In
Chapter 9 we saw how in the year 1683 the first deputy governor of Anguilla, Abraham
Howell, led a party of Anguillians to claim and to settle Crab Island, a small
island, now called Vieques, a few miles to the east of Puerto Rico (see illus
1). That 1683 settlement of Crab Island was
not authorized by the Governor in Chief Sir William Stapleton, and it was
short-lived. We saw that the following
year Abraham Howell was back in Anguilla, granting John Lake a patent to land
at Statia Valley.
1. Map of Vieques
We also
saw that in 1688, the Scotsman, William Pellett, apparently with Abraham
Howell’s tacit support, drew away some of the Anguillian settlers in a second attempt
to settle and hold Crab Island. Howell did
not go with them. Governor in Chief Christopher
Codrington Sr held Howell responsible for failing to restrain his people from
sailing off to Crab Island. Whether for
this reason or some other, Howell fell out of favour with him. Codrington revoked Howell’s commission as
deputy governor in 1689 and appointed George Leonard in his place. Howell, in the meantime continued to enjoy considerable
local support, even continuing to be addressed as governor.
As the
long drought persisted into the eighteenth century, Anguillians continued to
migrate westwards towards the Virgin Islands.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the colonial
authorities classed Crab Island among the Virgin Islands. We have seen that Chief Justice George
Suckling has credited Anguillians with being the first settlers in the Virgin
Islands.
Southey
records for the year 1694 that,
About this time some Englishmen with their families removed from
Anguilla to the Virgin Islands, where they made considerable improvements: they were governed by a deputy governor and
Council, nominated from among themselves.
There were no taxes. Money, when
wanted for public purposes, was raised by voluntary subscription.[1]
Howell,
despite his repulse from Crab by the Danes in 1683, and the destruction by the
Spaniards of the subsequent Scottish settlement in 1688, still set his eyes on the
wooded valleys of Crab, lush in comparison to Anguilla. Some of the Anguillians who trickled into the
English Virgin Islands chose to move on to Crab Island to settle it. These movements into the Danish Virgin
Islands were unauthorised and exposed the settlers to attack from the Spanish
and the Danes. They were desperate men
to choose such a dangerous course of action.
In
April 1716, Governor Walter Hamilton passed on to the Privy Council Committee
for Foreign Plantations an Account of the Virgin Islands sent to him by
the deputy governors of Anguilla and Spanish Town,[2] Abraham
Howell and Thomas Hornby.[3] In the Account we see Abraham Howell at his
best. It claims to have been authored by
Hornby, but its style is unmistakably that of Howell. They described each of the Virgin Islands,
starting with Crab Island, in terms of its agricultural potential, the value of
its harbours to both trade and to the navy, and the quality of its timber for
building and for export. The old
patriarch showed himself to be not just eloquent, but an explorer, geographer,
mariner and military strategist. He was
by this time an old man. He was probably
an infant among the first settlers of 1650.
He was elected to be the deputy governor of Anguilla in 1666. In 1716, about the age of eighty years, he
was still a visionary and a leader of men.
He continued to carry the courtesy titles of captain of the militia and
deputy governor. His purpose in writing
the Account was to persuade the authorities to extend the protection of the Crown
to the English settlers on Crab Island by declaring it to be a part of the
colony of the Leeward Islands.
Howell
and Hornby described Crab Island as the best of the Virgins. The land, they wrote, was extraordinarily
good, nearly all of it being cultivatable.
The soil was very rich, and the land was level. There were two good roadsteads and two better
harbours. They played down the
attributes of the remainder of the Virgin Islands. The soil of Tortola and Virgin Gorda, they
wrote, was poor, and the harbours inadequate.
This Account may be considered a sort of brief for their main argument,
which was that the Governor ought to permit the starving Anguillian settlers to
emigrate to Crab Island.
Governor
Hamilton commented on this aspect of the Account in his 1716 covering dispatch
to the Committee.[4] He noted that though the land as they said
was very good for agriculture, yet it came with the disadvantage that it was
very close to Puerto Rico. The Spanish
claimed sovereignty over it. They
considered the West Indian homesteaders to be trespassers. As Hamilton observed, the result was that no
settler would be safe in his property.
He reminded the Committees of the earlier incident of 1688 when the
settlement under the command of William Pellet was destroyed by the
Spaniards. He put forward an alternative
solution on the Committee. He urged that
consideration be given to the need of the Anguillians to be resettled
elsewhere. His proposal was to allot
them small plantations from the late French half of St Kitts. The
French lands were
captured by the British in Queen Anne’s War,
and confirmed as entirely British by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
Hamilton
later reported that the Anguillians petitioned him to permit them to go and
settle Crab Island.[5] From this, it is clear that the Anguillians
under Howell did, at least, seek the Governor’s consent before they decided to act. They were not ignorant of the legal
consequences of an unauthorized settlement on foreign soil. Hamilton enclosed a copy of the Anguilla petition
with his dispatch (see illus 2).
2. An extract from the 1716 Anguilla
petition to settle Crab Island. CO.152/11. (UK National Archives®)
This
petition was the formal application of the Anguillians for a commission to establish
the settlement on Crab Island. From the
style of its writing, it was almost certainly written by Abraham Howell
himself. Such a commission would
legalise the settlement and bring it under the full protection of the Crown, or
at least of the man-of-war stationed in Antigua. The original is very faint and difficult to
read. With some effort, you can discern
that this is what he wrote,
To his Excellency Walter
Hamilton Esq, Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over all His
Majesty's Leeward Caribbee Islands in America
The humble address of His
Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the inhabitants of His Majesty's
Island of Anguilla
HUMBLY SHEWETH unto your
Excellency that for several years last past the Island of Anguilla hath been
attended with insupportable droughts, that the land of the same being very poor
and barren by means whereof not capable of production sufficient for the
inhabitants thereof to subsist on; many of them ready to perish and starve for
want of food, which we the said inhabitants desire to remove to the island
commonly called Crab Island and there to endeavour to cultivate the same in
planting necessary food for our relief and sustenance rather than utterly
perish;
WHEREFORE we the said inhabitants, His Majesty's most
dutiful and loyal subjects, in most humble manner commend the premises to your
Excellency's mature consideration and pray that your Excellency would please of
your abundant goodness and compassion to protect us in the quiet and peaceable
enjoyment of the said island, otherwise we must inevitably perish.
And in duty bound we shall ever
pray for your Excellency's long life in health and prosperity long to reign -
Christopher Hodge Benjamin
Arrindell
Thomas Hodge Sr Isaac Arrindell
Benjamin Hodge Andrew Watson
Arthur Hodge Samuel
Floyd
Peter Hodge Samuel
Lloyd
Nehemiah Richardson John Richardson
Jeremiah Richardson William
Richardson
George Richardson Joseph
Mason
John Richardson Daniel Bryant
William Chalwill Sr Rowland
Williams
William Chalwill Jr Henry
Osborne
Abraham Challwill Thomas
Allen
William Gumbs George Garner
Thomas Gumbs David Derrick
Thomas Coakley William Smith
Ceasar Coakley Cornelius Harrigan
Edward Coakley Peter Harrigan
John Richardson William Beal
Abraham Wingood Bezaliel Howell
Thomas Lake Abraham
Howell
John Lake Joseph Lake
We
learn from this petition that for several years before 1716 Anguilla suffered a
severe drought. As a result, the land became
very poor and barren and incapable of producing the minimum of crops for the
people to subsist on. Many Anguillians
were on the verge of dying from starvation.
For this reason, they craved the Governor in Chief’s consent to their
removing themselves to Crab Island.
Governor
Hamilton however refused their pleas. He
understood the attempt to start a settlement on the small Puerto Rican
dependency of Crab Island would set off an international incident. There was no way that he was going to risk
being the cause of a war between Spain and Britain without direct and explicit
instructions from London.
While
he waited for word from London, in October 1716 Governor Hamilton produced a
list of the names of the free male inhabitants of Anguilla.[6] This is the first detailed and accurate
census of Anguilla (see table 1). In the
style of the time, it names the free white men, the numbers (without names) of
adult white women, white children in their households, and slaves.
Men’s
names
|
White
Men
|
White
Women
|
White
Children
|
Negroes
|
Working
Negroes
|
Capt George Leonard
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
33
|
20
|
Capt Abraham Howell
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
15
|
10
|
Arthur Hodge
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
13
|
8
|
John Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
26
|
16
|
Dar. Downing, Wid
|
0
|
1
|
7
|
12
|
10
|
Isaac Thibou
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
4
|
3
|
Isaac Aderly
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
4
|
Charles Kagen [ie, Keagan]
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
Peter Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
10
|
4
|
John Chapman
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
Elli. Connor, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
Paul Rowan [ie, Ruan]
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
13
|
7
|
Timothy Connor
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
0
|
0
|
Joshua Newton
|
1
|
2
|
4
|
9
|
4
|
Peter Downing
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
4
|
Jeremiah Spencer
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
2
|
Catherine Downing, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
14
|
10
|
Deborah Gumbs, Widow
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
27
|
17
|
William Chalwill [ie, Chalville]
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
21
|
13
|
John Pain [ie, Payne]
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
7
|
5
|
John Haragin [ie, Harrigan]
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
3
|
Jeremiah Martin
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
3
|
4
|
George Leonard
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
4
|
Sarah Leonard, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
Bezaliel Howell
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
22
|
10
|
Thomas Flanders
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
7
|
4
|
Richard Downing
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
9
|
5
|
David Darick [ie, Derrick]
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
9
|
4
|
Charles Kagen [ie, Keagan]
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
4
|
Cornelius Harragan [ie, Harrigan]
|
1
|
1
|
10
|
3
|
3
|
Briant Makdonaha [ie, MacDonough]
|
1
|
1
|
8
|
2
|
2
|
And. Tellies
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
Samuel Floid [ie, Lloyd]
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
9
|
4
|
William Gumbes [ie, Gumbs]
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
7
|
7
|
Edward Leake [ie, Lake]
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
19
|
10
|
Doriy. Py, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
3
|
2
|
Thomas Loyde [ie, Lloyd]
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
John Richards
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
4
|
2
|
Thomas Howell
|
1
|
2
|
7
|
24
|
17
|
Daniel Briant [ie, Bryant]
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
13
|
7
|
John Leake [ie, Lake]
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
8
|
5
|
Abraham Arundell [ie, Arrindell]
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
4
|
2
|
William Roberts
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
1
|
1
|
John Bryant
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
7
|
5
|
Richard Roberts
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
1
|
Thomas Leake [ie, Lake]
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
5
|
Rowland Williams
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
2
|
Ann Williams, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
Micl. Rowan [ie, Ruan]
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
12
|
7
|
Bazaliell Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
Jone Leake [ie, Joan Lake]
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
4
|
3
|
Jane Leake [ie, Lake]
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
John Welch
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
William Farrington
|
1
|
1
|
8
|
7
|
4
|
Alice Flight, Widow
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
Richard Arthur
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
5
|
5
|
Richard Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
10
|
5
|
Thomas Rumny [ie, Romney]
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
8
|
4
|
William Long
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
4
|
1
|
Darby Carty
|
1
|
0
|
4
|
3
|
3
|
William Howell
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
11
|
6
|
Abednigo Pickren [ie, Pickering]
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
10
|
5
|
Edward Coakley
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
4
|
3
|
John Rumny [ie, Romney]
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
5
|
4
|
John Downing
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
1
|
Grace Leonard
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
7
|
3
|
John Morgan
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
4
|
3
|
John Powell
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
3
|
1
|
Peter Frare
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
Samuel Vincent
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
Thomas Hughes
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
4
|
4
|
Robert Lockrum
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
Thomas Rumny [ie, Romney]
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
0
|
0
|
Thomas Coakley
|
1
|
1
|
9
|
22
|
9
|
Edward Coakley
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
12
|
9
|
John Thomas
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
11
|
6
|
James Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
Thomas Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
7
|
5
|
Jacob Howell
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
17
|
12
|
Thomas Hodge
|
1
|
1
|
8
|
18
|
12
|
Christopher Hodge
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
21
|
13
|
Peter Hodge
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
Benjamin Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
6
|
4
|
Henry Hodge
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
9
|
7
|
Susannah Manning
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Oliver Downing
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
8
|
6
|
William Bale [ie, Beal]
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Thomas Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
28
|
16
|
Bezaleel Rogers
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
11
|
8
|
Jeremiah Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
9
|
13
|
11
|
Nehemiah Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
15
|
9
|
Edward Welch
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
6
|
3
|
Ann Arrindell
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
Mary Watson
|
0
|
1
|
5
|
0
|
0
|
Joan Gladden [ie, Gladding]
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Benjamin Arrindell
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
5
|
5
|
Thomas Hancock
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
Samuel Kentish
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
John Richardson
|
1
|
1
|
9
|
32
|
22
|
Abraham Wingood
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
3
|
2
|
Henry Leonard
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
11
|
7
|
Totals
|
89
|
103
|
342
|
820
|
514
|
TaTable 1: Anguilla’s first census. Governor Hamilton's 1716 List of the
Inhabitants of Anguilla: CO.152/11.
We
observe that he lists in the first column the names of the white men who are
the heads of households. The second column
shows if they are alive and present on the island. If they have died, or are absent, or the head
of the household is a woman, no number appears in this second column. In the third column appears the number of
adult white women in the household. We are
not given their names, nor whether they are a spouse or an adult daughter. Most probably they are the spouses. In the remaining columns appear the numbers
of white children and the numbers of African slaves, both generally and showing
those who are of working age.
Howell’s
enthusiasm for the attractions of Crab Island was not confined to his written
Account. He was modest when describing
his personal accomplishments. But he was
ready to lead his desperate people in their search for improved living conditions
when their own deputy governor, George Leonard, and the Governor in Chief
refused them permission to chance their luck on Crab Island. On the 26 August 1717 with several sloops he
moved half the men of Anguilla to Crab Island against the express wishes of the
colonial authorities. These did not wish
to antagonize the Danes, who claimed Crab Island. Nor did they have the stomach to stir up the
Spaniards on Puerto Rico, who possessed the means to resist a settlement on the
little island to which they also claimed ownership.
In
August 1717, deputy governor George Leonard reported the exodus to Governor
Hamilton.[7] He described how Howell went off to Crab
Island taking with him some 40 white men and between 20 and 30 black men, and
without consulting him (see illus 3). He
wrote,
May it please your Excellency,
In your last to me, your
Excellency's desire was that I should use all endeavours to keep the people of
this island together until your Excellency had an answer from home, which
accordingly I did use all arguments with them that I could produce, and I
showed them what a fatherly care your Excellency had taken for them and your
Excellency's promise in continuing your care over them until your Excellency
had orders to settle them to their content.
But all would not do with sinking men, for having no orders to restrain
them, they laid hold of any twig.
What orders Captain Abraham
Howell brought from your Excellency I know not, neither was he so civil to
inform me. I sent and signified your
Excellency's instructions to me to him, but I don't understand he had any regard
for it but went away to Crab Island and carried away forty odd white men and
between twenty and thirty Negroes with him.
I wish them well, but the
success of such rash actions are always to be doubted.
As for Mr Merine of Spanish
Town, he proceeded from Dutch extraction and was born at Statia and of a
Protestant religion.
So, concluding with humble
thankfulness for ye sorrow your Excellency was pleased to express for the death
of my son, I beg leave to subscribe myself your Excellency's most humble and
obedient servant.
Anguilla. August the 12th 1717.
(sd) George Leonard
To his Excellency Walter Hamilton Esq, Captain General and
Commander in Chief over all his Majesty's Leeward Carribbee Islands in America
As he
explained, he used every argument to keep the people of the island together
until the Governor received an answer from London on the question of giving
them land in St Kitts. But, he
explained, nothing worked with desperate men.
They held on to the one small chance they saw of survival. They left for Crab Island despite the
Governor’s specific instructions to the contrary. Their attempt to occupy Crab Island was a
desperate move, driven by drought and starvation in Anguilla. As they saw it, their only chance of survival
was to take and hold an alternative place of settlement. He wished them well, but as he wrote
prophetically, the success of such a rash action was to be doubted.
For an
old sloop captain and cotton farmer, Leonard shows himself in his letter to
have a way with words almost to match Abraham Howell. These were not uneducated men. Leonard’s letter shows a use of graphic
metaphor, couched in the most dignified terms, describing what was a very
difficult time. The events that were
about to enfold would tear apart life on the island. One half of his little settlement was falling
away from under his feet. Family and business
relationships on the island were disintegrating due to the impossibly harsh
living conditions.
People
would die as a result of this desperate adventure. Yet, there was hardly a bitter word against
Howell in his dispatch. He made no
attempt to place any of the blame for the crisis in his little island
government on his predecessor. The two
men were not rivals for authority in Anguilla.
When called upon, each tried in his own way to perform his duties to his
people as he saw them.
Governor
Hamilton explained to the Committee that nothing that he or Leonard said to the
poor people of Anguilla was successful in restraining them.[8] He was apprehensive that the mischief of this
unauthorised settlement on Crab would not stop with the Anguillians. He learned that several of the poor
inhabitants of the other islands were talking of also removing themselves and
their families to Crab Island. This he
feared would weaken the military strength of the British islands in case war
broke out.
The
populations of Nevis, St Kitts and Montserrat were greatly reduced as a result
of the devastations of the French in the just ended war. Hamilton’s main concern as the head Leeward
Island administrator was to keep the four main islands as well settled as
possible so that there would be enough men to serve in the militia in time of
war. Any leeching away of the populations
of Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis or St Kitts to Crab Island would only serve to
weaken their defences.
Meanwhile, Abraham Howell’s 1717 action,
though he would never know it, caused a minor collateral diplomatic crisis
between London and Copenhagen. Whitehall
reacted, even though very sluggishly, to the pressure being brought from
Anguilla to permit settlers to go to the other less inhabited Virgins claimed
by Denmark.
In
August 1717, the Board of Trade asked the Danes for an explanation as to their settlement
on the island of St John.[9] Baron Sohlenthal, the Danish Ambassador,
responded in July 1718. He reminded the
Privy Council of the instructions given since September 1672 by the Committee
for Foreign Plantations to Governor Stapleton.
They told him then to exercise every mark of friendship towards the
Danes in St Thomas and the other Danish Virgin Islands. Baron Sohlenthal objected to the pretended
claim of the Anguillians to Crab Island since that time.
3. Leonard’s letter to Governor Hamilton
of 12 August 1717: CO.152/12/1. (UK National Archives®)
The
Danes were, he wrote, the first nation to take possession of those islands, and
always successfully opposed the attempts of the British settlers to establish
themselves there. He made a pointed dig
at his readers in Whitehall, which could not have failed to influence the eventual
attitude of the authorities in London as they dwelt with the Anguillian request
to be granted patents to land in the Virgins.
The British, he wrote, previously thought the Virgin Islands not
worthwhile settling for a nation which possessed such vast and fertile lands in
America. He suggested that the Danes were
satisfied with the crumbs left over for them in the West Indies. This, he suggested, made even less
justifiable the 1717 landing by the Anguillians on Crab. Therefore, on behalf of his King, he insisted
in the strongest possible terms that they should be immediately ordered to
leave the island. This was not the first
nor would it be the last time that developments in Europe, about which the
Anguillians were not aware, would decisively influence their fate.
[1] Thomas Southey, A Chronological History of
the West Indies (3 vols, 1827) Vol 2, p.3-4.
[2] Spanish
Town was the original name of Virgin Gorda, being the name of the main settlement
on that island and is still the name of the town on its north-west coast. For
consistency, and to avoid confusion, wherever a dispatch refers to Spanish
Town, it is rendered as Virgin Gorda in this work.
[3] For the full Account see chapter 15: The
Settlement of St Croix.
[4] CO.152/11, No 6: Hamilton to the Committee for Trade
and Foreign Plantations on 10 April 1716, enclosure 5: Account of the Virgin
Islands.
[5] CO.152/12/1, No 67: Hamilton to the
Committee on 6 January 1718, enclosure 5: Humble Address of the People of
Anguilla.
[6] CO.152/11, No 56: Hamilton to the
Committee on 3 October 1716, enclosure: List of the Inhabitants of Anguilla.
[7] CO.152/12/1, No 54: Hamilton to the
Committee on 26 August 1716, enclosure: Leonard’s letter of 12 August 1717.
[9] CO.152/12/3, No 101: Craggs of 3 July
1718.
