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Exile and second chances
The story of Loyalist settlers to the Turks & Caicos Islands
is well documented. At the conclusion of the American
Revolution, the Patriots bitterly resented those who had
fought for King George III and often tarred and feathered
them (a common mob form of punishment at the time).
Forced off their property (which enriched the victors who
took over), many of the Loyalists in Georgia fled to nearby
St. Augustine in East Florida which had been returned to
Spanish rule.
The Spanish offered to let the Loyalists stay if they
swore allegiance to Spain and converted to Catholicism.
But the Protestant Loyalists (also referred to as Tories, the
political party reflecting their views) refused to convert
and opted to take a chance on a new life in the Bahamas,
which at that time included Turks & Caicos. (See Times of
the Islands Fall 2010, “All the King’s Men” by Dr. Charlene
Kozy.) Other Loyalists fled to the port city of Savannah
and waited in squalid conditions for British ships that
could take them to the Bahamas as well, or other parts of
the British Empire for resettlement.
During this time in limbo, the British government
compensated Loyalists for some or all of the losses suffered
in the now former British colonies with cash and
land grants that enabled them to begin anew. The compensation,
as well as things of value to bring out, allowed
Loyalists to purchase machinery, agricultural implements,
and more slaves, giving them a big advantage in starting
over with new plantations and a second life.
The first stop for many Loyalists was Nassau or
nearby Cat Island, Eleuthera and Abaco. Their presence
immediately caused friction with the long-term white residents
who were mostly poor, illiterate and resentful of
well-to-do refugees who looked down on them. Loyalists
with the means set out for the more fertile and uninhabited
islands of “Grand Caicos,” what we know today as
North and Middle Caicos and Parrot Cay. They were really
the third wave of slaveholders in TCI, the first being the
Spanish enslavers who removed the original Taino and
Lucayan Indians in the late 1400s and early 1500s that,
along with disease and killings, completely depopulated
all of TCI. The Bermudians followed in the late 1600s,
bringing hundreds of slaves to Grand Turk, Salt Cay and
South Caicos to work the salt ponds.
Before setting foot in TCI, the Loyalists knew the
location and acreage of their new plantations in Grand
Caicos. And they knew how much forced labor and tools
they would need to cut and clear the thick brush for planting
of sea cotton, which had already proven to be a viable
crop on the other Bahamian islands. The Loyalist planters
that arrived in Grand Caicos knew one another and kept
in contact with other Loyalist families that had settled
elsewhere in the Bahamas and other British Caribbean
islands. That connection based on common values and
shared experience in exile gave them a measure of social
and political power.
Records tell of Loyalist marriages and offspring, their
business dealings and their political ambitions to enhance
their status in their new island home. We even know the
inventory of luxury goods they loaded onto ships, such
as fine mahogany furniture, china, silverware and linen
sheets. Libraries, musical instruments, spy glasses and
silver dueling pistols rounded out the households of the
stone and wood houses the slaves would build for them.
In fact, some Loyalists modeled their new abodes after
houses where they had lived in Georgia.
There are no records of what they thought when they
squinted out at the hot, low-lying islands of Grand Caicos
covered with thick brush and rocks with few sources of
fresh water. But surely their hearts must have sunk at the
realization that even with slaves, machinery and a few
luxuries, life would probably never reach the level they
enjoyed in the American South.
No let-up for the enslaved
The enslaved, of course, arrived here with nothing except
a strong culture of resilience and adaptation. From the
Loyalist perspective, they existed solely to be exploited
for commercial gain. From the enslaved perspective, life
centered on how to work the system, resist and retain a
measure of dignity in the face of daily oppression. While
Loyalists were able to bring some slaves from Georgia,
the Carolinas and East Florida, they bought new ones at
slave markets in Nassau and Cuba before the final leg
of the journey to Grand Caicos. Thus, new arrivals from
Africa mixed in with an existing culture of people who had
known nothing but slavery.
We can only imagine the great despair and bewilderment
slaves must have felt when they emerged from the
holds of the same sailing ships as the Loyalists. They, too,
shielded their eyes while peering into the bright sunlight
and saw before them the desolate, faraway island, searingly
conscious of their status and grim prospects. The
new home held no promise of a better life, only forced
backbreaking work until death.
As in the American South and throughout the West
Indies, the Loyalists recorded slaves as numbers. How
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