When Florida was ceded by Spain to Britain in 1763, the Government divided it into two parts each with its own Governor and Council. 3,700, almost all, Spaniards emigrated to Cuba and other Spanish possessions. The British Government was keen to have the new colonies developed, and approved the granting of land parcels up to 20,000 acres. The Spaniards were allowed to sell their property to English subjects within a period of eighteen months. Because there were few buyers in July 1764, most of the houses, lots, and lands, amounting to almost 200 estates in and around St. Augustine, were conveyed to Jesse Fish who had worked at St. Augustine for many years.
Jesse
Fish
Jesse Fish was born on Long Island in 1724 or 1726. He went to
St. Augustine working for William Walton, a New York merchant, while the
Spanish were in control. He travelled there on a ship captained by his uncle
Abraham Kip. He was involved as agent for the Walton Company in supplying the
town with flour and meat from New York.
Fish bought some of the properties for
his own investment paying low prices for the city plots he intended to sell
later. Substantial property in St. Augustine was purchased in the names of
Jesse's uncle, Jacob Kip, William Walton, and a friend Enoch Barton, who
had lived with Fish and his son as a youth. In addition to being a major land broker for the departed Spanish
planters Fish sold those slaves they did not take with them. Jesse Fish sold a house in 1769 to a George Kemp, surgeon and a member
of the British General Assembly in East Florida.
He bought Santa Anastasia Island of 10,000 acres and his slaves turned it
into a plantation with a great house with orchards and orange groves. He
developed the El Vergel plantation with a great house. Tens of thousands of
barrels of sweet oranges and hundreds of barrels of orange juice were exported.
In
a letter dated August 10, 1830 and published in the Southern Agriculturist,
George J. F. Clarke, a planter whose family had owned a plantation on the
Matanzas River from 1770, described
the careful picking and handling of the oranges grown by Fish and
shipped safely to London, where they had found favour for their sweetness.
He was obviously a controversial
person because Fowler Walker. published in 1772 The case of Mr. John Gordon with respect to the title to certain lands
in east Florida purchased of His Catholick Majesty's subjects by him and Mr.
Jesse Fish for themselves and others His Britannick Majesty's subjects in
conformity to the twentieth article of the last definitive treaty of peace.
The Land
Grant Programme
Keen to encourage settlers and
development, the Government launched a public relations campaign and a massive
land grant program. Between 1764 and 1770, the Privy Council issued 227 orders
for 2.856m acres in East Florida. Governor James Grant encouraged Scottish
investment in East Florida. He had existing roads improved and new ones built. It
is thought that only sixteen grants were settled by English grantees by the
outbreak of the American Revolution. Several colonising experiments and some
plantations were dismal failures. Land development should have been made a lot
easier as a result of the publication in 1769 of the map of East Florida
produced by William Gerard De Brahm, the
British Surveyor-General in the South,
as told by Alex Johnson in his book The First Mapping of America: The
General Survey. Born in Germany he trained as an
engineer, and emigrated to America in the 1740s. Based in Georgia from 1751
he was appointed surveyor general for
the southern district of North America. He was also given lands in Georgia sone
of which he sold. He went to St. Augustine in 1765 to serve as East Florida’s
surveyor general of lands.
The later American rebel Henry Laurens of South Carolina was agent for
some of the investors. He thought that
the size of the grants was too large to be developable.
The situation was not helped by a
severe frost on 3 January 1766 which destroyed tropical products other than the
orange trees.
By 1771 it was estimated that there
were 2,588 settlers of whom about 73 were planters. By 1772 East Florida was
largely self-sufficient for food.
Matters were not helped by a clash
between De Braham and Governor Grant
leading to De Brahm having to go to
London in 1771 to face charges of
malpractice. He was reinstated in 1774.
Mapping
The Floridas
A further attempt to promote
development was the publication in 1775 of Brahms deputy Bernard Romans A Concise Natural History
of East and West Florida. Born in Holland Romans worked for the British as a
civil engineer in North America from 1755 and then became deputy chief surveyor
for the Southern Department in 1758. His book was designed to be an aid to navigators and
shippers and to promote trade and settlement in the region. Most
subscribers lived in the American colonies. There were few who were residents
in the Floridas. Two of them were Jonathan Hampton and Charles Bernard. Romans
included an attack on Phyllis Wheatley.
Those interested in taking up land
grants may well have read Mark Catesby’s 1754 The Natural History
of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands; containing the Figures of Birds,
Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, Insects, and Plants... Together with their Descriptions
in English and French.
The Privy Council (Colonial) Papers for 1766 record the names of those
granted land. The programme was administered by the Governors. East Florida’s
Governor James Grant granted some to Carolina planters, like Henry Meyerhoffer. Several of them like John Moultrie
and Robert and Alexander Bissett transferred their slaves to their land.
Moultrie had the Bella Vista estate on Matarrgas River. The Bissetts had the
Mount Plenty estate with over 100 enslaved people.
The Work
Of African Enslaved Labourers
The historian Jane Landers explains
that the ‘seasoned hands and hundreds of African slaves imported by Richard
Oswald, and other traders cleared and fenced land, planted crops, erected
buildings, built dams and drains, and transformed vast stretches of inhospitable
swamp and hammocks (well drained and higher lands scattered throughout the
marshes) into profitable fields. Within a few years, slave labour enabled
British Florida planters to develop large and flourishing plantations along the
St Mary’s and St. John’s Rivers on which their slaves grew rice, cotton,
indigo, oranges and sugar cane. Slaves also harvested timber from Florida’s
thick forests, sawed timber, and prepared naval stores for export.’
The
American Rebellion And Loyalists
Development was disrupted by the
American Rebellion as East Florida was a military target for the rebels from
Georgia who mounted an attack in 1776. Many American loyalists from Georgia and South Carolina began to re-located to the Floridas . A Scots storekeeper Evan McLaurin arrived in St. Augustine in August 1776, and Moses
Whitley and his brother in law in 1777. McLaurin became a major in the East
Florida Rangers. Over 50 South
Carolinians signed a memorial in late
1777 supporting Governor for Tonyn’s
defence of East Florida. Up to 600 men had arrived by 1778. Some like Colonel
John Harrison of the South Carolina Rangers pre-planned sending David Drennan family
and fourteen slaves to begin planting operations. Harrison arrived in 1782.
Colonel James Cassells and the merchant Gabriel Capers became partners
with 80 slaves farming rented land. Joshua Yallowley from Georgia purchased the 1765 land grants of Paul Pigg (350 acres) and Edward Pickett
(150 acres) in 1773 and 1774. He farmed
the land. He exported 600 gallons of orange juice annually. He went to New
Providence in the Bahamas in 1784.
The Carolina William Charles Wells set up the East Florida Gazette. At the
end of the Rebellion many more came. By mid-August 1782 over 4,200 loyalists
with 7,200 slaves were planning to come. Because of
the numbers involved it took time to arrange for the ships to bring them.
Another 1,800 persons, mostly slaves,
came in private vessels or overland. William Moss purchased 1,200 acres of the Beresford
Plantation possibly the area owned by James Beresford, and Hontoon Island. Loyalists
like Andrew Deveaux were involved in a raid on the Bahamas, which the Spanish
had captured from the English in 1782. The
population from 3,000 in 1776 to n17,000 by 1784, the year the Floridas began to be handed back to Spain.
Key Developers of East Florida
Not all those with land grants appear to have developed their estates,
while others did, like Robert Bissett, John Moultrie, Governor James Grant.
Robert
Bissett
Robert Bissett went to East Florida in 1767 and became influential with
involvements in many plantations as discussed last year by George Kotlik in Robert Bisset’s East
Florida Holdings on the website of
the www.allthingsliberty.com.
John Moultrie
Born in 1729 in South Carolina John Moultrie was a Scot who qualified as
a doctor at Edinburgh University in 1749. A successful indigo planter in
Carolina, he moved with many of his
enslaved workers to East Florida in 1767. They grew indigo, corn, beans,
potatoes and looked after orange trees on his plantation there.
Moultrie became Acting Governor when the Governor James Grant was sent
back to England due to illness. He then became Deputy to the new Governor
Patrick Tonyn (see Part 1). His brother James was Chief Justice for East
Florida in 1765. His other three brothers Alexander, Thomas and William would
fight with the American rebels and one became the first post rebellion Attorney
General of South Carolina.
Governor
James Grant
Governor Grant was General James Grant
of Ballindalloch Castle. As explained in full on Florida History Online his plantation made a profit from indigo. Grant’s
Villa plantation is said to have been a model plantation like a modern
agricultural experiment station. A relative
also had a plantation.
Francis
Levett
Tonyn’s brother-in-law Francis
Levett was the Levant Company factor at Livorno in Italy. He went to East Florida in 1769
and developed his plantation. He was
also agent and manager for several
absentee owners, including John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont’s
10,000 acres on which was grown indigo, corn, potatoes and peas, rice and
grapes. His son-in-law Dr. David Yeats was Secretary of the Colony. Accused of
purchasing slaves for Thomas Ashby, and adding them to his own work force, and
being accused of theft by Rev. John Forbes, he went to Rhode Island while
returning in 1774 and having to resigned his membership of the Royal
Council. As Governor Tonyn helped him make
restitution. After the death son Francis
supplied turpentine during the American Rebellion.
Denys Rolle
Denys
Rolle was already a wealthy landowner in England with rental income of £40,000
a year in the early 1760s. As well as receiving land grants in East Florida
totalling 23,000 acres, he also took over
20,000 acres each from William Elliot and John Grayhurst, 10,000 from
William Penrice, and 3,000 from James Cusack. He was brought over 200 hundred
indentured English labourers. As most fled to Charleston, Savannah, and
St. Augustine, he replaced with enslaved Africans. His investment also included
construction, agricultural tools and
farm animals. It seems that he only developed 600 acres. This did not deter him as in 1780, he
purchased Jericho Plantation with its
enslaved African workforce, and further land in 1783. In 1784, Rolle joined the general
exodus, ordering the evacuation of his enslaved workers to a 2,000-acre estate
on Great Exuma in the Bahama Islands.
William Beresford, Earl Of Tyrone
Beresford Plantation was established by Charles Bernard in the late
1760s for William Beresford, the Earl of Tyrone. The plantation dwellings and
most of the agricultural fields were located on the east shore of the body of
water that is still called Lake Beresford. It appears that part of the land was
owned by his relative James Beresford.
Publicising
Opportunities
Even by late 1766 there was a shortage
of settlers. The Gentleman’s Magazine
of January 1767 contained an appeal for gentlemen to settle in East Florida. Active in
land development in East Florida William Stork had his book East-Florida
published. Addressed to Charles Marquis of Rockingham, the First Lord
of the Treasury, he argued for the importance of the colony for trade and
commerce.
Some Of Those Granted Land
Those given land were recorded in
the Privy Council (Colonial) Minutes. Each one can be researched in order to see if there is any further
detail about them. Using the Internet I have done so for some of them in East
Florida. They included British based speculators, and those who went out to
East Florida to live and develop their land. Dr Samuel Fontelle appears to have
been a surgeon employed by the authorities. His correspondence with Major
General Williamson about the hospital at Penscola in West Florida was published
in 1776.
There were Lord William Campbell, Francis Kinlock, and the merchant
partners John Forbes and Charles Ogilvie. The latter was a lobbyist for Carolina in London. The
merchant George Udney had rice grown on his Carolina plantation. Samuel
Touchet, who imported cotton from the West Indies, had been involved in 2 slave
ships voyages in 1757 and 1761 involving 1,000 enslaved Africans, and tried to
get a monopoly on the slave trade in Senegal. There were the banking brothers James and Thomas Coutts, Lt. Colonel
David Wedderburn, whose land was later transferred to his brother Alexander, 1st
Earl of Rossyln, Captain Thomas Lynn of
the Royal Navy, and Dr George Macauley,
whose wife was Catherine authored the multi-volume The History of England.
John Murray was a Scottish plantation
owner at Wilmington. His sister Dorothy married another Scot John Forbes, a clergyman
who owned land in East Florida. Forbes
was a loyalist during the American Rebellion.
Pierce Galliard was a barrister
at law who lived in Bury Hall in Edmonton and Bradshaw Hall in Eyam in
Derbyshire. He had extensive land interests in Derbyshire, Middlesex, Essex,
and Burford including mining interests
in Edmonton and Eyam. He had been
involved in a complex marriage settlement indenture involving a number of
Earls.
Thomas
Nixon
Thomas Nixon was a merchant in Lombard
St who owned a storehouse in St. Augustine. In
three years including 1772 he sent building tools, farm implements, and
other goods by one or more ships a year to St. Augustine. In 1776 he offered the Lords of the Treasury several hundred of
cattle to the St Mary's River for the troops in East Florida. He is recorded in
Sundry Accounts of Expenses for the settlement
in Florida from mid 1772 to mid November 1776. His activities included selling
in 1773 indigo from the Smyra colony. In
February 1773 the House of Commons Journal recorded the approval of a payment
to him on behalf of Margaret Cunningham, the widow of the Deputy Commissionary
of Stores and Provisions in East Florida.
Nixon
was Secretary of a meeting of East Florida landowners based in Britain who met
with Lord Hawke and passed a number of resolutions about the treatment of East
Florida British landholders by the Spanish.
Non-landowners
Many settlers went to East Florida to
work as agents, managers and overseers, to look after the Look-Out Tower at St
Augustine, and as pilots to help ships enter the harbour safely.
There were also soldiers who served in
East Florida, like Robert Letheridge whose death was recorded in The United Service Journal of 1831. He
was there from 1776 until posted to Jamaica in 1780 for 5 years. He rose to be
an Aide-De-Camp. He served on St Vincent and Jamaica in the early1800s. He was
made a Lt. General in 1813.
Lt. Co William Fawcett was born in
Yorkshire. Between 1775
and 1780 he was in Germany negotiating
for c20.000 troops for use in America.
He rose
to be a full General in 1796.
Having been a soldier in the campaign to
defeat the French in Canada George Scott was
appointed lieutenant-colonel in 1761. He took part in the successful capture of Martinique and Grenada in 1762.
His will indicates he had lands and property
in Grenada, Boston and Nova Scotia. He was appointed Governor of Grenada and then Dominica. He
died as a result of a duel in November 1767.
Richard Oswald
Richard Oswald was a Scottish merchant and slave trader based in
London. He and his associates bought Bance Island, a key African slave
trading station and gained control of
other small islands off West Africa. He had estates in Georgia and Virginia and
the West Indies.
His role in developing East Florida is explained
by David Hancock in his book Citizens
of the World. Oswald
was based in London. In 1765 he set up
the Mount Oswald settlement on the 20,000 acres he was granted. At first he wanted to settle poor Germans,
but then imported slaves from Carolina and 70 from Bance Island. His firm shipped
c1,000 enslaved Africans to East Florida by 1771. By 1781 he had 300 slaves on his
estate. An associate was Michael Herries
who also developed land in East Florida, as detailed in the Papers of Henry Laurens. Oswald advised
the Government on trade regulations and the conduct
of the war against the rebel Americans. Later he would the British commissioner
negotiating the Peace of Paris in 1782.
Dr Robert Willan
Dr Robert Willan, was an English Quaker living who lived for several years in Philadelphia
before returning to England. He later planned to go to South Carolina en route
to his land holding in East Florida. He only got as far as Philadelphia where
he became ill and died in 1770. His Philadelphia based executor tried to sell
the Florida estate. It is not clear how much it was sold for and whether this
was passed to his sons, one of whom,
also Robert, would later found the medical science of dermatology.
Thomas
Woolridge
With
patronage from the Earl of Dartmouth With patronage from the Earl of Dartmouth Thomas
Woolridge had several grants including 5,000 acres in 1767, a plot in St,
Augustine, and 4,000 acres of pine.He rented the pine to Robert Bissett. He and his family arrived in St. Augustine in
January 1767. he became a member of Royal Council as provost marshal. He was fort adjutant and barrack master
between 1769 and 1772, and from December 1771 Receiver General of Quit Rents.
Governor Moultrie suspended him in July 1772 for leaving the province without
obtaining official permission. He went to London but by 1777 was bankrupt. A lot is known about his involvements in East Florida because of the Thomas
Wooldridge Biography Project on the 100 Minories website. On his Boston 1772 blog J. L. Bell tells us
that while in New York in 1775 Woolridge met the enslaved poetess Phyillis
Wheatley and promoted her work back to Dartmouth in London.
Laurence
Reed And Robert Edmonstone
The
London merchant Lancelot Reed had a 5,000 acre tract of land called Rice Creek but
did not develop it He was an associate of the Earl of Egmont.
Governor Tonyn regranted it in 1775 to Lt. Robert Edmonstone, one
of the first British soldiers to arrive in St. Augustine. It is not clear
whether he developed in. He owned other plots of land. On one of these he had vegetables
grown to sell in the town market. He rented out at least one other plot, as his
tenant Colin McKenzie wrote him a letter in July 1777 offering to buy the plot,
which is in the University of Miami Libraries Digital
Collections. He seems to have remained in East Florida until his death in November
1784.
Richard Neave
Richard Neave had interests in the
West Indies and the Americas and served as Chairman of the Society of West
Indian Merchants and the London Dock Company, and was a Director of
the Hudson’s Bay Company. He purchased Dagnam Park in 1772 and replaced
the original house with a new one. He was a director of the Bank of
England for 48 years, Deputy Governor from 1781 and Governor
and from 1783 to 1785. He was made a baronet in 1795. His son received compensation
on several plantations in the West Indies.
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