Several women called Nelly on Lansquinet

The 1817 slave register for John Tharp's Lansquinet estate lists three individuals with a mother called Nelly: Cretia (b. 1806), Lewis (b. 1810) and Providence (b. 1813). Later returns add Fuller (b. 13th of May 1818),[1] Abigail (1824-1830) and Lucy (1825-1826). Lucy was described as Sambo, indicating that she had white ancestry in her grandparents' generation or earlier. 

The mother of Providence is named as C Nelly, with C usually standing for Coromantee. If this interpretation is correct, this Nelly would had been brought to Jamaica from Ghana. 

Various documents record up to eight women called Nelly on the estate, and I'll list them all here for reference. The family trees in this post show possibilities, so some children appear in more than one tree below:

1. Nelly who was estimated to be 78 in 1817 (b. 1739 in Jamaica)
2. Nelly who was estimated to be 83 in 1823 (b. 1740 in Africa, died 1823)
3. Nelly the mother of Providence (b. 1813), who was named as C[oromantee] Nelly
4. Nelly who was estimated to be 41 in 1817 and 42 when she died (1776-6th of January 1819)*
5. Nelly who was estimated to be 34 in 1817 and 37 when she died between 1823 and 1826 (1783-1823). She was described as Quadroon.
6. Nelly (b. 1787 to Esther, see 'Esther of Lansquinet')
7. Nelly aka Priscilla (b. 1806 to Esther, see 'Esther of Lansquinet')
8. Nelly (b. 1817 to Phillis). She was too young to have been the mother of any of these children, and her family tree is discussed in 'Three women called Phillis on Lansquinet'.

Nelly 1 and 2 were probably the same woman. Only one of them is listed in the 1817 register and it is more likely that her place of birth was wrongly noted on her death (a reasonably common occurrence) than that one of these women was omitted from the comprehensive register of 1817. Either way, she or they were too old to be the mother of any of these children.

If Nelly 3 was born in Africa, she appears not to have been included in the 1817 register and may have died before it was compiled. Depending when she died, she could have given birth to Lewis and Providence as well as to Cretia[2].

Nelly 4 is the only one of these women who did not have a named mother or a white father to confirm that she was born in Jamaica. Even so, she was consistently described as creole (born in Jamaica), both in 1817 and in 1820 when her death was recorded. It's still possible that she was the same woman as Nelly 3 if C. stood for something other than Coromantee. Nelly 4 could have been the mother of Cretia[2], Lewis and Providence, but she died before Fuller, Abigail and Lucy were born.




Nelly 5. (b. 1783) is the only one of these women to have any white ancestry and she could therefore have been Lucy's mother. Although she could have given birth to any of the other children on purely chronological grounds, the colour descriptions aren't compatible with her being their mother. 





Nelly 6 (b. 1787) could have given birth to any or all of these children except Lucy.[2] She seems to be the only possible mother for Fuller.






Nelly 7 aka Priscilla (b. 1806) is unlikely to have given birth to Fuller when she was twelve, but could certainly have been the mother of Abigail.




[1] Fuller's birth and the death of Nelly 4 were recorded in the 1820 return of 'increases' and 'decreases', which is the only return that gives dates.

[2] For possible children for Cretia see 'Two women called Cretia and one called Lucretia on Lansquinet'.


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