Cal Col 1693–6, no. 635.
p. 192
‘the people were so thin and so little used to arms’: ibid., no. 1236.
p. 193
‘in a very mean habit, and with a meagre weather-beaten countenance’: Anon., Interesting Tracts, 252.
p. 193
‘into excellent order’: ibid., 253.
p. 193
Using pressed labour: Cal Col 1693–6, no. 473.
p. 193
A system of beacons was established to warn of an approaching fleet, and Beeston announced: ibid., nos. 876, 1083, 1074.
p. 193
‘coming into sight with a fresh gale’: Anon., Interesting Tracts, 254.
p. 193
‘Some of the straggling people … they suffered the negroes to violate, and dug some out of their graves’: ibid., 255–7.
p. 194
and paying for them out of his own pocket: Cal Col 1693–6, no. 2178.
p. 194
‘here I reckon that our misfortunes began’: ibid., no. 1946.
p. 195
‘people die here very fast and suddenly, I know not how soon it may be my turn’: Amussen, Caribbean Exchanges, 84.
p. 195
he remarried the following year to Anne Ballard, from another wealthy planter family: Howard, Records and Letters of the Family of the Longs, 14.
p. 195
200 per thousand of the town’s population died every year during the first decades of the eighteenth century: Burnard, ‘“The Countrie Continues Sicklie”’, 49.
p. 195
‘Mrs Beckford has been ill but is recovered’: 15 May 1695, Cal Col 1693–6, no. 2022 ix.
p. 195
and of his servants, only his cook survived: BL Add. Mss 28878, fol. 135.
p. 195
‘There are so many dead that it is hard to bury them’: Burnard, ‘A Failed Settler Society’, 69.
p. 195
that the island was still ‘at present sickly’: March 30 1702, Cal Col 1702, no. 267.
The Sugar Barons Page 53