Jersey’s Links to Slavery
How Islanders promoted and profited from the trade in humans
Last month, on the 18th, was Anti-Slavery Day, something I’d never heard of before. Its purpose is to raise awareness of human trafficking and modern slavery with an aim to encourage government, local authorities, companies, charities and individuals to do what they can to address the problem. It got me thinking about Jersey’s past and its possible connections to slavery.
In 2014 a statue of former Bailiff and Lt-Governor of Jersey, Sir George Carteret, was proudly unveiled to the public in the centre of St Peter. The Constable of the Parish, Mr John Refault, worked to have the statue erected saying Sir George represents a “role model for youngsters” and that he should be recognised both “locally and nationally”.
A famously staunch royalist and navy privateer Carteret, according to local historian Doug Ford in a piece for Jersey Heritage, was one of the founders of the ‘Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa’ which was set up to trade in ivory, gold and slaves, building 18 stone forts as trading bases in Africa. After bankruptcy in 1672 a New Royal African Company was set up with Carteret retaining his role as consultant. According to Ford the company did not raid for slaves but traded them in West Africa before shipping them out to the West Indies.
As Ford writes: ‘The Speedwell, commanded by James Carteret, Sir George’s son, undertook one of the early voyages of the company. Leaving London in January 1663, he picked up 302 slaves in the port of Offra in the Bight of Benin and transported them to the West Indies — twenty died on the passage. In February 1664 he sold some of his “cargo” in Barbados and then the following month he sold the rest of the slaves in St Kitts. By the time he left in March 1664, Carteret had sold ‘155 men, 105 women and 22 boys to the eager planters.’ The company enjoyed a monopoly until 1698 and dealt in slaves up until 1731.
Slavery proliferates in New Jersey
As Sir George Carteret helped shelter King Charles II in Jersey during his exile and for his unwavering support for the royal cause he was granted land in the American colonies which included land in North Carolina and what would become New Jersey.
In 1664, along with a Lord Berkeley, Carteret enacted: ‘The Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New Jersey, to and with all and every the Adventurers and all such as shall settle or plant there’. The purpose of the Agreement was to encourage settlers to New Jersey so that the ‘planting of the said province may be the more speedily promoted’.
As part of a standard 120 acres of land, an additional 60 acres was given for “every weaker servant or slave, male or female, exceeding the age of fourteen years”. This meant that, according to professor Dr. Clement Price, the:
“support for the institution [of slavery] was stronger in New Jersey than in any other northern colony”
becoming an integral part of the New Jersey economy and creating one of the largest slave populations in the northern colonies, around 12,000 slaves, representing about 12 percent of the population prior to the Revolution.
In 2007 New Jersey officially apologised for its history of slavery with the State expressing in a Resolution its “profound regret” for its role in the trade and for the “wrongs inflicted”. The Resolution makes clear the human suffering inflicted:
“the fundamental values of the Africans were shattered; they were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized, and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage; women and girls were raped, and families were disassembled as husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons were sold into slavery apart from one another”.
New Jersey was one of the last states to emancipate slaves in 1846 and the Resolution ends by asking its citizens to remember that slavery continues to exist and encourages them to teach about the history and legacy of slavery.
The great British slave bailout
By 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act was enacted formally freeing 800,000 Africans who were then the legal property of Britain’s slave owners. What many may not be aware of is that their freedom came at a price, one that the UK government paid, but it wasn’t to those who deserved the compensation.
The University College of London recently established ‘The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership’ which includes a searchable database showing just how vast the extent of slave ownership was in Britain and how central it was to the economy at the time. In order to abolish slavery it was agreed that the slave owners would be compensated for their financial loss seeing 46,000 slave owners come forward to get their compensation.
Until 2009 it represented the biggest bailout in British history with the UK government setting aside £20m in 1834, a sum that represented 40% of total government expenditure and the modern equivalent of between £16bn and £17bn today. A government body called the compensation commission was established to distribute the funds so accurate and extensive records are held, showing that both men and women, rich and middle class alike came forward to make their claims, including those from, and residing in, Jersey.
Including a John Cameron of 8 St Mark’s Terrace, St Mark’s Road, St Helier who was awarded compensation of £30,136 in 1836 for his owning of 574 slaves in British Guiana. The equivalent today of just over three million pounds. There was a John Wilson Carmichael of Jersey, awarded £981 (£102,826 in today’s money) compensation for 22 enslaved people in Tacaigua in Trinidad. An Olive Mackeson (née McKeand) of Jersey, owner of Blue Mountain Estate in Jamaica who was awarded £2,446 (quarter of a million today) for 132 slaves as “part of her marriage settlement”.
Thomas Scott Reignolds of St Helier Jersey was awarded along with Emma Reignolds £2,660 (£278,816.36 today) for the 147 enslaved at the Hyde estate in St Thomas-in-the-Vale, Jamaica. Caroline Atkinson Swaby of 4 Salvandy Terrace, St Saviour, along with her family members claimed for 360 slaves in Jamaica totalling £6,810 (£713,811 today). She is also recorded as unsuccessfully claiming for another 93 slaves, worth £191,083 in today’s money. There was also an Edward Welch Eversley, of Havre des Pas, who was compensated around £102 (£10,000) for nine slaves in Barbados.
However, it wasn’t just claimants and beneficiaries, General Sir Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner of Gouray Lodge was Trustee and Executor of an estate of 485 slaves in Jamaica, equating to £8,508 (£891,793.09 today). Richard Humber, of Bouley Bay, acted as Trustee to the ‘Shickle’s Pen’ estate which held 106 slaves valued in 1836 at £2,255. Francis Janvrin, born in Jersey, was the Executor to 205 slaves in Jamaica with a compensation of £4,299 in 1835. William Stephen Harker of St Helier was ‘owner-in-fee’ of 29 slaves at Burdett Lodge and St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, worth £609 and another 32 slaves at Hazlewood Jamaica, worth £736 in 1836.
Reviewing the UCL database there is a total estimate of around £72,000 in compensation connected to Jersey at the time, which today — using the Bank of England inflation calculator — would roughly equate to £7,546,000.
Today, although difficult to accurately determine, the Global Slavery Index estimates that there could be as many as 40 million slaves globally. With the overthrow of Gaddafi, of which Britain was complicit in, Libya has become an open market for the sale of African migrants and refugees in town squares and car parks. It has also become a major gateway for gangs profiting from the trafficking of refugees and migrants across the Mediterranean into Europe.
Part of addressing the problem of slavery today must surely be rooted in our understanding of the past, as it’s our past that defines how we see and act in the present. Knowing that we promoted and benefited from the exploitation of human beings, denying them compensation even to this day, should force us to rethink our purpose and place in the world today.
If more people knew of this history, our history, would we be more willing to open our borders and doors to fleeing refugees and migrants? Would we work harder to protect workers from exploitation, both at home and abroad? Would we be more willing to change the attitude of looking out for ourselves, to one where we look out for each other no matter where we’re from?
I like to think we would.
