Initial Suggestions On Some Landowners
My research shows the problem of identifying particular individuals, but
indicates possible starting off information on which further research is
needed.
Dudley Ackland. Was he the soldier in
the West Indies in 1769 and Colonel of the Shropshire Volunteers in the West
Indies from 1779 to 1784?
Christopher Baldwin. Was he the
plantation owner on Antigua and Dominica who settled on Clapham Common West
Side where he built the Grange in 1762?
Robert Bremner. Was he the
Scottish music publisher?
Thomas Bridges. Was he the English writer of parodies, drama and one
novel born in Hull?
John Callander. Could he be the Scottish
antiquarian whose book Terra
Australis Cognita, or Voyages to the Southern Hemisphere during the Sixteenth,
Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries published between 1776 and 1778 promoted colonisation?
Walter
Thomas Chittick. Was he the doctor who lived in London, who subscribed to John O’Rouke’s A Treatise on the Art of War: Or,
Rules for Conducting an Army in All the Various Operations of Regular Campaigns(1778), and George
William Lemon’s English
Etymology: Or,
a Derivative Dictionary of the English Language (1783)?
Francis Rush Clerk. Was he the
Inspector and Supplier of the provision
of wagons and horses during the American Rebellion, commenting in detail in
1776 and 1777 on the inadequacies of what had been supplied?
John Dunning. Was he the lawyer who
was MP for Calne between 1768 and 1782 who died as Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancashire?
William Faden. Was he the London based publisher of The Public Ledger and The North
American Atlas in 1777 chronicling the American Rebellion’s battles?
Neighbour Frith. Was he the London
silk merchant who built Woolet Hall (now Loring Hall) in Bexley?
Pierce Galliard. Was he the barrister at law who
lived in Bury Hall in Edmonton and Bradshaw Hall in Eyam in Derbyshire, who had
extensive land interests in Derbyshire, Middlesex, Essex, and Burford including mining interests in Edmonton
and Eyam, and was involved in a complex marriage
settlement indenture involving a number of Earls?
Caleb John Garbrand and Nathaniel Hone.
Could they be the painters?
John
Hincks. Could he be the Chester merchant and sugar maker, who in the late 1750s
was a partner with Joseph Manesty, the Liverpool slave trader, and purchased
coal from the Neston Collieries for his refinery?
Captain
John Jervis. Could he be the Royal Navy officer who later became Viscount St.
Vincent and whose sister married William Henry
Ricketts (see above)?
Baker John Littlehales. Could be
the man who lived in Moulsey in Surrey?
William Mcbean. Could he be the man
who left an estate in Jamaica when he died in 1780?
George Moore. Could he be the London
merchant who shipped out convicts to Maryland in 1783 at the request of the
Government?
Walter
Radcliffe. Could he be the man painted by SirJohsua Reynolds, who owned Warleigh House in Devon now owned by
the National Trust?
John Gilpin Sawrey. Could he be the
owner of Broughton Tower in Lancashire who died in 1773 living in Middlesex?
John
Sinclair. Could he be Sir John Sinclair of the Board of Agriculture, who recorded
in his memoirs that William Dunn of East Florida had written to request a
‘style of culture most adapted to a sandy soil’and who believed that James Macpherson took his Gaelic Poems of Oassian writings with him to West Florida to be Governor
Johnson’s surveyor-general?
Benjamin Stichall. Could he be the
London based bookbinder, who was joint publisher of Mark Catesby’s 1754 The
Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands?
Florida
Landowners And Emancipation Compensation
A few of the 24 people recorded
on the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database with Florida connections were
involved there at the time of British rule: Dr James Dallas, Thomas Dunnage , Sir Archibald Grant, the 3rd
Bart. of Monymusk, and Harry and Thomas Hackshaw.
Sir Archibald Grant may be either the Scottish
father or son. The father was expelled as an MP for fraud in 1732. He involved
in mines in Derbyshire and Scotland. Either one or both of them became involved in owning a plantation on
Jamaica.
Thomas Dunnage was a
London merchant, who invested with Francis Phillipe Fatio and John Francis Rivas in the New
Castle plantation in 1770. It was renamed New Switzerland. Dunnage also
purchased annuities from the owners of plantations on Nevis and Antigua. Fatio was a Swiss merchant who had
settled in London about 1757. They spent £2,430 to buy 18 enslaved Africans to
develop the estate and then a further £2,570 up to 1776. Rice and orange trees
were grown. Pine was felled for naval and timber supplies. Fatio and his family
moved to St. Augustine to manage the plantation. In 1774 he moved with his
family to New Switzerland River. It grew sweet and sour
oranges, citrons and lemons. In 1778 partner Rivas purchased 5,000 acres next
to New Switzerland.
Landowners And The Enslaved After The Floridas Were Returned
To Spain
Presumably
written before the hand back to Spain 1784 saw the publication of Thomas
Hutchins’s An historical narrative and
topographical description of Louisiana, and West-Florida.
After the return of the Floridas to Spain the British and the loyalists were
mainly relocated to other parts of the British Americas particularly the Bahamas.
A few stayed under Spanish rule like Jesse
Fish.
It took sometime for the British evacuation to be completed. Prior to the
transfer of the slaves on the Ceciliton
Plantation to Dominica in early 1785 a survey listed 78 belonging to the heirs of
Lord Egmont, and 22 owned by Stephen
Egan. In the first few weeks of the year Egan sold lumber and naval stores for
£708.
The Egmont
and Egan enslaved labourers arrived ill at Dominica .They were rented to other
planters, primarily clearing land and planting coffee trees, and the Egmont
enslaved were sold in September 1786 netting £3,648.
The transfer back to Spain of the Floridas took from 1783 to 1785 created
severe problems. Tonyn had to deal with a mutiny of the local troops, who
agreed to go to Nova Scotia, and combat the pillaging of plantations. He also
had to negotiate with the now independent South of Carolina government over the
return of property, mostly slaves, taken to East Florida by the loyalists. One group
owned by Colonel
James Cassells went back to South Carolina by choice not wanting to go to the Bahamas as he planned.
Although Fort St. Augustine was
handed over in July 1784, Governor Tonyn remained until November 1785.
In the end nearly 10,000 people left
East Florida. departed. 3,247 including 2,200 slaves went to the Bahamas; over
3,000 including nearly 2,600 slaves to the United States, about 900 to Nova
Scotia, and about 900 (mostly slaves) to Jamaica. Some went to England like
Captain John Gaillard, Colonel Elias Ball, and the former customs officer John
Morgridge. William Moss, resettled his enslaved labourers in
the Bahamas. His correspondence was
published in 1854.
Many
of the original settlers from England also set off for the Bahamas like Francis
Levitt, junior with his goods, 100 slaves, house frames
and household silver. He had to leave a lot behind because the ship was too
small. Unsuccessful in the Bahamas he
returned to London. Later he went to Georgia. Henry Laurens helped him set up
set Sea Island cotton plantation.
For Jesse Fish because a large number of the estates reverted to the
Spanish Crown. He
lost most of his land holdings. He had accumulated large debts in St. Augustine
and Cuba. He moved back to Britain in 1784 and lived at Aston Hall in
Shropshire. This was the home of his wife Eleanor’s father George Austin.
Austin had been to Carolina developing tobacco plantations and slave trading.
He was partner with Henry Laurens, returning to England in 1762 after a
disagreement. Fish continued to hold Santa Anastasia Island, forty houses and
lots, and six other tracts of uncultivated land near St. Augustine. His
buildings were described by observers as being in advanced stages of decay. In 1786-7 is known to have had 17 slaves
working his plantation.
Fatio decided to become a Spanish citizen and renamed New Switzerland as Nueve Suiza. He was
appointed with John Leslie of Panton, Leslie & Co to judge disputes between
the British who were leaving, including over taking their slaves with them. He
bought their estates cheaply. He bought out his partners to become sole owner
of the plantation, and auctioned off remaining common property including 50
slaves including sawyers, squarers, field labourers and a cooper, a cook, a
house servant.
Moultrie returned to Britain in
1784. Three of his brothers fought with the Americans in the Rebellion. He
lived at Aston Hall in Shropshire which had been the home of his father-in-law
George Austin who had developed tobacco plantations in Carolina and been
involved in slave trading along with Henry Laurens. Moultrie is buried in
Shifnal Church.
In
1790 an author named Zetes published An
address to the Parliament and people of Great Britain, on the past and present
state of affairs between Spain and Great Britain, respecting their American
possessions published in 1790. He reviewed the history of treaties between
the two countries, including the period of British control of the Floridas. He
regarded the Spaniards as untrustworthy anticipating war’
Economic Effects On British Economy
We do not know how much British capital was invested bythose granted land in
the Floridas, the scale of the imports and exports, the level of profits and
losses, nor what any profits were spent
on back in Britain or in other Caribbean colonies. It also seems likely that more was spent in
East Florida by the Government than was covered by the taxes raised in the
colony. This is probably partly due to the cost of defending the colony from
the American rebels , including the stationing of troops.
Further Research
Further work on the British planters would make for an interesting PhD thesis. As well as the
British Privy Council (Colonial), the Houses of Commons Lords Papers and other
documents providing information about the land grants and the administration of
the Floridas, and the East Florida Claims Commission papers at The National
Archives (T77) and related papers listed on the Commission page. There is a
detailed listing of the TNA East Florida Colonial Office papers by David Swain
(2014).There is a wealth of information
in US Congress papers. There are articles in journals such as the Florida State Historical Quarterly, Louisiana Historian, and Legal History. There
are contemporary books by authors like James Grant Forbes and later authors such as Walter Henry Sickert, S. Max Edelson, Robert R. Ree, and Charles Loch
Mowat. There are also Florida History
Online, Legacies
of British Slave-ownership database, British History Online, The History of
Parliament, the Hallowes Genealogy website and
last year William Bruce Antliff’s
American Loyalists claims up on Global Heritage Press’s website. A few
surviving wills like that of James Fortrey of Ely at The National Archives may tell us
something.
Select
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