PART 3 the Employed Men
THE MOUNTRAVERS PLANTATION COMMUNITY - INTRODUCTION P a g e | 1044 PART 3 The employed men Chapter 3 Biographies of managers, 1734-1807 Father and son, James and Joseph Browne, 1734-1761 James Browne was the longest-serving manager on Mountravers but a lack of documents meant that relatively few details about his plantation management could be established. Today, the Brownes are best known for their plantation in the parish of St James Windward which was later called Eden and then Eden Browne. The setting of a tale about a death by duel, the old Browne’s estate is now one of the tourist attractions in Nevis. ◄► ▼◄► James Browne may well have come from an old, established Nevis family: in the 1670s there were eight Brownes on the island, including a ‘free Negro’ called John Brown.1 By the early 1700s the number had increased to eleven, mostly through the arrival in 1685 of several Monmouth rebels transported for Governor Stapleton. It appears that James was born in 1710 and the son of James Browne, a member of the Nevis Council.2 James Browne junior studied at Trinity College, Oxford, and was said to have joined the Inner Temple at the age of 16.3 However, he did not follow a legal career but in 1734 was installed as manager on John Frederick Pinney’s plantation. His appointment was a family affair: Jeremiah Browne, who almost certainly was an uncle of James’s,4 was John Frederick Pinney’s guardian, while 1 Oliver, VL Caribbeana Vol 3 Nevis Census 1677/8 2 UKNA, CO 186/1 3 Oliver, VL History of Antigua Vol 1 p76; also http://www.innertemple.org.uk/archive/ 4 The man Mary Pinney had appointed as her son’s guardian, Jeremiah Browne, was a wealthy landowner.
[Show full text]