Many
of the plantation owners who received compensation when their enslaved people were freed did
not give up their plantations. They carried on and, as in the past, often as
absentee owners. I suspect that less attention has been paid to the immediate
post-slavery period than to what went before and even this brief letter contains
useful information.
The
Aberdeen physician who received this letter, William Henderson (1792-1877) received
compensation for the loss of 160 slaves on the Friendship Estate in Jamaica.
His interest in the Estate – which was likely to have been shared with siblings
– came as an inheritance from his father John Henderson of Caskieben (1743-1814).
According to the University of Aberdeen
Legacies of Slavery report, referenced at the end, the father was educated in Scotland before going
out to Jamaica as a physician. His wife, Helen, inherited – jointly with three
sisters- a share of the Friendship estate from her uncle Dr Charles Irvine,
also of Aberdeen. This was the source of the funds which enabled John Henderson to buy the
estate of Caskieben near Aberdeen in 1792. He had returned to Scotland in 1785 and
his son William was born in Aberdeen 1792. Whether he ever spent time in Jamaica
I do not know. The father and another son Alexander made significant gifts to Marischal College, Aberdeen. John Henderson's Will also made a very small
bequest, an annuity of £5, to his “black servant” Thomas who he had brought
back with him from Jamaica. Of Thomas's life I have no information.
This
1854 letter is written by Dr Henderson’s estate manager in Jamaica, George
Macqueen, who is the latest in a series of managers. That I know because the
letter is from a known correspondence from Jamaica to Dr Henderson, earlier parts
of which are archived by the University of Michigan, but not digitised. I
provide a reference at the end.
Online
summaries of the earlier letters do contain references to problems with post-slavery labour
management on the plantation but this letter (and perhaps interestingly)
contains none. Nor does it link any of the problems it identifies with the
continuing existence of slavery in Brazil, the Dutch Colonies, and the USA.
Rather, this letter identifies two new problems. It points to “The War Duty”
which is here generic for increases in import duties on sugar and rum which
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, W. E. Gladstone, imposed to help fund
the massive cost of the Crimean War. They took effect in 1854, at the end of
which year this letter was written. That might turn out to be a short-term hit
but Macqueen also identifies a problem which was to impose a long-term hit to the Jamaican
economy: rats. A rapidly growing rat population eventually ate an estimated 20%
of Jamaica’s annual sugar crop before it was harvested. The belated hoped-for
solution, the introduction of mongoose in 1872, failed and had adverse
unintended consequences: mongooses proved to be less interested in rats than in
insect-eating amphibians, lizards and birds. So good news for insects, including
harmful ones like animal ticks. I read that it did not help matters that rats
are nocturnal whilst mongooses hunt by day.
About
the author of this letter, George McQueen, I have no information. As with earlier
estate managers his letter is addressed from Bath which, like its namesake, was
a spa resort in the east of Jamaica where
white settlers and visitors came to enjoy the benefits of the sulphur springs
and the company which visitors provided. It was not connected to the Estate
which Macqueen is managing.
Transcription:
Addressed
to: Dr W Henderson School Hill Aberdeen N.B. [North Britain]
Datelined:
Bath Jamaica Nov 20
1854
Endorsed
Pr Packet 17 Nov 1854 postmarked BATH JAMAICA NO .. .. 54, London
transit mark DE 15 1854 and ABERDEEN arrival mark DE 16 1854
Docketing
note in an unsteady hand: G J McQueen .... [ uncertain but possibly Potosi
which is an address sometimes used in this correspondence] Jam.. 25 Novr 54
Recd 16 Decr
Bath
Jamaica Novr 25 1854
Dr
W Henderson
Dear
Sir
I
beg to inform you I have by this packet drawn on you in favor of Pinnock Bailey
& Co for £100- which you will please accept. Many calls are made on me for
money. The rehanging of the Coppers [boiling coppers involved in the making
of molasses or rum] £35, now due, the Taxes of £56.1.8 [fifty six pounds
one shilling and eight pence]. I had hoped to have realised the Produce [molasses?]
made, but the market is so bad, & the demand so small that it would have
been sacrificed to have taken present prices. On Monday I shall commence [? cutting
the sugar] Crop & hope to have a good shipment for one of the first
vessels arriving. Freights are not expected to be as they were last year, &
by the advices p[er] Packets [packet boats] the Sugar market is
rather looking up. Rum [? Not entirely clear] will I think realise good
prices. I shall therefore send all you make to the London market. You have not
however informed me who is your new consignee, or whether I am to continue
shipping to Mr Plummer. The prospect of the Crop are good but the rats are
carrying on continued destruction.
By
my accounts the War duty [Crimean War levies], equalization of duty,
& heavy freights have now reduced the value of 17 cwt [hundredweight]
hhd [hogshead] of Sugar to £8.10.0 – now it is quite impossible to mak [?
make] it for that sum, & should such charges continue, every Estate in
the Island must stop cultivation.
I
am dear Sir Yours sincerely Geo. J. Macqueen
Messrs
William Anderson & Co 6 Mincing
Lane London [? Unclear what this implies; maybe a copy letter sent to this
firm]
References
https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-wcl-M-4458.4hen
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/about/strategy-and-governance/legacies-of-slavery/#panel57783
https://www.uis.no/en/research/the-mongoose-on-the-loose-in-nineteenth-century-jamaica