Mercantile communities in the Ceded Islands: the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company
Mark Quintanilla
At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), adventurous entrepreneurs ventured out to Britain’s newly acquired West Indian possessions of Grenada, Tobago, St. Vincent, and Dominica. The Ceded Islands, as contemporaries called them, represented the British Empire’s first major Caribbean acquisition in a century. Ambitious settlers journeyed to this tropical frontier intent to transform these islands into hospitable localities for sugar estates. Successful colonists devoted the next half-century to such pursuits. (1) Like their seventeenth-century predecessors, migrants such as Alexander Bartlet traveled to the region seeking their West India fortunes. (2) Successful settlers were an ambitious lot who carved their riches from the rugged frontier by exacting labor from African slaves. (3) Like other Europeans, Bartlet saw the region as promising and linked his fortune with a business partner, George Campbell. The two men formed the Alexander Battler & George Campbell Company and set up offices in London, Grenada, the Grenadines, and Tobago. (4)
The Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company is a singular example of a common phenomenon that occurred during the late eighteenth century throughout the Atlantic World. While the rise and fall of such partnerships has received uneven treatment, they were of critical importance to the profitability of the British Empire. The trade networks that such companies founded encouraged various agricultural and trade initiatives throughout the Atlantic World. The development of regional trade in North America owed much more to private initiatives than governmental support. For example, mercantile capital in the Chesapeake transformed that region by linking resident planters with foreign markets. Such steps not only secured dependable supplies for merchants, but also gave planters dependable sources of investment capital. (5) Wherever trading partnerships were established they adapted themselves to local conditions with an eye toward generating profits for reinvestment.
The Caribbean’s enormous importance to European imperialists cannot be overestimated. Seventeenth-century imperial bureaucrats estimated that Barbados was worth more than all of British North America combined. Nor is this a singular example that extols the region’s importance. Before its destruction by an earthquake in 1696, Jamaica’s bustling trade at Port Royal won it the distinction of being the most important British American city. (6) Such facts make it easier to understand why ambitious Europeans risked high mortality rates to accumulate riches in the tropical Atlantic. They concluded that wealth was intrinsic to the tropics. (7) In addition, the Antillean islands were important strategically for the establishment of maritime communications that connected Britain to its more distant interests. (8) Sugar planting–the primary economic activity in the region–was so important that it provided the greatest stimulus to the Atlantic slave trade which brought approximately twelve million Africans to the Americas. (9) Such trade had devastating consequences in Africa, including widespread death and famine and enormous loss of life in areas such as the Congo. (10) Yet, it also encouraged British mercantile communities to conclude that the Ceded Islands would be as successful as those established in the Caribbean during the preceding century. Consequently, settlers in the region successfully created vast trading networks linking them to North America, Europe, and Africa. Indeed, the region proved so attractive that many mercantile associations included Ceded Island investments in their portfolios. (11)
Britain’s possession of the Ceded Islands promised an enormous boom to investors. Given the success of the first phase colonies of Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands of Antigua, St. Christopher, Nevis, and Montserrat, there was no reason for the most skeptical critic to question the region’s economic potential. Investors bought up lands at Crown auctions. (12) While some of the initial purchasers procured their estates purely for speculative reasons, others did so with an eye towards long-term development. (13) Within the Ceded Islands, successful planters such as Alexander Campbell built extensive plantations scattered throughout the region by reinvesting profits to build new agricultural estates. (14) Such economic activities fueled development and encouraged British merchants to relocate to the region.
Atlantic Trade
By 1763, it had become apparent that British trade was transforming the colonial world. Despite the lack of information concerning mercantile companies involved in such trade, it is evident by the continued economic growth and prosperity of Virginia that the availability of mercantile credit and British markets had changed these colonies from minor outposts to thriving commercial centers. Economic success, in turn, led to the ascendancy of wealthy planter classes. (15) On the eve of the American Revolution, Virginian planters had transformed their society into a prosperous agricultural community, from a frontier to a vital society, as evinced by growing tobacco exports, the demographic growth of slave populations, the continuous arrival of newcomers settling the interior of the colony, and the increasing wealth of Tidewater planters. (16) Such success fueled the confidence of the British merchant class. This success was apparent in tangible ways such as growing industrialization, the accumulation of wealth, and the ability to reinvest profits in new endeavors.
Merchants like Alexander Bartlet were shaped by a world of opportunity that they believed was secured by British rule and stability. In 1770, neither American patriots nor abolitionists had yet proposed alternative visions for the future. As a consequence, investments in sugar and slavery in the Atlantic World economy seemed secure. (17) Slavery was an institution as old as man himself and there were few people in Western society who could have foretold the radical paradigm shift that would occur in the ensuing decades as former West Indian slaves such as Ottobah Cugoano and Oladauh Equiano challenged the status quo and galvanized the abolitionist movement. Publication of Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Nature of the Slave Trade (1787) and Equiano’s The Interesting Life of Oladauh Equiano (1789) shaped popular opinion by condemning slavery on moral grounds. (18) The emergence of these African authors rocked the foundations of English philosophical thought. (19) In so doing, their works altered the debate within Britain’s empire as the public increasingly pressed for parliamentary reforms to repeal preferential duties benefiting West Indian planters and to abolish the slave trade. Abolitionists quickly moved from the printed word to the creation of visual sources that effectively rendered the misery of African bondage. The Wedgewood medallion, for example, depicts slaves begging “Am I not a man and a brother too.” (20) Other images showed Africans densely packed aboard slave vessels like spoons in a drawer. (21) Abolitionists, who were drawn from nonconformist sects, created their own alternative culture and men. Yet, in the 1760s and 1770s, these events could not be anticipated. West Indian merchants could not have conceived of such changes in public attitudes. Accordingly, for merchants like Bartlet, the Ceded Islands promised safe returns on their investments.
By 1763, colonizers and investors in the Ceded Islands alike could draw inspiration from the success of their counterparts in the older West Indian colonies of Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher, and Nevis who were the wealthiest subjects within the British Empire. The new generation of planters and merchants accepted the importance of sugar cane, slavery, and investment capital in creating the necessary conditions for prosperity. This pattern of success had been established by men like Azariah Pinney of Nevis, a merchant who became a successful sugar planter. Pinney’s experience was not unique; early colonists universally dreamed of generating wealth with their trade, saving it, and then investing their money. While few actually succeeded in such attempts, colonial society recalled those examples that extolled the virtues of such a dream. Men like Pinney and his descendents accumulated wealth, obtained plantations, and filtered their way into the English gentry. (22) As a consequence, by the end of the Seven Years’ War when Britain acquired Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent, and Dominica, potential investors assumed that these new localities would provide the same opportunities as their predecessors.
The business strategy of the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company was to link its offices in Grenada, Tobago, and the Grenadines to the London metropole. Within the Ceded Islands, the partners focused their energies on St. George’s, Grenada, the major commercial center in the region. The selection of St. George’s proved especially fortuitous since Grenada stood at the center of the region’s economic development. The port connected merchants of that island to the Grenadines to the east and Tobago to the west. Regional merchants benefited enormously from this arrangement since Grenadian planters purchased French coffee and cocoa estates throughout the Windward Islands with the intention of transforming them to sugar cane. (23) The rate of development throughout the region was frantic as planters built aqueducts, dams, watermills, and a variety of structures first in Grenada, and, later, on neighboring islands. (24) Such rapid development made Grenada Britain’s second largest sugar producer and made island planters anxious to recreate their success elsewhere. (25)
With Campbell stationed in St. George’s, the partners took advantage of his extensive family network. His uncle, Alexander Campbell, was a member of the Grenada Assembly, and one of the leading planters on the island. Although Alexander Campbell appears to have limited his connections with the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company, such important ties ensured the cooperation of other prominent planters. (26) Among the firm’s chief clients was Edmund Proudfoot, whose 1,000-acre Pearl Estate in St. Andrew Parish was one of the largest and most profitable on the island. (27) Within a few years Bartlet and Campbell had cultivated business alliances with other leading planters such as William Smith and Alexander Cockburn, whose connections spanned the Ceded Islands. (28) Their growing list of clients encouraged Bartlet and Campbell to rent a second office at Granville Bay, the center of sugar cultivation on the island. (29)
Grenada’s economic success encouraged the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company to develop networks throughout the Grenadines, which extend from Carriacou, which lies off the east coast of Grenada, to Bequia, located off the southern coast of St. Vincent. During the 1760s and 1770s, the Grenadines were among the most promising areas within the Ceded Islands. Like Grenada, this chain of islands benefited from the previous efforts of French planters who had developed a series of small agricultural settlements. By 1771, Grenadine islands such as Carriacou and Mustique grew cotton, cocoa, and indigo, and had begun to experiment with sugar cane. Alexander Bartlet recruited his brother, James Bartlet of Carriacou, to facilitate the company’s trade in the region. (30) James Bartlet became an indispensable part of the operations of Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company by enticing area planters to consign their crops to the company. These factors allowed the company to stretch its operations over an extensive area. (31)
Construction of Plantations in Tobago
The company’s operations in Tobago, under the direction of Alexander Bartlet’s brother William, stood in stark contrast with the company’s activities elsewhere. Unlike Grenada and the Grenadines, which French settlers inhabited before 1763, Europeans had failed to plant permanent settlements on Tobago. After British acquisition, many investors believed that the island offered the best opportunity for establishing lucrative estates with relatively little capital. In contrast to settlers in Grenada and the Grenadines who were forced to purchase improved estates from French residents, colonists in Tobago acquired undeveloped lots directly from the British Crown. While such opportunities attracted the attention of wealthy planters, more modest speculators–or the owners of multiple estates–purchased undeveloped lots in Tobago directly from the British Crown and on much more reasonable terms. (32)
Although dense tropical forests proved worthy obstacles, regional merchants such as Alexander Bartlet overcame these impediments by funneling profits into the development of Toboggan estates. The movement of British settlers into the Ceded Islands ignited a flurry of financial speculation that necessitated the establishment of bureaucracies centered at Scarborough to provide political stability and safeguard commercial interests. Although Tobago remained nominally under the authority of Grenada, local planters in that colony formed their own assembly and council and viewed themselves as autonomous. (33) By the seventeenth century, a plantation system built on sugar production and slave labor had made its way from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean via Brazil. This labor system was organized around the construction of tropical crops on American lands by African slaves under the supervision of European managers. British colonization of the Ceded Islands after 1763 represented an effort to perfect this system and thus preserve the enormous capital that was invested in these feudal systems where European oligarchs owned thousands of acres of land and hundreds of slaves. The extension of vast sums of credit from investors and banking institutions necessitated that emerging colonial governments safeguard real estate and chattel property. Extenuating circumstances such as epidemic diseases, which shortened life, and frequent slave rebellions, as well as the threat of foreign invasion, demanded that local and imperial officials take additional measures to preserve property ownership. (34)
Tobago provided an opportunity for investors to join the ranks of the planter class by acquiring property before the ascendancy of sugar cane. The activities of the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company in Tobago provide insight into that island’s economy. The “plantation complex,” as historian Philip Curtin defines the agricultural system, advanced in the eighteenth century engulfing previously untouched regions such as Tobago. The partners saw the island as their best opportunity to join the ranks of West Indian oligarchs whose wealth was the envy of the era; they aspired “to be as rich as a West Indian,” and pursued their dreams within the context of sugar cultivation in Tobago. (35)
In 1770, Tobago was very much a frontier that promised opportunity and riches to ambitious investors. The crops that William Bartlet acquired on the island were minor staples such as coffee, cocoa, and indigo, with modest amounts of sugar. Even in 1775, the island’s sugar exports were dwarfed by that of Grenada. Nevertheless, planters arrived in Tobago with the intention of mimicking the economic miracle that had already occurred in Grenada. During the height of production, Toboggan planters produced approximately one-third less than their Grenadian counterparts had in 1763. Investments in Tobago appeared promising so long as British power could be maintained. The partners saw the island’s potential and developed a clientele among smaller planters whose principal interests were in Grenada. (36)
While the partners developed their trade system, they also acquired and developed estate lands. Their investments began in 1771 when they purchased two 100-acre plantation lots in Queen’s Bay Division in the northeastern section of the island for 890 [pounds sterling]. (37) The Friendship Estate was located in the extreme interior of the island and bounded to the north by the rugged mountain interior. (38) The establishment of Friendship Estate coincided with the island’s growing prospects. Between 1771 and 1772, colonists increased their slaveholdings from 4,716 to 5,862 slaves, a nine percent increase in a single year. That same year planters expanded their estates by clearing an additional 307 acres of land for cultivation, an eighteen percent increase. Furthermore, with only fifty sugar estates on the island, Toboggan planters increased sugar production thirty-five percent within the same period, from 963 to 2,792 lbs. (39) While the growth of agriculture in Tobago was dramatic between 1771 and 1780, planters within the Queensbay Division experienced higher than average growth. For example, between 1771 and 1773 sugar production within the division grew sixty-six percent compared to the island average of only twenty-nine percent. (40)
Contemporary maps reflect the concern of Ceded Island planters for protecting their material investments. John Byre’s Plan of the Island of Tobago shows the island apportioned in grid-like fashion from the sea to the interior. Estates on the island were commonly allocated in 100-acre units, for property holders often purchased multiple lots. As African slaves were continuously imported to work the virgin lands of Tobago, the colonizers sought to create a defined order that would offer security to the small minority of largely absentee European landholders. To complement the tiny white minority of plantation owners, island officials attempted to recruit poor settlers by providing them with acreage for their settlement. These narrow strips of land, located on marginal lands, seem to have been poor inducements. (41)
Produced in 1776, the Byres map, like other contemporary maps of regional communities, indicated the fragility of Ceded Island settlements. The care Byres exercised in surveying, recording, and publishing estate boundaries and landholdings reveals the anxiety of local colonists and administrators who recognized the precariousness of their communities. This same concern is reflected in other local maps where the British Crown commissioned surveys in an attempt to safeguard property rights. Local legislatures were keenly aware that political, economic, and social instability could undermine them. They remembered that less than a century before, French raiding parties had interrupted the development of the Leeward Islands and stalled the sugar revolution in Antigua, St. Christopher, Nevis, and Montserrat for decades. (42) The experience of past generations of West Indian settlers undoubtedly encouraged British planters to record their landholdings not only in local registries, but also in maps that could be distributed throughout the Ceded Islands, the older British West Indies, and Europe. A century and a half earlier, planters in Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands sought to hide their wealth from the view of colonial officials; Grenadian planters were more than eager to display their property on the 1776 Paterson map. (43) By then, the American Revolution made possible French incursions more ominous than ever. The publication of detailed survey maps would serve as a safeguard against the destruction of registry records during or after invasion or occupation.
The Queens Bay district was one of the most promising regions within Tobago. In 1773, only the Northeast Division possessed fewer white men, Negroes, or cleared land. Like their neighbors, Alexander Bartlet and George Campbell made substantial improvements to their estates. Within two years of their founding of Friendship Estate, Bartlet and Campbell’s twenty-one slaves had constructed a small dwelling house, seven Negro houses, and had cleared forty acres of land. Together with a mule, two bulls, and a cow, Bartlet and Campbell’s slaves were cultivating four acres in “plantations” and thirty-six in provisions. The emphasis on provision ground was at an early stage of agricultural development that provided further sugar acreage for the future while meeting the immediate needs of their slaves. The success of Friendship Estate is representative of the growth that was occurring throughout the division. (44)
Although there are no surviving records indicating Friendship Estate’s growth after 1773, island census records between 1773 and 1780 indicate that the fortunes of Queens Bay planters rose much more dramatically than those of their counterparts elsewhere on the island. While Tobago planters were able to increase sugar production by ninety-five percent between 1773 and 1775, Queens Bay planters increased their yields ninety-eight percent. (45) Even between 1775 and 1780, when planters experienced a variety of wartime losses and rising prices, division estates increased their sugar output twenty-five percent, while on average the island’s sugar yields decreased fourteen percent. (46) Profits generated from Friendship Estate understandably encouraged Bartlet and Campbell to acquire more estate lands and to expand their mercantile operations within the region.
In Tobago, planters transformed the forests into a series of promising plantations between 1763 and 1780 after purchasing their estates at auction from the Commissioners for the Sale of Lands in the Ceded Islands and acquiring large numbers of slaves. However, their tropical paradise became a militarized colony where local militias organized to combat runaway and hostile slaves. These internal threats were outweighed by the promise of prosperity, and, throughout the first phase of British rule from 1763 to 1783, Toboggan planters worked feverishly to establish the island’s economic footing. (47)
Tobago’s proximity to Grenada made it a tempting investment for successful Grenadian planters and merchants. But the unstable character of Toboggan society, which contained thousands of imported and hostile African slaves, made the island less desirable to European settlers and investors and more likely to be settled by West Indian entrepreneurs. Robert Melville, the Governor of the Southern Charibbe Islands, estimated in 1768 that of Tobago’s seventy-one planters, seventy-three percent resided within the Ceded Islands and only twenty-seven percent lived outside the region. (48) Among planters within the Ceded Islands, he estimated that half resided in Grenada, thirty-six percent in Tobago, nine percent in St. Vincent, and five percent in Dominica. Of those landowners residing “outside” the region, Melville estimated that forty-three percent resided in Barbados, twenty-eight percent in Great Britain, twenty-four percent in the Leeward Islands, and five percent in Suriname. While Melville did not provide estimates for other colonies, his findings indicate a tendency of Grenadian planters to reinvest their profits elsewhere. Other planters, such as Alexander Campbell of Grenada, distributed their holdings widely by purchasing additional properties in Tobago, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Dominica. (49) The dominance of investors within the Caribbean, including those recognized by Governor Melville in 1767 as “within the region” and many “outside” of it, stands in contrast to the traditional image of absentee European investors. (50) The evident dangers that prompted regular island census records throughout the 1760s and 1770s convinced many potential investors that extreme distance from their estates courted danger.
Until the American Revolution, planters and merchants throughout the Ceded Islands had reason to be optimistic about the region’s economic future. West Indian goods brought high prices and ensured planters in the region steady profits throughout most of the 1760s and 1770s. (51) Bartlet and Campbell avoided specialization by purchasing a variety of crops including sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, and cotton. The company further diversified its operations by seeking to meet the needs of its clients by supplying them with slaves. The firm owned shares in numerous slave trading ventures, including a one-fourth share of the sloop Polly which traveled from Grenada to the African Gold Coast. (52) The American Revolution brought higher insurance rates and pirate raids that threatened the company’s existence. Although Bartlet and Campbell continued to operate as slave traders until the 1780s, wartime losses left the partners with enormous debts and accounts that could not be collected. (53) Wartime disruptions to local trade created growing complaints among the firm’s customers and rising costs that ultimately spelled the company’s doom. (54)
During the late 1770s, the company’s expenses rose due to higher insurance premiums and growing regional insecurities. The disruptions caused by the American Revolution proved that the Bartlet-Campbell partnership had miscalculated their business strategy. The French invasion of Grenada not only devastated the image of British security but also contributed to the dissolution of the Bartlet-Campbell partnership and necessitated Bartlet’s arrival in Grenada in 1779. Although Tobago formally remained under British rule until 1783, French reoccupation of Grenada took away what had been the most lucrative segment of the Bartlet-Campbell operation. Over the next six years, Bartlet attempted to salvage his operations in the Ceded Islands. Unfortunately, wartime losses and the inability of many bankrupted planters to pay off their debts left Bartlet in serious financial trouble. From 1785 until 1815, Bartlet’s trustees oversaw the company’s remaining operations as they attempted to pay off creditors and collect several outstanding debts. Between 1808 and 1815, trustees of the Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company aggressively attempted to retire its debts and liquidated its remaining assets. (55) In the end, Bartlet’s mercantile and planting activities fell victim to the lengthy French occupation of Tobago (1783-1793) that made it impossible to salvage what had once been profitable business connections.
The partnership’s dissolution in 1778 and regional tensions created additional problems for the management of Bartlet’s Tobago estates. Wartime losses had devastating consequences for Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company–losses that could not be easily overcome. The firm’s dissolution required Bartlet to relocate to Grenada to fill the role vacated by Campbell, but left him unable to oversee the Toboggan operations. During the partnership, Campbell and Bartlet had added additional estates, including two plantations in Courland Division, at the opposite end of the island, and another in the Northeast Division. Increasing regional hostilities brought a decline in the colony’s agricultural production. Between 1775 and 1780, the island’s sugar and rum exports declined fourteen and forty-four percent, respectively, while cotton and indigo production increased eighty-three and seventy-eight percent, respectively. By 1780, other crops such as ginger, coffee, and cocoa were being cultivated in larger quantities. Regional conflict provoked nervousness among Toboggan planters who began cultivating crops that were less labor intensive and less volatile to market conditions. (56)
During the 1780s Tobago was in decline. While wealthy Ceded Island planters focused their energies on developing Grenadian properties, rising merchants such as Alexander Bartlet focused their attention on Tobago. Yet, without continuous access to considerable amounts of capital, Bartlet could not compete against substantial Grenadian planters. High land prices in Grenada necessarily excluded potential planters with limited investment capital. But men such as Bartlet often began their plantation careers by acquiring smaller tracts of Tobaggan land composed completely of wooded acreage and, with the help of a small number of African slaves, cleared the new areas and began planting. (57) Simultaneously, these planter-merchants developed local trading firms that allowed owners to generate profits that could be reinvested into their newly acquired Toboggan estates.
The Alexander Bartlet & George Campbell Company was a small mercantile firm specializing in trade between the Ceded Islands of Grenada, Tobago, and the Grenadines. Like other such firms, its partners plowed company profits into the region by purchasing land or constructing offices. The experiences of colonial societies in the Ceded Islands were much more varied than the first-phase settlements. (58) A sugar monoculture, which typified the experience of colonists elsewhere, was largely missing in the second-phase colonies. Only in Grenada did sugar cane dominate and even there the island’s topographical diversity imposed limits. The region’s myriad geographical conditions fostered a multifaceted agricultural system that incorporated coffee, cocoa, cotton, and indigo. (59) These agricultural activities provided a range of options for colonizers that were largely absent in older settlements. Early settlers, such as Bartlet, could expect to earn dividends on initial investments in Grenada and thereafter plow profits in neighboring islands where land could be obtained at more reasonable prices. In addition, the general insecurity of the region beginning in the Revolutionary Era proved troublesome to regional investors longing for stability.
In contrast to the speculators who developed Grenada, investors in Tobago were attracted to the island primarily because the absence of local competitors allowed them to define a plantation society. The lack of development in Tobago meant that English merchants such as Bartlet could purchase estates there much more easily than in Grenada. The construction of such plantations was seen as a natural progression by area merchants who invested anticipated profits from sugar, cotton, indigo, coffee, and cocoa from regional planters, into landed wealth. At the same time, these planters developed ancillary trades to supply their customers with African slaves. That Alexander Bartlet and George Campbell focused their investments in a single region testifies to the long-term confidence the partners had in the Ceded Islands. While future events such as the American Revolution and the abolition of the slave trade would prove costly, such a miscalculation could not be anticipated in 1763. While their strategy proved ineffective, only hindsight would prove the value of more globally diverse investments. (60)
ENDNOTES
(1) While much has been written about planters and the societies they created in Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands, relatively little has been written about their counterparts in the Ceded Islands. Representative of this historical trend are Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1972); Carl Bridenbaugh and Roberta Bridenbaugh, No Peace Beyond the Line: The English in the Caribbean, 1624-1690 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); Richard Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974); Lowell Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833 (New York: Octagon Books, 1928); Frank Pitman, The Development of the West Indies, 1700-1763: A Study in Social and Economic History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1917).
(2) The construction of a European planter class in the older settlements in the British West Indies has been well documented. See Richard Pares, A West India Fortune (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968); J.H. Bennett, “Cary Helyar, Merchant and Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica,” William & Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 21 (January 1964):53-76; J.H. Bennett, “William Dampier, Buccaneer and Planter,” History Today 14:7 (July 1964):469-77; J.H. Bennett, “William Whales, Planter of Seventeenth-Century Jamaica,” Agricultural History 90:1 (January 1966):113-23; Dunn, Sugar and Slaves. More recent published accounts include Douglas Hall, ed., In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86 (Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Publishers, 1999); Mathew Lewis, Journal of a West-India Planter (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
(3) Mark Quintanilla, “The World of Alexander Campbell: An Eighteenth-Century Grenadian Planter,” Albion 35:2 (Summer 2003): 229-55; Edward L. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833 (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 33-47.
(4) The business papers of the Bartlet & Campbell Company, which have been deposited at the archives of the Royal Bank of Scotland, provide numerous details regarding the commercial activities of the partnership in the Ceded Islands. See Royal Bank of Scotland, “Papers re Trustees of the Estate of Alexander Barlet & Co.,” WD/495.
(5) Allan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 3-26; T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 36; T.M. Devine, The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants in Glasgow and Their Trading Activities, c. 1740-1790 (Edinburgh: Donald, 1975); Alan L. Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740-1800 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 5-12.
(6) Bridenbaugh and Bridenbaugh, No Peace Beyond the Line, 316.
(7) Disease had devastating consequences for both European and African populations. See Philip D. Curtin, Death by Migration: Europe’s Encounter with the Tropical World in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Philip D. Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964); Philip D. Curtin, “The End of the ‘White Man’s Grave’? Nineteenth Century Mortality in West Africa,” and “Disease Exchange Across the Tropical Atlantic,” in Philip D. Curtin, Migration and Moratlity in Africa and the Atlantic World, 1700-1900 (Ashgate:Aldershot, UK, 2001), chapters XI and XII, respectively; Karen Ordahl Kupperman, “Errand to the Indies: Puritan Colonization from Providence Island through the Western Design,” William & Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 45:1 (Spring 1988):70-99.
(8) Ian K. Steele, The English Atlantic, 1675-1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 3-8.
(9) Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969); Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis,” Journal of African History 23:4 (1982):473-500.
(10) Joseph C. Miller, The Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 379-441.
(11) David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 143-71.
(12) D. H. Murdoch, “Land Policy in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire: The Sale of Crown Lands in the Ceded Islands, 1763-1783,” Historical Journal 27:3 (September 1984):549-74.
(13) Hancock, Citizens of the World, 143-70.
(14) Quintanilla, “The World of Alexander Campbell,” 229-32.
(15) Breen, Tobacco Culture, 84-123.
(16) Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, 118-64.
(17) The profitability of both West Indian estates and the Atlantic system is a subject of some debate. While historians such as Eric Williams contend that Britain abandoned the slave trade and slavery because of declining profitability, more recent critics such as Seymour Drescher argue that the slave system remained profitable until the abolition and emancipation. For a detailed discussion, see Seymour Drescher, Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977); J.R. Ward, British West Indian Slavery, 1754-1834: The Process of Amelioration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1944); Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1833; Frank Pitman, The Development of the West Indies, 1700-1763 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1917).
(18) Ottobah Cugoano’s treatise and Olaudah Wquiano’s autobiography are perhaps the two most important works by Africans refuting the legitimacy of the slave trade on moral grounds. See Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments of the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great Britain (London: T. Baclet, 1787); Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Bassa, The African (London: T. Wilkins, 1789).
(19) Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and William L. Andrews, Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772-1815 (Washington, D.C.: Civitas Press, 1998), 1-29.
(20) “Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Medallion of the London Abolitionist Society,” in David Northrup, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Lexington, MA:D.C. Heath, 1994), 193.
(21) “Plan for the Distribution of Slaves in the British Slave Ship,” in Northrup, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 102.
(22) Pares, A West-India Fortune.
(23) Quintanilla, “The Word of Alexander Campbell,” 232-40; Cox, Free Coloreds, 140.
(24) During the initial decades of settlement, colonists purchased, improved, and resold estates constantly. This development can be seen in a variety of contemporary maps including Daniel Paterson, A Topographical Description of the Island of Grenada: Surveyed by Monsieur Pinel in 1763, by Order of Government with the addition of English Names, Alterations of Property and other Improvements to the Present Time (London: William Fadden, 1780); John Byres, Plan of the Island of Tobago, Laid Down by Actual Survey under the Direction of the Honorable the Commissioners for the Sale of Lands in the Ceded Islands (London: S. Hooper, 1776); John Byres, References to the Plan of the Island of St. Vincent, as Surveyed from the Year 1765 to 1773 (London: S. Hooper, 1777); John Byres, References to the Plan of the Island of Dominica (London: S. Hooper, 1777).
(25) William Young, West-Indian Common-Place Book: Compiled from Parliamentary and Official Documents; Showing the Interest of Great Britain in the Sugar Colonies (London: Richard Phillips, 1807), 28-32.
(26) Quintanilla, “The World of Alexander Campbell,” 234-37.
(27) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Inventory of the Effects Belonging to Alexander Bartlet and George Campbell on the Island of Grenada,” 3-4 June 1785, WD/495/28.
(28) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Accounts of Alexander Bartlet’s Balances, stock, and profit and loss, and of George Campbell & Co.’s balances, and profit and loss,” 17 May 1777 and 1 June 1779, WD/495/3.
(29) Ibid.
(30) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Letter from (James) Bartlet and Walter Todd of Carriacou, the Grenadines, to Alexander Bartlet & Co of London,” 3 June-5 October 1778, WD/495/4;”Letter from William Bartlet, Campbell & Co in Grenada to Alexander Bartlet & Co in London,” 23 May-6 June 1778, WD/495/5.
(31) Ibid.
(32) Murdock, “Land Policy in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire,” 549-53; Quintanilla, “The World of Alexander Campbell,” 250-51.
(33) John Henry Howard, ed., The Laws of the British Colonies in the West Indies and other parts of America concerning Real and Personal Property and manumissions of Slaves; with a View of the Constitution of Each Colony (London: William Henry Bard, 1827), 158-63, 222-26; 250-53, 296.
(34) Philip D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 73-110.
(35) Ibid.
(36) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1775,” Colonial Office 101/18.
(37) Ibid.
(38) Ibid.; Byres, Plan of the Island of Tobago [unnumbered map].
(39) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1771,” Colonial Office 101/16; “State of the Island of Tobago, 1772,” Colonial Office 101/17.
(40) Ibid.
(41) Byres, Plan of the Island of Tobago [unnumbered map].
(42) Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 43.
(43) Daniel Paterson, A New Plan of the Island of Grenada; from the original French survey of Monsieur Pinel; taken in 1763 by order of the government and now published with the addition of English names, alterations of property and other improvements to the present year 1780 (London: William Fadden, 1780), [unnumbered map].
(44) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Inventory and Valuation of the lands, houses, slaves and livestock situated in Friendsfield, Queens Bay Division, Tobago, belonging to George Campbell, Alexander Bartlet, and Roderick Williamson,” 17 April 1773, WD/495/2.
(45) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1773,” Colonial Office 101/17;”State of the Island of Tobago, 1775,” Colonial Office 101/18.
(46) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1775,” Colonial Office 101/18;”State of the Island of Tobago, 1780,” Colonial Office 285/1.
(47) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1771,” Colonial Office 101/16;”State of the Island of Tobago, 1772,” Colonial Office 101/16, f. 27; “State of the Island of Tobago, 1773,” Colonial Office 101/17; “State of the Island of Tobago, 1775,” Colonial Office 101/18;”State of the Island of Tobago, 1780,” Colonial Office 285/1, f. 13.
(48) Public Record Office, “List of Purchasers of the Lands in His Majesty’s Island Tobago,” 1 May 1768; Governor Melville to the Earl of Hillsborough, Principal Secretary of State, 10 May 1768, Colonial Office 101/2, f. 81.
(49) Quintanilla, “The World of Alexander Campbell,” 232.
(50) Ibid.
(51) Ward, British West Indian Slavery, 43.
(52) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Letter from William Bartlet, Campbell & Co in Grenada to Alexander Bartlet & Co,” 23 May-6 June 1778, WD/495/5.
(53) Royal Bank of Scotland, “State of a Sale of Slaves by George Shand, Solicitor and representative of William Matthews, Robert Williamson and William Annand, trustees of George Campbell and Alexander Bartlet,” 20 September 1786-31 July 1787, WD/495/37.
(54) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Walter Todd of Carriacou, the Grenadines, to Alexander Bartlet & Co,” 17 November 1778, WD/495/10; “Letter from Walter Todd of Carriacou, the Grenadines, to Alexander Bartlet & Co.,” 31 March 1779, WD/49/13; “Alexander Bartlet & Co.’s account current with Col. Turner & Co.,” 31 July 1783, WD/495/24.
(55) The company sent out several public notices to creditors in an effort to retire the firm’s debts. See Royal Bank of Scotland, WD/495/76-80.
(56) Public Record Office, “State of the Island of Tobago, 1780,” Colonial Office 285/1.
(57) Royal Bank of Scotland, “Deed of Sale between His Majesty’s Commissioners for the Sale and disposal of lands in the Islands of Grenada, the Grenadines, Tobago, St. Vincent and Dominica, Roderick Williamson, George Campbell, and Alexander Bartlet,” 15 May 1771-15 July 1772, WD/495/1.
(58) Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 188-223; Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 97-123; Bridenbaugh and Bridenbaugh, No Peace Beyond the Line, 9-34; Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763-1775, 111-41; Bernard Marshall, “Society and Economy in the British Windward Islands, 1763-1823” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, 1972), 13-50.
(59) Ragatz, Fall of the Planter Class, 111-41; Thomas Coke, A History of the West Indies: Containing the Natural, Civil, and Ecclesiastical History of Each Island: With an Account of the Missions Instituted in those Islands (London: Nuttall, Fisher & Dixon, 1808-11), II:61-63.
(60) Hancock, Citizens of the World, 115-220.
MARK QUINTANILLA is an Assistant Professor of History at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
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