THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL AN ANATOMY OF A SLAVE SOCIETY IN TRANSITION: THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, 1807-1864. Being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History In the University of Hull By Angel Smith October 2011 Abstract This study analyses the process of transition from slavery to freedom in the Virgin Islands’ slave society. It draws on a database of over 9,500 enslaved people of African descent, covering the period 1818 to 1834. Including information on gender, age, births, deaths, runaways, manumissions, and owners of the enslaved, this database allows the most intimate and comprehensive analysis of changes in the social life of the slave population and immediate descendants within any single British Caribbean territory in the age of abolitionism and its aftermath. Few studies in Caribbean history have sought to go beyond the transition from slavery to freedom and more specifically, to explore the impact of the enslaved themselves in shaping their own history during this critical transition. This thesis seeks to do both by re-examining the history of the Virgin Islands from 1807 to 1864, underpinning the argument it presents with data drawn from slave registers, Colonial Office and Parliamentary papers, and other records. It is on these grounds that this thesis makes an original contribution to existing knowledge. ii Table of Content List of Figures iv List of Tables iv Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Slave Society 18 Population Distribution 19 Lands Use 22 Slave Holders 24 The Slave Population 32 The Slave Population on Tortola 41 The Slave Population on the Cays 48 Social and Cultural life 54 Summary 59 Chapter 2 Dislocation 61 Internal transfer of Slaves 67 Ruth Lettsome Estates 73 Inter-regional Slave Transfers 77 Pickering Estate 80 Martin Estate 90 Threlfall Estate 93 Summary 99 Chapter 3 Manumissions 101 The Process of Manumission 102 Rates of Manumission 113 Manumissions by Age and Gender 118 Manumissions by Colour of skin 123 Relationships that led to Manumissions 127 Summary 135 iii Chapter 4 Resistance 136 Running Away 140 Day to Day Resistance 160 Adaptation 165 Collective Resistance 172 Summary 184 Chapter 5 Apprenticeship 184 The Apprenticeship System 187 The Apprenticeship Population 193 Maximizing the Labour Force 199 Manumissions and Migrations 204 Resistance and Signs of Discontent 208 Summary 217 Chapter 6 Post Emancipation 219 Methods of Control 221 Passive Resistance 230 Economic Adjustment 237 Cattle Tax Riots 244 Land Acquisition 255 Summary 259 Conclusion 260 Appendices 266 Bibliography 269 iv List of Figures Figure 1.1 Map of the Caribbean 1 Figure 1.2 Old map of the Virgin Islands 3 Figure 1.3 Land Subdivisions on Tortola 23 Figure 1.4 Virgin Islands Slave Population Pyramid, 1818. 36 Figure 1.5 Pleasant Valley Estate, Tortola. 43 Figure 3.1 Frequency of Manumissions 116 Figure 4.1 Frequency of Runaway Slaves 148 Figure 4.2 Frequency of Runaway Slaves by Gender 1822-1834 152 Figure 5.1 Punishment Inflicted on Apprentices 1834-1835 215 Figure 6.1 Sugar Exported from the Virgin Islands to the United Kingdom 239 List of Tables Table 1.1 Virgin Islands Population Distribution, 1815 21 Table 1.2 Virgin Islands Land Uses 1815. 24 Table 1.3 The Frequency of Slave Holdings on Tortola and the Cays. 26 Table 1.4 Slave Population, Belle Vue Estate, 1818. 35 Table 1.5 Tortola Slave Population Percentages, 1818. 42 Table 1.6 The Cays Slave population Percentages, 1818. 49 Table 1.7 Anegada Slave Population percentages, 1818. 52 Table 2.1 Tortola’s Economic Output 64 Table 2.2 The Cays’ Economic Output 64 Table 2.3 Percentages of Slave Transfers between 1818 and 1831. 70 Table 2.4 Percentages of Slaves sold in the Virgin Islands , 1818-1831. 71 Table 2.5 Ruth Lettsome Estates by Acreage and Number of Slaves,1818. 74 Table 2.6 Percentages of Slave on the Lettsome Estates, 1825. 74 Table 2.7 Percentage of Slaves Exported from Tortola, 1822-1825. 78 Table 2.8 Percentage of Slaves Exported from The Cays, 1822-1825. 78 Table 2.9 Percentage of Slaves on the Pickering Estates, 1822. 88 Table 2.10 Percentage of Slaves on the Martin Estates, 1825. 92 Table 2.11 Percentage of Slaves on the Threlfall Estate, 1825. 94 Table 3.1 Manumissions 1808-1817 106 Table 3.2 Manumission Rates 115 Table 3.3 Manumission Totals and Percentages 118 Table 3.4 Percentage of manumission on the Cays by Gender Groups1822-1824. 119 Table 3.5 Percentage of Manumissions on Tortola by Gender Groups 1818-1834. 121 v Table 3.6 Percentage of Manumission by Colour 1822 125 Table 3.7 Percentage of Manumission by Skin Colour 1828 127 Table 4.1 Percentage of Runaway or Absent Slaves by Age and Gender 153 Table 4.2 Average Age of Slaves Runaways by Gender. 155 Table 4.3 Percentage of Runaway Slaves from Road Town 158 Table 4.4 Livestock Ownership in the Virgin Islands in 1823. 169 Table 5.1 Distribution of the Virgin Islands’ Slave Population in 1834 by Percentage. 194 Table 5.2 Percentage Distribution of Slaves on Tortola and the Cays 1834. 197 Table 5.3 Percentage of Apprentices Convicted for Offences 1834-1835. 212 vi Acknowledgements My sincerest thanks go to Professor David Richardson and Dr Douglas Hamilton for their guidance and invaluable input throughout the duration of this research project. I would also like to thank Mr. Frank Inkoom for his assistance in the establishment of the database and Mrs. Prudence Macthavious for her help and support in the production of the final thesis. Gratitude is also expressed to the Government of the Virgin Islands (Br.) which made this research project possible through the provision of funding. Special thanks are given to my wife Grethel and the children, Angelle, Angelique, Angelo and Angelico, whose lives I disrupted over the last four years as I pursued this research. I also pay tribute to my ancestors who endured slavery in the Virgin Islands leaving us legacy that has shaped our lives and community. vii Introduction In recent years a range of studies have been conducted on the history of the British Caribbean focusing on the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade. These studies, in their widest context, have contributed tremendously to scholarship in the field and enhanced our understanding of the subject. While some studies focused on the experiences of the enslaved in individual colonies, few attempted to transcend the transition from slavery to freedom. Through these studies we are able to identify the origins of basic ideologies, social and cultural perceptions that influence thinking within Caribbean societies even today. Missing from this growing area of empirical study however, is research on the Virgin Islands, one of the smallest sugar colonies in the British Caribbean. As the Virgin Islands are rarely featured, very little is known about them, even their location.1 Figure 1.1 Map of the Caribbean, British Virgin Islands Annual Report 1975, enclosure ( London 1976) 1 Franklin W. Knight, ‘Introduction’ in General History of the Caribbean: Vol. III The Caribbean Slave Society, ed. Franklin W. Knight (London: UNESCO Publishing 1997), 1-8; David Richardson, ‘Agency, Ideology, and Violence in the History of Transatlantic Slavery,’ The Historic Journal, 50:4 (2007), 971-989; Kevin D. Smith, ‘A Fragmented Freedom: The Historiography of Emancipation and its Aftermath in the British West Indies’ Slavery and Abolition, 16:1 (1995), 101-131; Keith Mason, "Demography, Disease and Medical Care in Caribbean Slave Society", Bulletin of Latin American Research 5 (1986): 109-119. 1 The Virgin Islands are located at the northern arch of the Caribbean archipelago, around Latitude 18.25o north and Longitude 64.30o west (see figure 1.1). This position places the colony 30 miles east of Puerto Rico and 40 miles north of St. Kitts, its closest Leeward Islands neighbour. With an area of about fifty-nine square miles, the group is comprised of sixty islands, the largest of which being Jost Van Dyke, Spanish Town (Virgin Gorda), Anegada and Tortola, where the capital Road Town is located. Figure 1.2 shows that the majority of the smaller islands are located to the south of Tortola, stretching in a parallel line running south-west to east-north-east forming a channel three to four miles wide and fifteen miles long. The islands that fall outside of this channel include Jost Van Dyke which is four miles to the north-west of Tortola and Anegada, which is thirty miles north-east of Tortola. This channel, which is popularly known as the Sir Francis Drake Channel or the Virgin’s Gang Way, offers a spectacular sailing adventure which prompted an early visitors to the Virgin Islands in 1701 to declare that “It is certainly among the best sailing in the world. It is as if one is on a vast plain dotted about with small corpse”2 The Virgin Islands is also in close proximity to the Danish islands of St Thomas and St John, sharing a common maritime boundary with about two miles of water between them at the closest point.3 2 Jean Baptiste Labat, “A Voyage from the Virgin Islands to St. Christopher in 1701” in Leewards: Writings, Past and Present, About The Leeward Islands ed. John Brown (Barbados: Advocate co. 1961), 24. 3 Norwell Harrigan and Pearl Varlack, The Virgin Islands Story (Essex: Bowker Publishing 1975), xii –xv. 2 Figure 1.2 Old Map of the Virgin Islands, http://collections.nmm.ac.uk/collections/objects/542121.html The majority of the islands in the grouping are of volcanic origin and are characterized by steep central hill ranges flowing towards the sea.