University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/58038 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. ATLANTIC CONTINGENCY: JONATHAN DICKINSON AND THE ANGLO-ATLANTIC WORLD, 1655-1725 Jason Daniels University ID Number: 0866542 Submitted in part fulfillment for the Degree of PhD in History at the University of Warwick March 2013 This dissertation may be photocopied CONTENTS List of maps 4 List of tables 5 List of Abbreviations 6 Acknowledgements 7 Abstract 8 1. Same Old Atlantic? 9 Who was Jonathan Dickinson? 13 Why study this period? 22 Why use and Atlantic framework? 31 Chapter Outline 39 2. Growing Up Jamaican 44 Problems with Building a Settler Society 49 Problems with Pirates and Privateering 63 Problems with Slavery 76 Conclusion: A Cocktail of Calamities 93 3. Shipwrecked in the Atlantic World 99 1 Native American Background 106 Problems with the Shipwreck 116 Conclusion: A Cassina Toast 154 4. Negotiating an Uncertain Atlantic Marketplace 159 Atlantic Superstructure 165 First Arrival and Early Transitions 168 Negotiating Circumstances 177 More Problems with Trade 183 Expanding Trade to Foreign Ports 189 Conclusion 201 5. Negotiating an Uncertain Atlantic Slave Market 205 Extent of Slavery in Pennsylvania 210 Early Opposition 212 Trading Slaves 219 Legal Restrictions 232 Utilising Enslaved Africans 236 Conclusion 245 6. The Decline of Dickinson’s Atlantic Estate 248 Dickinson’s Woes 252 Coming of Age 260 Mercantile Reverses 268 Settling Dickinson’s Estate 277 Conclusion 297 2 7. A New Atlantic. 299 Revisiting Jamaica 302 Revisiting Florida 304 Revisiting Philadelphia 308 Bibliography 311 3 LIST OF MAPS Map 1: Dickinson’s Atlantic World 39 Map 2: Dickinson La Florida 135 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Population Estimates for Jamaica, 1655-1730 59 Table 2: Immigration Estimates to Jamaica, 1655-1729 82 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CO: Colonial Office, British National Archives HSP: Historical Society of Pennsylvania JDLB: Jonathan Dickinson Letterbook LCP: Library Company of Philadelphia LFP: Logan Family Papers LJDE: Letters of Jonathan Dickinson Estate MDLP, Maria Dickinson Logan Family Papers PRO: Public Record Office, British National Archives 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would thank the many people who have helped me achieve my personal and professional goals. First, I would like to thank my parents, Richard and Judith Daniels, for their unyielding support. They taught me many lessons for which I am forever grateful. During my undergraduate and early graduate career, Juliana Barr, Jeffery Needell, and Jon Sensbach encouraged me to pursue my academic dreams. Early in my academic career, David Geggus taught me what it meant to be a scholar. I continue to appreciate his valuable insights and generous support. More recently, Amy Turner Bushnell has provided poignant advice and thoughtful consideration of my work. James Broomall, a dear friend and colleague, has endured many of my academic woes, a debt which I will continue to repay. My colleagues at Indian River State College, Elliott Cohen and Robert Farley, have provided tireless support of my teaching and research. Over the last three years, Tim Lockley has unwaveringly supported my work and helped guide me through the entire process. It is with great respect that I thank him for his kindness, candor, support, and commitment to my research. I am most and forever grateful to Trevor Burnard for his years of guidance and academic support. I especially acknowledge my indebtedness to him with much gratitude and respect. Without him, this work would not have been possible. Finally, I would like to thank, above all others, my greatest support. She is my copy-editor, my muse, and the reason I work tirelessly in everything I do. It is with the deepest love and sincerest gratitude that I thank Sabrina Overton. This work is for you, the girls, and our kitchen table. 7 ABSTRACT This dissertation is about how Jonathan Dickinson (1663-1722), a second-generation Anglo-Jamaican planter and early-Philadelphian merchant, made sense of the mercurial and uncertain Atlantic world around the turn of the eighteenth century. The following chapters examine Dickinson’s interactions with an extremely diverse group of European, Native American, and African peoples who collectively comprised a formative generation of colonial society in North America and the West Indies. The main purpose of this dissertation is to provide a counterpoint to the many tautologous, whiggish, and nationalistic interpretations of Anglo-Atlantic history that tend to deemphasise the obvious disconnections, disruptions, discord, and diversity apparent during the late- seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. This dissertation further contends that individuals, driven by self-preservation and influenced by local circumstances, dictated the direction and the pace of many inter-colonial, inter-imperial, and trans-Atlantic developments familiar to the late-eighteenth century Anglo-Atlantic world. In short, new exigencies outweighed custom, and self-preservation, rather than directives from metropolitan governments, guided Atlantic peoples’ actions. By extension of individual actions, the nascent British Atlantic Empire began to take shape. 8 CHAPTER 1: SAME OLD ATLANTIC? This dissertation is about how Jonathan Dickinson (1663-1722), a second-generation Anglo-Jamaican planter and early-Philadelphian merchant, made sense of the mercurial and uncertain Atlantic world around the turn of the eighteenth century. The following chapters examine Dickinson’s interactions with an extremely diverse group of European, Native American, and African peoples who collectively comprised a formative generation of colonial society in North America and the West Indies. By analysing Dickinson’s social and commercial maneuvers through the uncertainties of this period, this work argues that contingency for unforeseen events was a fundamental organising principle of many early-Atlantic peoples. In very specific ways, local circumstances in three important Atlantic colonies— Jamaica, Florida, and Pennsylvania—were manifest in interesting and instructive ways in the trove of documents Dickinson generated during his lifetime. The plight of historically maraginalised peoples also receives considerable, albeit inadvertent, attention in Dickinson’s vast body of personal and professional correspondence. Accordingly, the main purpose of this dissertation is to provide a counterpoint to the many tautologous, whiggish, and nationalistic interpretations of Anglo-Atlantic history that tend to de- emphasise the obvious disconnections, disruptions, discord, and diversity that were apparent during the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries in the Anglo-Atlantic world. By utilising Dickinson’s life trajectory as a lens to examine three broad historiographical themes—time, space, and structure—this dissertation further contends that individuals, driven by self-preservation and influenced by local circumstances, dictated the direction and the pace of many inter-colonial and trans-Atlantic 9 developments familiar to the late-eighteenth-century Anglo-Atlantic world. In short, new exigencies outweighed custom, and self-preservation, rather than directives from metropolitan governments, guided Atlantic peoples’ actions. Only by extension of individual actions, could the nascent British Atlantic Empire take shape. Periodisation underpins this dissertation. Dickinson’s life spanned a fundamentally understudied period of early-American and Atlantic-world history, the period between 1655 and 1725, and in particular the 1690s through the 1710s. The years on either side of 1700 are easily the least studied decades of all American history. Ned Landsman has characterised the period as a ‘death valley’ of historical scholarship.1 Despite the possibilities for interesting and un-replicated work many historians simply touch on these years in their studies while very few dedicate their attention solely to this transformative period.2 Therefore, this study focuses specifically on evaluating this historiographical disregard and the opportunities provided by analysing both the contemporary problems and the scholastic difficulties of this period. This subject and this period also provide an opportunity for scholars to step beyond the typical national boundaries of Atlantic history. During this period, trans- Atlantic relationships between mother countries and colonies were often ill defined and fluid. As a result, colonists, either more willing or better suited to maneuver across 1 Ned Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials. American Thought and Culture, 1680-1760 (Ithaca, 1997), p. xi. 2 Notable exceptions include: Wesley Frank Craven, The American Colonies in Transition, 1660-1713 (New York, 1963); Ian Steele, The English Atlantic. An Exploration of Communication and Community, 1675-1740 (Oxford, 1986); Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade. The Rise of the English Atlantic Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, 2002); Richard Dunn, Sugar and Slaves. The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1717 (Chapel Hill, 1972). Many other monographs take a slightly longer chronological period in order to