BECOMING CREOLE: MATERIAL LIFE AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY KINGSTON, JAMAICA by DOUGLAS F. MANN (Under the Direction of Michael Kwass) ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the relationship between material culture and the development of Creole identity in the eighteenth-century urban slave society of Kingston, Jamaica. Although economic and social historians of the British West Indies in this period have focused on the export of major crops such as sugar, they have devoted little attention to the construction of social and cultural identity. From Kingston’s colonial architecture and urban design, to the interior of homes, white residents displayed their cultural attachments, social prominence, and racial superiority. But slaves also engaged in material acquisition. Through the clothing many domestic slaves were able to obtain from their masters, through purchase, or through other means, slaves blurred the racial lines that divided Kingston society. This study also examines Kingston’s white women who were often caricatured as indolent and attached to excessive material consumption in contemporary sources. However, this portrayal is not accurate. Kingston’s white women, by virtue of their prudent and economical management of domestic consumption and effective oversight of their domestic staff of slaves, carved out for themselves an arena of agency that historians have overlooked. By considering the material culture of Kingston and the circulation of goods within the complex social, racial, and cultural matrix that made up its urban landscape, this project illuminates how material objects acquired social meaning and helped fashion a Creole identity. INDEX WORDS: Kingston, Jamaica; Material Culture; Creole Society; Urban Slavery; Women in Urban Caribbean; Slave Clothing; Gentility; Refinement BECOMING CREOLE: MATERIAL LIFE AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY KINGSTON, JAMAICA by DOUGLAS F. MANN B.A., Bryan College, 1992 M.A., Trinity International University, 1997 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2005 © 2005 Douglas F. Mann All Rights Reserved BECOMING CREOLE: MATERIAL LIFE AND SOCIETY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY KINGSTON, JAMAICA by DOUGLAS F. MANN Major Professor: Michael Kwass Committee: Allan Kulikoff Laura Mason Claudio Saunt Reinaldo Roman Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2005 DEDICATION For Susi And Robert, Andrew, Margaret, and Jacob iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With any project such as this one, many debts are incurred. I am happy to acknowledge in this space my own and express my deepest appreciation for those institutions and individuals that have provided assistance and encouragement along the way. This particular study on the British Atlantic world and Kingston, Jamaica necessitated a great deal of travel. Various institutions have provided financial assistance for this project without which I would have been unable to conduct the necessary research. At the University of Georgia, the Center for Latin American Studies, the History Department, the Center for Arts and Humanities, and the Graduate School each supplied funds for research and travel to Kingston, Jamaica; London, England; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am particularly grateful to Professor Ed Larson, former chair of the Department of History, for his encouragement and assistance in securing funds from the history department. Several public and private libraries opened their collections to me and encouraged the development of this project through their generous financial support. A Jacob Price Fellowship enabled me to study the wonderful Caribbean and British collection at the Clements Library of the University of Michigan. I am particular grateful to Brian Dunnigan and Clayton Lewis for their assistance during my stay in Ann Arbor. Conrad Wright and the staff at the Massachusetts Historical Society were immensely helpful in pointing me to several important document collections of merchants as well as the Ann Appleton Storrow collection. Jim Green and the staff at the Library Company of Philadelphia provided a quiet place to write while also permitting access to the collections of the Library and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I am also v grateful to J.J. Ahern and Roy Goodman of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the staff for their assistance, probing questions (thanks Roy) and access to their wonderful collections of early American documents. I am also grateful to the staffs of the following institutions for their assistance and access to their collections: the National Library of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica; the Jamaican National Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica; the Elsa Goveia Reading Room at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica; the Boston Public Library, rare reading room; the David library of the American Revolution; the Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia; the British Library; and the Public Record Office, Kew, England. Several families have opened their homes to me, providing a place to rest and a family to be a part of, if only for a while during my research trips to Kingston, London and Boston. In Kingston, Drs. John and Val Royes and Gordon and Grace Russell opened their homes to me and patiently listened as I described my project and my daily adventures. In London, Pastor Jack Hampshire and the church family at Grace Fellowship took great care of me. Thank you for the Puritan tour of London and for the tickets to see Crystal Palace. Chris Lucasik of Boston University generously provided a place to live for a month while I was studying in Boston. To each of these individuals, I am most grateful for their generosity and willingness to take in a stranger and make him welcome. I must also thank three individuals who have served as academic mentors. First during my undergraduate days at Bryan College Dr. William Ketchersid provided encouragement to a young history major and helped cultivate a love for European history. Second, Dr. Laura Mason at the University of Georgia challenged me early in my Ph.D. program to improve my writing skills. I trust this present work reflects the fruits of that challenge. Finally, I owe an incalculable debt to my director Dr. Michael Kwass, who has been a part of this project from its inception in a vi graduate seminar on consumer culture in eighteenth-century Europe. His timely suggestions, willingness to carefully critique numerous drafts, and constant encouragement gently prodded me to push my analysis and refine my arguments. Family is an important part of my life. I could not have completed this work without the support of the Mann clan in North Carolina and the Simpson clan in Tennessee. Thank you for your financial assistance, for the football games in Raleigh and Knoxville, and for taking the kids when I needed to work. I am particularly grateful to my parents, Kent and Margie Mann, who cultivated my love for reading and for history when I was young, and who encouraged me throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies. Although my father passed away during this project, his influence is throughout. Finally, there are five individuals to whom a simple acknowledgement or “thank you” will not suffice, but it will have to do for now. Robert, Andrew, Margaret, and Jacob, you have tracked daddy’s travels across the Atlantic, you have allowed me to be away for far too long, you have asked many questions about the “paper,” you colored on various drafts, and you have waited patiently for me to be done so we can play. Well, daddy’s paper is done; let’s play. To my wife and best friend, perhaps you did not realize what your encouragement to begin a graduate program would look like. In spite of the travel and writing which kept me away for long periods of time, you have never failed to cheer me on. Susi, this dissertation is for you. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 Methodology .............................................................................................................7 Sources for this Project and Structure of Study ......................................................15 2 KINGSTON: THE GRAND MART AND MAGAZINE OF JAMAICA...................19 Kingston: The Grand Mart and Magazine of Jamaica ............................................25 Kingston’s Ethnic and Demographic Development in the Eighteenth Century......35 Wealth and Merchant Culture in Kingston..............................................................44 Eighteenth-Century Social Life in Kingston...........................................................52 Conclusion...............................................................................................................54 3 SLAVE SOCIETY, SOCIAL SPACING, AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT OF KINGSTON ......................................................................................................56 Kingston’s Social Structure.....................................................................................59 Social and Ethnic Spacing in Kingston ...................................................................66 Urban Layout and Development of Domestic Space in Eighteenth-Century