The Sugar Barons (68 page)

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.

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.

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.

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.