An introduction to the plantation journals of the Prospect ... - Microform

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also possible that resources had been transferred to his son and daughter at an earlier point (for example, at the time of their marriages). 21 The parish vestry was the unit of local government in Jamaica. Slave and livestock returns could be used as the basis of tax levies. After 1792, overseers were also required by law to provide details of births and deaths among the enslaved population each year. 22 Information supplied by Mrs. Barbara M. Philpott (based on ‘Will of Richard Oakeley’, dated 19 May 1796 and proved 14 February 1820, Hereford Record Office, and Edward Francis Oakeley, The Oakeley Pedigree [London, 1934] ); Triennial Slave Registration Returns for Portland Parish, Jamaica, PRO T71/151 (1817), T71/152 (1820), T71/153 (1823), T71/154 (1826). Richard Oakeley’s will recorded that the testator had ‘in my lifetime transmitted to my brother Thomas in Jamaica the sum of two hundred and eighty pounds for the use of my son Thomas Oakeley’. Thomas Oakeley Jr. married firstly a Miss King in Jamaica, and, secondly (in 1816, at Lydart House, Monmouthshire), Elizabeth Pearce daughter of local landowner Joseph Pearce Esq. of Staveton House, Gloucestershire. 23 The best known representatives of the main branch of Oakeleys are Sir Charles Oakeley (1751-1826) and his son the Revd. Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880). As Governor of Madras (1792-4), Sir Charles Oakeley established the Madras observatory and meteorological institute. Revd. Frederick Oakeley translated adeste fidelis into the hymnal ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’. The scientific and intellectual activities of the Oakeleys would repay further study. 24 1851 Census of England and Wales, parish returns for Mitchel Troy; NA:PRO Prob 11/1569, Will of Parnell Oakeley, dated [illegible] November 1814; proved 19 June 1815. The will includes the bequest of an annuity of £200 to her daughter by Charlotte Landon, to be paid out of the annual proceeds of Prospect Estate 25 Register of Compensation Claims, Portland Parish, Jamaica, NA:PRO T71/868, claim No. 36. 26 In a letter to Robert Govett, written c.1841, Attlay railed against ‘this irreligious and anti- Clerical City’, Norwich Record Office, Records of Norwich Surrey Chapel, Undenominational, Papers of Robert Govett, Attlay to Govett, FC 76/89. 27 Jamaica Almanac, 1838. 28 Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Parish Registers of Hatherleigh (Exmouth). The entries record the baptism of ‘Grace, a blackamore’ 13 Mary 1604 and ‘Rebecca, a base daughter of Grace, a Negro’, 10 August 1606. 29 Mean annual rainfall in Portland parish is more than 100 inches, exceeding the range of 60 to 70 inches considered ideal for sugar cultivation, Michael Craton, Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in Jamaica (Cambridge Massachusetts and London, 1978), 9. 30 Craton, Invisible Man, 16. The Maroons were a community of runaway slaves, who intermarried with survivors of the original native American inhabitants of Jamaica. The wars were concluded by the negotiation of a treaty between the Maroons and the white colonists. 31 Craton, Invisible Man, 34. 23
32 Craton, Invisible Man, 39. 33 Barry W. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834 (Cambridge, 1976), 19-20. Higman’s analysis of the 1832 Accounts Produce returns reveal that of seventeen sugar estates in Portland, only one property generated receipts in excess of £30 per slave and the map of estate production indicates a marked decline in earnings along the north-east coastlines of Portland and St. Thomas-in-the-East. The debts carried by Prospect at the time of emancipation may well reflect difficult conditions after 1803. 34 Robertson, Map of Jamaica. 35 [Stephen Fuller], Proceedings of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica on the Sugar and Slave Trade (London, 1793), 40. 36 Barclays Group Archive, 0627-0023, ‘Day book and ledger, 1 January 1784 - March 1792’, f.9b. McPherson’s survey does not survive among the maps and plans preserved in the National Library of Jamaica. Only one example of this surveyor’s work is known: a plan of Long Bay and Hartford Estates in Portland, dated 1783. It includes a bearing across Long Bay from the ‘Fair Prospect’ pastures. See Higman (1988: 57-8). The author is grateful to Professor Higman for confirming the accuracy of these details. The crops for 1784 and 1785 were about one-third of the average crop between 1786 and 1790 (Table 8). 37 For estimates of land-labour and land-yield ratios, see Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (2 vols; Dublin, 1793), vol. ii, 279- 81. The plantation journals record that, during the years from 1787 until 1793, between 35 acres and 48 acres were planted in cane, Barclays Group Archive, 0627 0019, volumes 1-6. If these entries refer to all the land planted in sugar cane, Prospect would have been a very small plantation. A sample of 101 estate plans between 1750 and 1839 suggests that the linear equation -6.73 acres + (4.134 x acres in cane) describes the approximate relationship between area planted in cane and total area, B. W. Higman, ‘The Spatial Economy of Jamaican Sugar Plantations: Cartographic Evidence from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 13 (1987), 26. This equation implies that Prospect contained just 165 acres! The journals may, however, record only new plantings of cane or they may simply under-record planting. 38 Estates situated away from the coast faced higher transport costs and Craton has suggested that they needed to be larger in scale to compensate, Craton, Invisible Man, 1. 39 Higman, Slave Population, 13 and ‘Spatial Economy’, 26; Craton, Invisible Man, 15, 17. 40 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London, 1964), 85-97. 41 Higman, Slave Population, 70. These data include coffee plantations, livestock pens, and other crop combinations which, it is generally believed, employed a smaller labour force than sugar. A similar size distribution is recorded in 1828 when 38.5% of properties in Portland had labour forces of between 100 and 199 slaves, compared with 27.5% across all regions of Jamaica, Craton, Invisible Man, 39. 42 By way of illustration, two of the most studied Jamaican sugar estates are Worthy Park and Montpelier. The enslaved population of Worthy Park reached 500 by 1800, while Old 24
Page 1 and 2: An Introduction to the Plantation J
Page 3 and 4: © Simon D. Smith, 2004 ISBN 10: 1-
Page 5 and 6: Prior to their relocation to the Ma
Page 7 and 8: Stephen Oakeley Attlay Sr., like hi
Page 9 and 10: located five miles from Ashbury. A
Page 11 and 12: on the estate heightens, rather tha
Page 13 and 14: collective task to perform; in the
Page 15 and 16: Table 1 An Inventory of the Manuscr
Page 17 and 18: Table 3 The Enslaved Population of
Page 19 and 20: 1 Jan 1784 Table 5 Demographic Prof
Page 21 and 22: Tables 7a and 7b Work Allocation in
Page 23 and 24: Crop Season Table 8 Crop Invoices f
Page 25: (Wakefield, 2002), also available f

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