The Sugar Barons (65 page)

p. 32

‘if you go to Barbados you shal see’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:43.

p. 32

the grants had been smaller, in the region of 50 to 80 acres: Games, ‘Opportunity and Mobility in Early Barbados’, 169.

p. 33

‘up and down the Gullies’, ‘for the ways are such, as no Carts can pass’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
39.

p. 33

where the sugar commanded consistently high prices. Deerr,
History of Sugar
, 2:530.

p. 33

‘as wheels in a Clock’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
56.

p. 34

‘men of great abilities, and parts’: ibid., 55.

p. 34

34 of the 254 slaves on the
Mary Bonaventure
: B. Arch. RB3/1, 436–9.

p. 34

‘so much Suger or other merchantable commodities as shall amount to £726 sterling’: Bridenbaughs,
No Peace Beyond the Line
, 78.

p. 35

‘some have made this yeare off one acre off canes about 4000 weight of sugar, ordinarily 3000’: James Parker to John Winthrop, 24 April 1646: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:83.

p. 35

land that sold at 10s. an acre in 1640 sold at £5 in 1646, a tenfold increase: Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
, 66.

p. 35

and more for the best situated: Beckles,
White Servitude and Black Slavery
, 156.

p. 35

‘soe infinite is the profitt of sugar’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:172.

p. 36

‘set us on to work to provide shipping of our own’: Hosmer,
Winthrop’s Journal
, 2:23–4.

p. 36

‘and were much feared to be lost’: ibid., 2:73–4.

p. 36

but only after several deaths and massive damage to the ship and its cargo: ibid., 2:227.

p. 36

An ox that cost £5 in Virginia could be sold for £25 in Barbados: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
113.

p. 36

‘necessary Hay and corn for voyage to Barbados, and Guinney’: Bridenbaugh,
Fat Mutton
, 5.

p. 37

‘where in all probability I can live better than in other places’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:254,163.

p. 37

‘New England friends’ already operating there who might be able to give him an opening: Gragg, ‘New England Migration to Barbados’, 163.

p. 38

‘How oft have I thought in my hearte, oh howe happie are New England people!’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:84.

p. 38

‘one of the most beautiful women ever seen’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 62.

p. 39

‘showed activity and forwardness to expedite the treaty for the surrender’: quoted in Campbell,
Some Early Barbadian History
, 134.

p. 39

‘men, victuals and all utensils fitted for a Plantation’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
21.

p. 40

‘a stranger in my own Countrey’, and, ‘stript and rifled of all I had’, was resolved to ‘famish or fly’: ibid., 1.

p. 40

‘miscarry in the Voyage’: ibid., 22.

p. 40

‘age and gravity’: ibid., 17.

p. 40

‘afforded us a large proportion of delight’: ibid., 21.

p. 40

‘faithful obedience’: ibid., 20–1.

p. 41

‘if you had ever seen her, you could not but have fallen in love with her’: ibid., 75.

p. 41

‘45 Cattle for work, 8 Milch Cows, a dozen Horses and Mares, 16 Assinigoes [asses]’: ibid., 22.

p. 42

‘scorching’; ‘sweaty and clammy’; ‘a great failing in the vigour, and sprightliness we have in colder Climates.’; ‘a pack of small beagles at a distance.’; ‘of excellent shape and colour’ ‘like a Prince’; ‘best Virginia Botargo’; ‘the Nector which the Gods drunk’: ibid., 9, 107, 27, 65, 34, 37, 33.

p. 42

‘all the supplies to me at the best hand, and I returning him the sugars, and we both thrived on it’: William Helyar, 10 July 1677, quoted in Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
, 81.

p. 43

‘many rubs and obstacles on the way’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
117.

p. 43

so noble an undertaking … Giants’; Modyford as able as any man he had ever known; ‘civility’; ‘fixt upon’ profits; ‘his friends welcom to it’: ibid., 108, 57, 23, 107, 35.

p. 44

‘The conditions … were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea …’ Lord Macaulay,
History of England
, 1:649–50.

p. 44

‘hardly able to bury the dead’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
21.

p. 45

‘and dyed in few hours after’: ibid., 25.

p. 45

hardly any of the first pioneers had survived: ibid., 23.

p. 45

‘ill dyet’, and ‘drinking strong waters’: ibid., 21.

p. 45

‘were suddenly laid in the dust’: Richard Vines to John Winthrop, 29 April 1648: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:219–20.

p. 45

‘the plague’ was ‘still hott at Barbados’: John Winthrop to his son John Jr, received 9 November 1648: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:267.

p. 46

‘a general scarcity of Victuals through the whole Island’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
21.

p. 46

something like a third of all whites died within three years of arriving in the Caribbean: Burnard, ‘Not a Place for Whites?’, 80.

p. 46

a third of marriages left surviving children: Burnard, ‘A Failed Settler Society’, 69.

p. 46

‘wormed out of their small settlements’:
Cal Col
1661–8, no. 1657.

p. 46

‘are now risen to very great and vast estates’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
43.

p. 46

probably a servant in Barbados by 1650: Bridenbaughs,
No Peace Beyond the Line
, 110.

p. 47

by the time of his death in 1679 owned 19 slaves: Campbell,
Some Early Barbadian History
, 93.

p. 47

By the time of his death in 1736 he owned 10 plantations: Hughes, ‘Samuel Osborne 1674–1736’, 158.

p. 47

‘the land is now so taken up’: declaration of Francis, Lord Willoughby, who in 1647 had leased the ‘Caribee’ islands from the Earl of Carlisle. Quoted in Bridenbaughs,
No Peace Beyond the Line
, 25.

p. 47

‘fewell of daungerous insurrections’, ‘lewed and lasy felowes’: Smith,
Colonists in Bondage
, 138.

p. 48

‘cryinge and mourninge for Redemption from their Slavery’: Harlow,
A History of Barbados,
300.

p. 48

at least 8,000 Englishmen joining the sugar estates of Barbados between 1645 and 1650. Beckles, ‘The “Hub of Empire”’, 238.

p. 48

‘the husband in one place, the wife in another’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 66.

p. 48

‘When they submitted, … the rest shipped for Barbados’: Harlow,
A History of Barbados,
294–5.

p. 48

‘felons condemned to death, sturdy beggars, gipsies and other incorrigible rogues, poor and idle debauched persons’:
Cal Col
1661–8, no. 791.

p. 48

‘in order that by their breeding they should replenish the white population’: Sheridan,
Sugar and Slavery,
237.

p. 48

‘the Dunghill wharone England doth cast forth its rubidg’: Whistler,
Journal of the West India Expedition
, 146 (9 February 1655).

p. 49

‘the generality of them to most inhuman and barbarous persons’: Beckles, ‘English Parliamentary Debate on “White Slavery” in Barbados’, 345–6.

p. 49

‘As for the usage of the Servants’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
44.

p. 49

‘diligent and painful labour’. ibid., 45.

p. 49

‘extremely hated for his cruelties and oppression’: Firth,
Narrative of General Venables
, xxx.

p. 49

‘keeps them in such order, as there are no mutinies amongst them’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
55.

p. 49

‘Truly, I have seen such cruelty done to servants, as I did not think one Christian could have done to another’: ibid., 44.

p. 50

‘had so much depress’d their spirits, as they were come to a declining and yielding condition’: ibid., 41.

p. 50

like ‘galley slaves’: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 66.

p. 50

‘the use of severall joynt’s’. Gragg,
Englishmen Transplanted
, 129.

p. 52

‘Slavery … is a weed’
Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke
(1841 ed.) 1:203.

p. 52

‘and in short time [to] be able with good husbandry to procure Negroes’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:43.

p. 52

‘They were another kinde of people different from us’: Donnan,
Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade,
1:79.

p. 53

Soon the characteristics … were being applied to black Africans: Davis,
Inhuman Bondage
, 55, 62.

p. 53

the ‘piteous company’ of slaves: Thomas,
Slave Trade
, 21.

p. 54

and included wealthy Africans among its financial backers. Davis,
Inhuman Bondage
, 84.

p. 55

‘unless one happened to be hanged, none died’: Deerr,
History of Sugar
, 1:117–18.

p. 55

an African was considered worth four of the sickly Indians. Williams,
Capitalism and Slavery,
9.

p. 55

only 1,000 whites and some 7,000 ‘maroons’, as runaway slaves were known. ibid., 67.

p. 55

‘Most Spaniards think that it is only a matter of years before this island is taken over entirely by the blacks’: Deerr,
History of Sugar
, 2: 318.

p. 55

In the 15 years after 1576, as many as 50,000 were imported. Thomas,
Slave Trade,
134.

p. 56

A number of Dominican and Jesuit friars who had seen the slave trade in action denounced it as a deadly sin. ibid., 146–7.

p. 56

‘it would be detestable and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertaking: Deerr,
History of Sugar
, 2:268.

p. 57

‘miserabell Negros borne to perpetuall slavery they and Thayer seed’: Whistler,
Journal of the West India Expedition
, 146 (9 February 1655).

p. 57

the black man was the better worker; some said he did the labour of three whites:
Cal Col
1675–6, no. 1022.

p. 57

‘(with gods blessing) as much as they cost’: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
, 5:43.

p. 59

assembled naked to be assessed by potential purchasers: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
46–7.

p. 59

‘some mean men sell their Servants, their Children, and sometimes their Wives’: ibid., 46.

p. 59

‘notorious accidents’: ibid., 52.

p. 59

‘their own Countrey … hanged themselves’: ibid., 51.

p. 61

the Christian Scheme of enlarging the Flock cannot well be carried on without it’: Atkins,
A Voyage to Guinea,
156.

p. 61

the Negroes were ‘a happy people, whom so little contents’ would become a stereotype of blacks in America. Amussen,
Caribbean Exchanges
, 62.

p. 62

‘worser lives’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
43.

p. 62

the white servants feasted on the meat; the blacks ended up with the head, entrails and skin: ibid., 39.

p. 62

‘though its true the rich live high’: James Parker to John Winthrop, 24 April 1646: Forbes,
Winthrop Papers
5:84.

p. 62

‘season’d with sweet Herbs finely minc’d’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
38.

p. 63

‘and all by this plant of Sugar’: ibid., 96.

p. 63

James bought out his brother William’s part of the plantation for ‘five thousand pounds sterling’: Lucas MS,
JBMHS
23, 75.

p. 63

‘skilful’ and ‘nimble’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
52.

p. 64

By 1650, the tiny island of Barbados: Chandler, ‘Expansion of Barbados’, 106.

p. 64

‘flourisheth so much, that it hath more people and Commerce then all the Ilands of the Indies’: Gardyner,
A Description of the New World
, 77.

p. 64

100 ships a year called at Bridgetown, the majority of them Dutch: Foster,
A Briefe relation of the late Horrid Rebellion
, 3.

p. 64

four years later, that number had doubled: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 66.

p. 65

‘one of the richest spots of earth under the sun’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
86.

p. 65

Barbados exports had reached the amazing sum of £3,097,800: Bridenbaughs,
No Peace Beyond the Line
, 81.

p. 65

friendly, hospitable attitude between the rich white planters: Handler, ‘Father Antoine Biet’s Visit’, 62; Gunkel and Handler, ‘A Swiss Medical Doctor’s description of Barbados’, 6.

p. 65

‘many hundreds Rebell Negro Slaves in the woods’: Beauchamp Plantanget, letter to Lord Edmund and others, December 1648, quoted in Harlow,
A History of Barbados
, 325.

p. 65

‘to throw down upon the naked bodies of the Negroes, scalding hot’: Ligon,
A True and Exact History,
29.

p. 65

‘commit some horrid massacre upon the Christians, thereby to enfranchise themselves, and become Masters of the Island’: ibid., 46.

p. 66

‘gripings and tortions in the bowels’: ibid., 117–18.

p. 66

‘that had for many dayes layn hovering about the Island’: ibid., 119.

p. 66

‘We have seen and suffered great things’: ibid., 122.