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Farquharson’s Journal
Inscribed 2009
What is it
The handwritten journal of a cotton-plantation owner in
the Bahamas covering the two-year period from 1 January
1831 to 31 December 1832.
Why was it inscribed
Farquharson’s Journal chronicles the day-to-day events
on cotton-producing Prospect Hill Plantation on
Watlings Island and was written by the owner Charles
Farquharson who, unusually, lived on the plantation
itself. It is the only surviving handwritten account in
the Bahamas, the wider Caribbean and as far as is known,
the world, of slave and plantation life on a
non-sugar plantation.
Where is it
Bahamas National Archives, Nassau, Bahamas
Prospect Hill Plantation on Watlings Island grew
cotton rather than the more usual Caribbean crops
of sugar and coffee, and in 1803 Scottish-born Charles
Farquharson, a Loyalist from the recently independent
United States of America, obtained a land grant there
for an estate originally of 200 acres. Watlings Island,
now known as San Salvador, is a small island in the
Bahamas archipelago and was noted as the first landfall
in the New World of Christopher Columbus, who landed
there on 12 October 1492.
Crop production on the Bahamas was less successful
than on the other Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Barbados
and Antigua, and the cotton production that had supplied
trade with England was already well into decline by the
time Farquharson wrote his journal.
Farquharson’s record is the only surviving journal of slave
and plantation life in the Bahamas. Slavery was abolished
in virtually the whole of the British empire in 1834, so the
journal allows a glimpse into conditions that were about
to end in this part of the world. Farquharson’s spelling is
sometimes rendered phonetically and his language and
descriptions are clear and concise throughout.
His journal records the day-to-day work of the slaves
on the plantation, which was less labour-intensive than
a sugar plantation. Duties included planting, harvesting
and processing cotton and other crops, including corn,
peas and beans; ground-clearing and maintenance work
on walls, buildings and roads; and more general tasks
of carrying produce, wood and luggage, and of raking salt,
which was also produced on the island. The journal also
describes entertainments of the slaves, such as dancing
during their Christmas holidays.
Farquharson’s writing reveals also his own attitude
towards the slaves, whom he describes as ‘the people’ and
‘the hands’ – similar to terms used, it has been noted, to
refer to labourers on an English farm. He expected them to
work continually but not through illness or bad weather and
was reluctant to use corporal punishment. He accepted the
need for protest and negotiation but did not tolerate violent
resistance and open rebellion; one leader of such a revolt on
the plantation was punished, sent to Nassau and later sold.
Farquharson’s Journal 345