The Sugar Barons (73 page)
22. Barbados, the ‘Civilized Isle.’
‘very homely and great Swearers’: Atkins, | |
‘a dry crust, burnt up and gaping’: Schomburgk, | |
‘The industry & integrity of its first founders is lost’: Walduck, ‘T. Walduck’s Letters from Barbados’, 28. | |
‘hardship, sweat, and toil of their forefathers’: Anon., | |
‘fiery, restless spirits’: Burkes, | |
‘Vain and shewy,’ many were living way beyond their reduced means, and falling into debt: Watson, | |
‘There is no Recreation out of Business’: Atkins, | |
‘oblig’d, for the most part, to sedentary Diversions’: Watson, | |
‘Though a Creole was languishing on his death bed’: Moreton, | |
‘Dancing is too violent an Exercise in this hot Climate’: Hillary, | |
a number of the leading proprietors had followed the example of Henry Drax: Watts, | |
Assembly elections were frequently fixed: Walduck, ‘T. Walduck’s Letters from Barbados’, 141. | |
a judge for one of the districts of Barbados where a case against him was to be tried: | |
in 1728 one man held eight civil and military posts: | |
summoned to London to answer the charges, but was cleared: Smith, | |
sending it to London to benefit from the higher price arising from the monopoly: | |
‘to have cut his throat and arms and across his belly’: Smith, | |
recouped the £12,000 outlay in just one year: Sheridan, | |
a number of deer to grace the Gedney Clarke lawns in Barbados: Hamer, | |
orders came by return packet for him to be restored: Senhouse papers | |
‘I am sorry I cannot say any thing pleasant about this place’: Thompson, | |
the ratio of blacks to whites: Deerr, | |
most of the estates were run by newly-arrived Scotsmen: Thompson, | |
the 1730s saw the establishment of a number of good quality schools: Watson, | |
‘the languid syllables …’: Pinckard, | |
found Barbadians ‘more easy, hospitable and kind’: Thompson, | |
‘We do not live so flash and fast’: quoted in Pares, | |
‘carbuncled faces, slender legs and thighs’: Whitson, ‘The Outlook of the Continental American Colonies’, 65. | |
‘Barbados Hotel, putting up for a sign’: Watson, | |
‘fickle & Merciliss Ocean’: Warren, ‘The Significance of George Washington’s Journey to Barbados’, 5. | |
‘with some reluctance’: Toner, | |
‘perfectly enraptured’: ibid., 42. | |
‘How wonderful that such people shou’d be in debt!’: ibid., 58–9. | |
‘extravagantly dear’: ibid., 48. | |
‘the prospect is extensive by Land and pleasant by Sea’: ibid., 48. | |
‘Genteely receiv’d and agreeably entertain’d’: Warren, ‘The Significance of George Washington’s Journey to Barbados’, 10. | |
‘After Dinner was the greatest Collection of Fruits’: Toner, | |
‘very few who may be called middling people they are either very rich or very poor’: ibid., 48. | |
‘Generally very agreeable, but by ill custom… affect the Negro Style’: Fitzpatrick, | |
‘The planters at Barbadoes are cruel to their unhappy slaves’: Handler, | |
‘some trivial domestic error’: Thompson, | |
‘taught in their very infancy to flog with a whip the slaves that offends them’: ibid. | |
‘knocking the poor Negroes about the cheeks’: Waller, | |
‘of a more volatile and lively Disposition’: Greene, ‘Changing Identity in the British Caribbean’, 143. | |
‘Here I find every Thing alter’d’: Leslie, | |
‘When you get to Kingston, if you had five more senses, they would be all engaged’: Moreton, | |
‘Too much blue, too much purple, too much green’: Rhys, | |
‘hardened to the callous frankness of a Jamaica liaison’: de Lisser, | |
‘many a young man arrive from England with the noblest resolves and the highest ideals’: ibid., 102. | |
‘This was Jamaica’: ibid., 112. | |
‘I have seen these unfortunate Wretches gnaw the Flesh off their own Shoulders’: Burns, | |
‘would ill suit a gentleman of your nature … real or imaginary Crosses, which are the same in effect’: Smith, | |
‘The real or supposed necessity of treating the Negroes with rigour’: Thomas, | |
‘Like wax softened by the heat’: Moreton, | |
‘despotick government over their poor slaves’: Thompson, | |
‘terrible Whippings …’: Leslie, |
23. Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica: ‘Tonight very lonely and melancholy again’
‘to enquire for Mr Beckford Esqr … but was informed he is now in Jamaica’: Hall, | |
in 1763 he got Benjamin Franklin’s book on electricity: TD, 14 September 1763. | |
‘Put it upon a pole and stuck it up just at the angle of the road in the home pasture’: ibid., 9 October 1751. | |
‘Sense of Injury which will dispose them to Revenge that may produce more fatal Consequence than desertion’: ibid., 10 April 1754. | |
the slaves hated him and wanted him dead: ibid. | |
outnumbered by the enslaved Africans by as much as 16 to one: Walvin, | |
‘in the Negro manner, “I will kill you, I will kill you now”’: TD, 27 December 1752. | |
‘one saying he was sick, the others that they were in a hurry’: ibid. | |
‘My pocket Whip is broke and Wore out’: TD, 24 March 1759. | |
‘Had Derby well whipped’: ibid., 28 January 1756. | |
‘made Hector shit in his mouth’: ibid., 23 July 1756. | |
his face chopped with a machete: ibid., 4 August 1756. | |
‘picketed’ on ‘a quart bottle neck till she begged hard’: Walvin, | |
‘the entire extirpation of the white inhabitants’: Long, | |
‘strange various reports with torment & confusion’: TD, 26 May 1760. | |
‘til they force the whites to give them free like Cudjoe’s Negroes’: ibid., 1 August 1760. | |
‘was made to sit on the ground, and his body being chained to an iron stake’: Craton, | |
‘he brought to my Memory ye picture of Robinson Crusoe’: TD, 1 June 1750. | |
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slept with nearly 140 different women, almost all black slaves, while in Jamaica: Walvin, | |
‘Perceived a small redness, but did not regard it’: TD, 30 September 1751. | |
‘last night | |
‘Spoke to Dr Joseph Horlock. A rank infection’: ibid., 9 October 1751. | |
‘bathing the penis a long time’: ibid., 26 November 1751. | |
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‘ye Barb[ados] woman that was rap’d by three of them’: ibid., 8 January 1751. | |
‘At Night Mr Paul Stevens and Thomas Adams going to tear old Sarah to pieces in her hutt’: ibid., 20 March 1753. | |
‘haw’led Eve separately into the Water Room and were Concern’d with her’: ibid., 12 March 1755. | |
‘Mrs Cope also examined the sheets and found them amiss’: ibid., 2–5 May 1756. | |
‘Mr C. in his trantrums last night’: ibid., 9 October 1756. | |
‘young and full-breasted’: Thomas, | |
‘riot in these goatish embraces’: Long, | |
‘keep a favourite black or mulatta girl on every estate’: Moreton, | |
‘murdered him for meddling with their women’: TD, 17 December 1761. | |
‘Things seemed odd, but yet very pleasant’: 25 February 1764, quoted in Hall, | |
‘how strangely he looked’: TD, 31 March 1765. | |
‘with load Huzzas’: ibid., 4 April 1765. | |
‘Mirtilla is very ill, it is thought going to miscarry’: ibid., 22 January 1755. | |
‘abused Mr and Mrs Mould in an extraordinary manner’: ibid., 24 February 1756. | |
they had sex 234 times: Burnard, | |
‘I could not sleep, but vastly uneasy’: TD, 19 June 1757. | |
‘Tonight very lonely and melancholy again’: ibid., 4 July 1757. | |
‘She is in miserable slavery’: ibid., 17 July 1757. | |
the Copes had at last agreed to rent her to Thistlewood for £18 a year: Hall, | |
Thistlewood intervened to stop the rape of Coobah: TD, 19 February 1758. | |
Phibbah was freed by a clause in Thistlewood’s will: Hall, | |
Phibbah had already ‘transcended’ her state: Burnard, | |
‘with a bad looseness’: Hall, | |
entertained the white wives of two local grandees to tea: TD 16 February 1779. | |
‘naked for the mosquitoes to bite here tonight’: ibid., 7 August 1770. | |
‘this offers the only hope they have of procuring a sum of money’: Connell, ‘Hotel Keepers and Hotels in Barbados’, 162–3. | |
who saw her as their friend: Craton, | |
‘History of Jack the Giant Killer in 2 parts’: TD, 20 August 1769. | |
‘become a member of Jamaica’s brown elite’: Burnard, | |
‘very ill’: TD, 1 September 1780. | |
‘much in liquor’: ibid., 5 September 1780. | |
‘almost out of her senses’: Brown, | |
‘putrid fever’: TD, 1 September 1780. | |
‘in the old garden, between the pimento tree and the bee houses’: ibid., 7 September 1780. |
