Lost family histories: the slave lists
Among the many injustices arising from slavery that persist today is the loss of family heritage for the descendants of slaves. While it might be possible to trace an individual ancestor back to slavery, it is often difficult to go further back than that. DNA studies can provide an insight into where in Africa an individual's ancestors originated, and they can give a broader picture of the impact of slavery at a population level, but for individual family trees, an individual enslaved person is often a genealogical dead end.
After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, Britain adopted an ostentatiously virtuous position in policing slave traders and requiring its slave colonies to document whether their enslaved workers were born in Jamaica or in Africa. The list for John Tharp's Potosi estate from 1817 begins:
Names Colour Age African or Creole Remarks
Adam Negro 43 Creole Son of Chloe
Abraham Negro 46 African
Anthony Negro 33 African
Atta Negro 51 African
Alexander McBean Mulatto 20 Creole
Bacchus Negro 49 African
Bob Negro 27 Creole Son
of Amba
Men and teenage boys were listed first, then women and teenage girls, followed by the names of younger children.
These lists had to be kept up to date, and updates from 1820, 1823, 1826 and 1832 list ‘increases’, largely through birth, and ‘decreases’, largely through death. For example, the Potosi update from 1823 reads:
Name Colour Age African Remarks Increase Decreaseor Creole and cause and cause
thereof thereof
Charley Mulatto 10mo Creole Pamelia Born Died
Ben Negro 2 Creole Esther Born
Cudjoe Negro 1 Creole Kitty Born
Abraham Negro 3 Creole Died
Adam Negro 47 Creole Chloe Died
When he was in England, Tharp's agents sent him inventories for estates he was considering buying and updates on births and deaths for the estates he already owned. These lists are generally less comprehensive than the later registers, but they provide additional information for the earlier period between 1795 and 1803.
Only 21 individuals on John Tharp's estates (less than 0.5% of the 4039 total) were bought between 1817 and 1832, of whom five were given in exchange for another enslaved person's freedom. In comparison, the same period saw 947 births registered on the estates, representing more than 23% of all the individuals listed.
This may not have been typical of Jamaican slave plantations in general, but it indicates that John Tharp's estates were being worked by relatively stable communities. The trustees who were managing them after 1804 were entitled to payment and expenses without reference to productivity, which gave them little incentive to seek additions to the existing enslaved workforce.
Although none of the information in the lists is 100% dependable, they do document the small and relatively enclosed communities of the ten separate Tharp estates across a 37-year period. By cross-referring between the lists for each estate, it's possible to collate information about individuals and families.
For example, the death of a man called Adam was recorded in 1823, and his age estimated as 47. The Adam in the register from 1817 (shown above) would have been 49 years old by then, but the disparity in age is small enough that they could be the same person. No other Adam was listed in 1817 and the information about his colour, place of birth and mother's name (Chloe) all match, so in all probability, this is the same Adam.
In the 1817 list, Chloe was also listed as the mother of Sukey, John Brown (also known as George), Helen Brown and Margaret, who were born on the Potosi estate between 1775 and 1797. Because no other Chloe of the right age to be their mother was listed, it's reasonable to assume that these were Adam's siblings.
Chloe was born in Jamaica and her age was estimated as 53 in 1817, which would have made her 11 when the first child, Sukey, was born. Since all the ages are rough estimates, she may have been a few years older when she had Sukey.
Samuel Robertson aka Robert (b. 1798), Humphrey (b. 1801) and Daphne (b. 1805), had a mother called Sukey, so they all appear to have been Chloe's grandchildren.
Edward Wickwire was born in 1810 and George Henry (who was described as Mulatto) in 1812. Their mother was named as Eleanor, though no woman of that name was listed in the 1817 slave register for the estate. There was also no Ellen, Elena or Helena, so Helen Brown is the closest match. However, it's also possible that Edward and George's mother was recorded under another name in 1817 or that she had died before that date. For that reason, the relationship is marked with a question mark in the family tree.
Maryann was born in 1816, Agnes in 1819 and Eliza in 1821. All three had a white father and a mother called Margaret, but Chloe's daughter was not the only Margaret on the Potosi estate who was old enough to be their mother. Kitty Brack (b. 1796) was also known as Margaret, so it's not certain that these three girls were Chloe's granddaughters. Agnes's mother was named as Margaret Smith, but I haven't found either woman documented with that surname.
Chloe's family tree is reasonably straightforward so far, but there is one more child who might belong to it. Susan Stuart was born in 1831, to a mother called Margaret Stuart. No woman called Margaret Stuart is included under that name in the 1817 register or in later returns for the estate, but by 1831, there were five more Margarets on Potosi: 17-year-old Margaret Morison, 15-year-old Margaret McBean, a 14-year-old and 11-year-old listed without surnames whose mothers were Chance and Lettice respectively, and five-year-old Margaret Murray, the daughter of Mary McBean.
We can discount little Margaret Murray and, one would hope, the 11 year old, but Susan Stuart's mother could theoretically have been any one of the other Margarets. Chloe's daughter Margaret, by then 34 years old, or Kitty Brack/Margaret, by then 35, could also have been known as Margaret Stuart later in their lives, since last names could change. These possibilities are reflected in the family tree below.
Also included in the family tree, with question marks to indicate uncertainty are Katey (b. 1818), whose mother was named as Dappney, and Cynthia (b. 1822), whose mother was Daphne. Sukey's Daphne would have been only 13 and 17 when these children were born and there was another woman of the same name on the estate who was born in 1794. She would have been 24 and 28 when these children were born.
Here's the next instalment, about one of John Tharp's descendants:
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