Fish, Finance and Slavery
And how they shaped the Island of Jersey and its people
I’ve written previously how the celebrated Jersey man, George de Carteret, was instrumental in the promotion and establishment of slavery in New Jersey after the state was gifted to him. So it was with interest that I saw a new public square in Jersey had been named after a prominent slave owner and trader.
Trenton New Jersey
Trenton Square, which forms part of the Jersey International Finance Centre, was opened in September last year by the Treasury Minister, Susie Pinel, being named after New Jersey’s capital, Trenton. Today, it was officially opened in a ceremony by the mayor of New Jersey, Reed Gusciora, along with delegates and senior officials in order to help strengthen Jersey’s ties with the US state.
The capital derives its name from a Scotsman by the name of William Trent, who first arrived in the US city of Philadelphia in 1693. In 1714 Trent, allegedly using family connections through his first wife Mary Burge, purchased 800 acres of land in New Jersey. After building his country estate there in around 1719. By 1720 he had ‘laid out and incorporated’ his settlement with the area known as Trent’s Town by the locals, officially later being changed to just Trenton. The Trent family moved there permanently in 1721 with it rumoured that it was due to Trent being in considerable debt and as there was no extradition treaty between the colonies the move across the Delaware River would erase it.
Through trading with Great Britain and the colonies, exporting tobacco, flour and furs and importing wine, rum, molasses and dry goods, but importantly also African and West Indian slaves and indentured servants from the British Isles, Trent ended up becoming one of the wealthiest settlers in Philadelphia and New Jersey. However, not only did Trent trade in slaves but he was also a slave owner himself, as an inventory taken of his estate after he died listed the names and market values showing 11 slaves residing at the Trent home; six men, one woman, three boys, and a girl named “Nanny”.
The slavery that George de Carteret and Lord Berkeley enacted in New Jersey was considered by Professor of history at Temple University and author, Susan E. Klepp, stated in an interview with the U.S. 1 Newspaper that slavery in the North was in many ways “harsher” than in the South leading to the “very poor health” conditions seen in Northern slave populations
The brutality of New Jersey slave owners is also reflected by what Klepp describes as a “whole body of poisoning cases, [against their masters] in New Jersey in particular”, including the alleged deaths of William Trent and his two sons. According to Klepp, two Africans were arrested trying to convince other slaves to poison their masters using the deaths of the Trents as efficacy for their poison. However, whether this story was indeed true was never fully established.
In many circles William Trent is seen as a pioneer statesman, remembered with respect as the founder of the capital of New Jersey, but there’s no doubt that his wealth derived from the triangular trade and the exploitation of slaves it depended on, as would a certain Jersey man who would go on to significantly shape the wealth and fortunes of our Island.
Salt Cod and the triangular trade
Jersey also played a small but not insignificant hand in the booming trade that made William Trent and many others like him incredibly rich. Known as the “triangular trade” as the trade routes stretched from Europe to Africa to North America and the Caribbean in a triangular shape. In Eric Williams’ book “Capitalism and Slavery” he explains how crucial the triangular trade and slavery was to the British economy:
“The triangular trade thereby gave a triple stimulus to British industry. The Negroes were purchased with British manufactures; transported to the plantations, they produced sugar, cotton, indigo, molasses and other tropical products, the processing of which created new industries in England; while the maintenance of the Negroes and their owners on the plantations provided another market for British industry, New England agriculture and the Newfoundland fisheries. By 1750 there was hardly a trading or a manufacturing town in England which was not in some way connected with the triangular or direct colonial trade. The profits obtained provided one of the main streams of that accumulation of capital in England which financed the Industrial Revolution.”
The triangular trade also had a significant impact on Jersey’s own economy. In local author Alan Le Rossignol’s book, “Charles Robin: The Jersey Codfather”, it details a Jersey man’s involvement in the triangular trade:
“He [Charles Robin] established a trade triangle sending cod to the West Indies to feed the slaves on the plantations. From there he bought cotton, sugar rum and molasses and exported that to Quebec. There he purchased a range of manufactured goods which were shipped to Paspébiac for distribution to his other fishing stations. That was a trade triangle within Canada in addition to the trans-Atlantic trade triangles already established.”
This established — predominantly by Charles Robin— trade route with Canada led to hundreds of Jersey men spending their summer months at the fisheries in Newfoundland and Gaspé peninsula, so many in fact that at times the local agriculture industry suffered from labour shortages, with the Newfoundland fishery depending to a large extent on the annual export of dried fish to the West Indies. Jersey artisans also provided fishing gear to the region and extra goods were taken to be sold representing a far larger market to sell to than Jersey could ever provide.
As the growing and lucrative trade in goods developed so did the demand for more ships creating a booming shipping industry with Jersey, and its low tax rates, becoming one of the leading shipbuilding centres in the British Isles according to local historian Doug Ford. This, in turn, created greater demand for supporting trades; manufacturers of boxes, wooden tubs (that exported cod to Brazil), barrels, baskets, clothing as well as growers of hemp and the hemp merchants that sold to the rope makers led to great wealth for many Islanders.
As Le Rossignol writes: “The Gaspé became a major market for Jersey home produce. Foreign produce imported to Jersey was exported to the Gaspé. Due to its special historical status Jersey was able to trade freely with the UK and Canada as part of the British Empire…Jersey could not have gained this wealth from exporting solely its home-grown products due to the limited size of the local market and small labour force, and consequently shipping emerged out of the cod fishing industry and generated immense wealth.
Money from the cod fishing industry created some of the most expensive houses on Jersey, known as “maisons de la terrenueve” or cod houses, it also contributed to the building of the St Helier harbour quays, developed several local banks — created to finance the increase in trade. The Chamber of Commerce was established in 1768 and consisted mostly of cod and shipping merchants who worked to protect and promote the industry, to its great success. Jersey shipping merchant, Charles Robin, himself contributed to the building of an extension to the General Hospital and the Hospital Chapel through the wealth derived from his trading and exploitation of slaves.
Financing the trade
This expansion of trade also contributed to the City of London’s financial system and the creation of some of today's major banks. According to BBC Historian, Professor James Walvin, trading houses, insurance companies and banks all emerged to “underpin Britain’s overseas trade and empire” relying on “credit, and bills of credit which were at the heart of the slave trade”.
Heywoods Bank, which eventually became part of Barclays Bank, was formed by Liverpool based merchants involved in the slave trade. Barings and HSBC and Midland Bank which can be traced back to Thomas Leyland’s banking house. Lloyds of London also benefited from the trade with A 2004 Guardian article reporting that it was being sued for compensation by the descendants of slaves. They argued that many of the ships transporting the slaves could not have crossed the Atlantic without the financial safety net provided by the bank at the time, with plaintiff, Deadria Farmer-Paellman, stating: “This, as well as all the murder and mistreatment our ancestors suffered, is the definition of genocide and Lloyd’s of London aided and abetted it.”
The Bank of England itself was also involved as Professor Walvin confirms: “When it was set up in 1694, it underpinned the whole system of commercial credit, and its wealthy City members, from the governor down, were often men whose fortunes had been made wholly or partly in the slave trade. The Bank of England stabilised the national finances, and enabled the state to wage its major wars of the 18th century. These wars were aimed at securing and safeguarding overseas possessions, including the slave colonies, and to finance the military and naval means that protected the Atlantic slave routes and the plantation economies.”
The end of slavery brought through the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was largely achieved by the offer of compensation to the slave owners for the loss of property, rather than compensation for the slaves themselves. Known as the “Great Slave Bailout”, it provided Britain’s economy with huge amounts of capital that was then reinvested into industries such as railways, construction, banks, insurance and shipping, with private equity growing by as much as 46% in 1835. Many Jersey residents themselves also benefited from the bailout, the equivalent of millions in today’s money, creating a legacy of wealth and power that echoes on to the present day.
It’s clear that without the slave trade Jersey would not have achieved some its immense wealth and economic growth; from the booming fish and shipping trades of the 18th Century to today’s modern finance industry, the latest development being the Jersey International Finance Centre and its newly unveiled Trenton Square. New Jersey has officially recognised and apologised for its past historical role in slavery, with its resolution calling on all its citizens to remember that slavery continues to exist and encouraging them to teach about the history and legacy of slavery. Jersey on the other hand erected a statue and labelled the man who enacted and promoted slavery there as “Jersey’s greatest son”.
So I welcome mayor Reed Gusciora and his delegates from the state that got its name from us, it seems we still have much to learn and acknowledge about our own past, and on this, I have no doubt that they have much they can teach us.
