The third generation of Anguillians were those born in the
thirty-years between 1711 and 1740. The
fourth generation were those born between 1741 and 1770. There is not a great deal of material on
their living conditions during this period.
We must sift through the few documents that survive to gain a glimpse
here and there into what their life was like at that time.
We saw that when Governor Walter Hamilton received word in late
1717 that the Anguillians migrated in numbers to Crab Island, he visited both
islands.[1] In both of them he took a census of the
persons present, giving the names of the free white men and the numbers of
persons present in their households. The
names of the persons mentioned in the 1717 Anguilla census are of interest.[2] If one examines it carefully, one notices
gaps in the first column of ‘men’. These
gaps indicate that the men named were missing on the day the census was
taken. The likelihood is that they were
the men who went to Crab Island with Abraham Howell Sr. They left their families, households, and
estates behind in Anguilla, as they tried to carve out a new life for them and
their families. Most of the absent men
were not, as we might reasonably have assumed, young single men with no
families and few responsibilities. They
were for the most part married with children and estates.
The 1717 Crab Island census tells us that there were 46 white
planters settled on that island.[3] Most of the Crab Island settlers were
accompanied by slaves. This indicates
that the immigrating planters were white men of some substance on
Anguilla. We saw that 42 men signed the
1717 Petition to settle Crab Island. A
comparison of the names indicates that, not surprisingly, 40 of them went to
Crab. This high ratio of petitioners to
emigrants indicates the both the desperation and the determination of the men
involved. In addition, they took along
with them 6 other planters who did not sign the petition, and 62 slaves. We are not told the names or any other
information about the black slaves who accompanied them. At the time of Hamilton’s visit to Crab,
there were, therefore, 46 white planters and their indentured white servants and
62 black slaves present on the prospective new colony.
The 1717 Crab Island census gives us the names of the 46 white persons,
but only the numbers of slaves who went with them to Crab Island, not their
names. Some of these early Anguillian
names disappeared from the Anguillian records after this fiasco. We may assume that some of them died when the
Spaniards from Puerto Rico destroyed the settlement. Others who survived their subsequent
incarceration in the Spanish gaols later emigrated to other islands. Such were: Henry Osborne, Thomas Allen, George
Garner, Abraham Wingood, William Beal, Joseph Mason, Andrew Watson and William
Smith. Among the important planters that
we lose track of around this time are Peter Downing, Bezaliel Howell, Nehemiah
Richardson, Abraham Chalwill Sr, and Samuel Floyd. Some of the Crab Island names do re-appear in
later documents as evidence that they survived the Crab Island adventure. These include, of the major planters, Abraham
Howell Sr and Thomas Gumbs. Other
Anguillians who survived and continued to play a role in Anguilla’s affairs
included Thomas Hodge, Thomas Coakley, Thomas Howell and Abraham Chalwell Jr.
The 1717 Anguilla census shows who the major planters were. They were only the third generation of Anguillians,
in this difficult period of Anguilla’s history.
At the head of the list, both literally and figuratively, is Captain George
Leonard with his wife, four children and forty-one slaves. Compared to the other planters of the island,
his was a large establishment. There
were only seven others, out of just over one hundred planters, who possessed
twenty or more slaves. The biggest
planters after Leonard were John Rogers, Peter Downing, Thomas Gumbs, Thomas
Howell, Bezaliel Howell, Thomas Rogers and John Richardson. Three of these seven major planters, Downing,
Gumbs and Bezaliel Howell were with Abraham Howell Sr on Crab Island in
1717. This suggests that almost one half
of the influential planters of Anguilla joined Howell in the attempted exodus
to Crab Island. The situation on the
island that year was desperate for such a course of events to take place.
The starving condition of the Anguillians
due to the lengthy drought was not appreciated by those who did not experience
it. We have seen John Oldmixon’s
scathing description of Anguilla in the first decade of the eighteenth century.[4] It is clear from his description of the
Anguillians as “perhaps the laziest creatures in the world” that he never
visited Anguilla, but only repeated the old canards and libels. He claimed out of ignorance of the real soil
and climate conditions, that if only an industrious people were in possession
of Anguilla it would soon be developed. He
related how it was called ‘Anguis Insula’ or ‘Snake Island’, which is utter
nonsense.
The country, he wrote, was level and woody
and the soil fruitful. The English first
settled there, he wrote, in 1650, in the area where the island was broadest and
there was a pond. By this, he seems to
be indicating that the first settlers occupied the fertile areas around Cauls
Pond and Bad Cox Pond in the east end of the island. The Fahlberg map of 1792 shows Anguilla shaped
as a sort of tadpole, with the widest part indeed around the Cauls Pond and Bad
Cox Pond area (see illus 1).[5] This representation of Anguilla was repeated
in later maps and was not corrected until the Carter Rey map of 1921, the first
accurate cartographic representation of the island. The major ponds of Anguilla at this time were
believed to lie in the east of the island.
This view, that the first settlements lay in the Stoney Ground-Cauls
Pond area, accords with the surviving documents of the earliest period of
Anguilla’s history. These deal mainly
with titles to land in the Stoney Ground and Shoal Bay areas.
1. Samuel Fahlberg: Chart of Anguilla St
Maarten, and St Barthelemy.
In 1717, a few days before Abraham Howell Sr
led his party of settlers away from Anguilla to Crab Island, Robert Lockrum of
Tortola but formerly of Anguilla executed a conveyance of his plantation in
Stoney Ground in favour of Thomas Lake. He obtained his Stoney Ground Plantation by a
1704 patent from Governor Christopher Codrington Jr. His 1704 patent is now lost. It was for land bordering other land at
Stoney Ground granted in the same year by Codrington by a surviving patent to
his brother Edward Lake.[6] Thomas Lake’s plantation is described as
being bound on the north by the land of Edward Lake and the land of Gilbert Roe,
west with Cockpit estate, east with the land of Thomas Call and south with the
land of Rice Williams. The reason for
Robert Lockrum selling his estates in this manner is not clear. Neither he nor any of his family of five
children and three slaves joined Abraham Howell Sr in the exodus to Crab. We know this from the 1716 census. Robert Lockrum's name is still preserved
today as a place name. Lockrums Estate
lies between Little Harbour and Blowing Point village. He and his family probably emigrated to
Tortola to join the Quaker settlement in that island. Thomas Call is remembered today only as the
eponymous owner of the pond and plantation that lies to the east of Stoney
Ground.
Oldmixon claimed that the people of
Anguilla at the beginning of the century were completely without any culture or
learning.[7] They lived, he wrote, without any concern for
anything other than to be able to have something to eat and something to
wear. Of the two, he jeered, their food
was of a better standard than their clothing.
They gave themselves to each other in marriage, without the benefit of
any lawyer to put them to the expense of a marriage contract, or of a priest to
pluck money for licences out of their pockets.
Though their marriages were only common law marriages, they stayed
faithful to each other as a change could never improve their condition,
everyone being equally poor. He
concluded by claiming that in Anguilla, due to the absence of law, every man
was his own master, which was true enough.
It was a primitive society, he wrote, where no man's power exceeded the
bounds of his household.
Some indication of how unbearable
conditions in Anguilla were at that time is provided by Governor Rogers' claim
in a 1719 dispatch to the Committee that the entire population of Anguilla accepted
his offer to transfer to the Bahamas.[8] He describes Anguilla as a defenceless and
barren island, with about 1,800 blacks and whites. The people were poor but industrious. He was anxious to have them relocate to the Bahamas
as they lived in perfect friendliness with each other. They were of modest behaviour and their
influence would help to reform the rough manners of the people then inhabiting
the Bahamas. Governor Rogers was yet to
learn that, though the Anguillians complain bitterly about their island,
referring to it even today as ‘The Rock’, they were unwilling to give up one
inch of it. It is unlikely that many of
them removed to the Bahamas on the boat he sent to collect them.
By 1724, the date of Governor Hart’s
estimate of the population of the Leeward Islands, the population of Anguilla
is still declining.[9] The long drought of 1680-1725 has not yet
ended. There are approximately 360 white
persons, of whom only 85 are in the militia and presumably the total number of
fit white men on the island (see table 1).
Governor Hamilton just four years earlier put the population of whites
at 409, with 121 in the militia.
White
|
Black
|
Militia
|
|
Antigua
|
5,200
|
19,800
|
1,400
|
St Christopher
|
4,000
|
11,500
|
1,200
|
Nevis
|
1,100
|
6,000
|
300
|
Montserrat
|
1,000
|
4,400
|
350
|
Anguilla
|
360
|
900
|
85
|
Spanish Town
|
340
|
650
|
78
|
Tortola
|
420
|
780
|
100
|
Total
|
12,420
|
44,030
|
3,513
|
Table 1: Governor Hart’s Estimate of the
Population of the Leeward Islands, 1724. CO.152/13.
In the year 1734 Governor Mathew reported
that the militia was now increased from 85 to about 100 men.[10] This population increase is an indication
that conditions in Anguilla were improving now that the long drought had ended.
As we have seen, in this early period tough
conditions forced Anguillians to look elsewhere for the means of survival. One significant destination was the Virgin
Islands. There are in the Anguilla
Archives fleeting glimpses of Anguillians who immigrated to Tortola and other
Virgin Islands. In his 1731 will, Peter
Rogers Sr, left his estates to his children in equal shares.[11] This is what he wrote,
Imprimis. I give my beloved children all my lands
equally to be divided between them, both what land I have in said Island and in
the island of Tortola to them and their lawful heirs forever.
Item. I give my
son Peter Rogers one Negro man named Jacob to him and to the lawful heirs of
his body freely to be possessed by them.
Item. I give my
daughter Elizabeth and the lawful heirs, of her body a Negro wench named
Marrote with all the increase that shall come from said Negro wench.
Item. I give to
my daughter Mary and to the lawful heirs of her body a Negro wench called
Lucilla with all the increase that shall come from said Negro wench.
Item. I give
unto my son Bezeliall and to the lawful heirs of his body one Negro man named Sampson.
Item. I give
unto my daughter Rebecca and the lawful heirs of her body one Negro man named
Jupiter.
Item. I leave
the rest of my Negroes to the disposal of my lawful and now married wife Mary
to give and dispose of them amongst our children according as she thinks
proper.
He devised land in both Tortola and in
Anguilla to his children. The likelihood
is that he emigrated, residing in Tortola for at least a part of each
year. Peter Rogers died the same year he
made his will. He died quite young, as the
children in his will were minors. He was
probably a son of Mannin Rogers, and one of Thomas Chalkey’s Quaker
converts. He was one of those Anguillians
who did not accompany Abraham Howell Sr on the third illegal venture to Crab
Island in 1717. Instead, he sought to
improve his lot by acquiring additional land on the British settlement of
Tortola.
In the will, he described himself as a
planter. He did not say whether he planted
cotton, sugarcane, or only food crops.
He did not mention any mill-house, still, or other sugar works. The likelihood is that despite his extensive
landholdings in Anguilla and Tortola he survived in typical Anguillian fashion by
keeping small stock and growing pigeon peas, corn and sweet potatoes when the
weather permitted it.
His will is an example of an early
Anguilla document being fortuitously preserved in the Archives as a result of
its production in evidence in a land dispute many years later. There is a note written on it that it was
presented for recording in the Secretary's Office in Anguilla in 1760. This is the earliest Anguillian will
preserved in the Archives.
Samuel Downing was another Anguillian who
emigrated. In his 1739 deed, he conveyed
for the price of £172 10s his Crocus Bay plantation to Elizabeth Rogers.[12] We last saw Samuel Downing in the 1717
Anguilla census listed as a married man with six children and with a grown
daughter in his household. He was now
described in the 1739 deed as "of
Tortola, merchant." He emigrated
from Anguilla to Tortola, where he did well in the intervening twenty years.
Deputy governor John Richardson was
another Anguillian with extensive family connections in the Virgin
Islands. His 1741 deed from William
Hodge of Tortola and his wife Elizabeth Hodge reveals him purchasing, just
before his death, a plantation of the late Jacob Richardson, on the south coast
of the island in Spring Division.[13] The deed reads:
Anguilla. Know all men by these presents that we
William Hodge of the island of Tortola and Elizabeth my wife do for ourselves
our heirs Executors Administrators and Assigns as also for and in the behalf of
Rachael Richardson daughter of my said wife and Jacob Richardson deceased the
former husband of my said wife in consideration of the sum of one hundred
pistoles current cash of this island to us in hand already paid by John
Richardson Esq of said island the receipt whereof we do hereby acknowledge and
ourselves therewith fully and entirely satisfied
have given granted bargained
and sold and by these presents do in plain and open market according to due
form of law give grant bargain and sell unto the said John Richardson Esq, his
Heirs, Executors, Administrators and assigns for ever, a certain parcel of land
or plantation situate lying and being in the Spring Division of the said Island
being butted and bounded as follows on the eastern side with the lands of said
John Richardson Esq and Benjamin Gumbs, on the south part with the sea, on the
west side with the land formerly belonging to Edward [ . . .] now in possession
of the said John Richardson Esq and the land formerly belonging to Patrick
Campbell and lately in possession of Bezeliel Rogers deceased, and on the north
part bounding with the neighbouring plantation
to have hold occupy possess and
enjoy the aforesaid parcel of land or plantation to the only proper use benefit
and behoof of him said John Richardson Esq his heirs executors Administrators
or Assigns together with all the appurtenances benefits and privileges thereto
belonging there from arising or in anywise . . .
Jacob Richardson died a young man. He was an infant at the time of the 1716
census. His name first appears in the
Archives when he signed the 1727 Proclamation.
His widow Elizabeth Richardson remarried William Hodge of Tortola, a
leading member of the Tortola branch of the Hodge family. By the law of succession of the time,
Elizabeth required the signature of her new husband to the deed, which was also
expressed to be made on behalf of Jacob's daughter and heir, Rachael.
Anguillians are credited with introducing
the Society of Friends, or Quakers, to the Virgin Islands. As James Birkett wrote to John Dilworth in
1740,[14]
Tortola has been settled above
20 years, and the first that professed our principles there was the present
governor's father Abednigo Pickering. He
came from Anguilla where formerly a small meeting was held and he at times
frequented the same. After settling in
Tortola, he was instrumental in convincing his overseer and steward, who is now
a very conscientious and honest friend, and an example worthy of imitation by
those who enjoy far greater privileges.
Abednigo Pickering previously lived in
Anguilla for twenty years at least. He
owned property purchased as early as 1698.
In either that year or the following year, he purchased from Jacob
Howell the plantation that Howell acquired in 1698 from deputy governor George
Leonard.[15] He appeared in the 1717 Anguilla census
listed as a planter. He was then married
with four children and ten slaves. He
emigrated to Tortola sometime after 1717 and settled there.
James Birkett’s 1740 letter describes how
Abednigo Pickering attended Quaker meetings in Anguilla before he emigrated,
and how he brought the principles of Quakerism to Tortola. His son, John Pickering, subsequently became
deputy governor of Tortola. Thomas
Coakely also describes holding Quaker meetings at John Pickering’s house in
Tortola.
It was not unusual for the deeds and
patents of this period for one document to deal in several parcels of land in
different parts of the island. In the
years before sugar was grown, the cotton and provision grounds of a planter
might be scattered around the island. The
causes of such scattering would include the accidents of inheritance and
marriage, not deliberately by purchase.
So, Edward Lake’s 1704 patent granted him
three separate parcels.[16] The first was an estate south of the Lake's
estate at Shoal Bay. The second was
Waters’, or Wattices, which previously belonged to Ann Hackett. The third was Hazard Hill estate, the
location of which is now lost, and which reappeared again in William Gumbs' will
of 1748.[17] We have noted that this is one of the first
surviving Anguillian patents granted directly by the hands of the
Governor-in-Chief Christopher Codrington Jr.
In the year 1711, Anne Williams, the widow
of Rice Williams, made a most complicated and unorthodox arrangement for the
disposal of a portion of her cotton and provision lands. Her land was a part of the estate of her late
husband Rice Williams. The deed of gift reads
as follows:
Anguilla. Know all men by these presents that I, Ann
Williams, of the Island of Anguilla, widow, for and in consideration of the
love, goodwill and affection which I have and do bear to my well beloved
son-in-law Thomas Lake of the said island, planter, have given and granted and
by these presents do freely clearly and absolutely give and grant unto him the
said Thomas Lake his heirs executors administrators or assigns for ever a
certain part or parcel of land out of the plantation I now dwell on known by
the name of Well Ground, bounding eastwardly with the rocks above the well, so
running westwards to the foot of the Rosemary grass, bounding north with the
rocks, and south with the stone wall and Rowland's Cotton Ground.
Likewise if the other part of
the plantation should come to be divided or parted at my death that he is then
to have his equal share of all the rocks and woods as far forth as any other of
my natural children. On the contrariwise
if the plantation should never be divided then he shall occupy and measure as
far forth as any other of my children as aforesaid.
So that likewise if the
plantation should be divided as aforesaid and the land whereon the said Thomas
Lake's house doth stand should fall to any of the other children that he shall
have free liberty to withdraw his said house and the said Thomas Lake is not to
debar or hinder me nor any of my children of the well and nut tree.
By this deed, she granted her son-in-law Thomas
Lake a portion of her Well Ground Plantation.
This was a cotton estate lying adjacent to Edward Lake in Shoal
Bay. It was bound, she wrote, on the
south by Rowland's Cotton Ground. We
first saw Rowland Williams in the 1716 Census, married with one child and 5
slaves.[18] This was the household of a typical
Anguillian small cotton farmer of the time.
The same Census listed Ann Williams as a widow with one child and 3
slaves in her household. The areas
called the Well Ground, the Rosemary Grass and Rowlands Cotton Ground are now
unknown. This document is primary
evidence of the continuing cultivation of cotton in Anguilla in the last years
of the long drought.
Ann Williams intended that if, after her
death, the remainder of Rice Williams’ estate was divided among the heirs, then
her son in law, Lake, was to share equally in the estate. If, at that time, the land on which Lake's
house stood should fall to the lot of one of the other children, then he should
be free to take up his house and move it to another site. This type of home-made deed of gift could
only be made in a community where small parcels of land were cultivated, and
sugar cane was not yet introduced. The
significance of her mentioning her son in law by name, and not his wife her
daughter, was it will be recalled that at this time a married woman did not
hold title to land, as all her real property was legally held by her husband.
Quite what legal right she claimed to be able
to dictate how her husband’s estate was to be disposed of is not clear. Indeed, the document reads more like a will
than a deed of conveyance. It must have
caused her heirs countless years of confusion and litigation. It will not surprise us to learn that a copy
of it is preserved in the records of the Court of Common Pleas of Anguilla.
The Thomas Lake Sr mentioned in the deed
of gift owned several pieces of land. He
was a member of one of the oldest families on the island. Yet we notice that he occupied a house that
he could pick up and move if a conflict arose with his in-laws. A chattel house was one that was so small it
could be lifted onto a cart and moved, by mule or donkey, to another
location. The paucity of eighteenth-century
stone ruins of private dwellings in Anguilla confirms that the housing of the
early settlers and planters were in the main chattel houses, if not wattle and
daub ones.
Wattle-and-daub houses were a common sight
throughout the islands as homes of the less well-off. Such a house was made by daubing a mixture of
cow-dung and mud over a latticework of canes or wattles to build up a
wall. The floors of such houses were
normally the same as the ground outside, dirt.
Most of these in Anguilla were destroyed by hurricanes, culminating in Hurricane
Donna in 1960. After that year they were
replaced by concrete houses, the preferred building style of Anguillians until
the end of the twentieth century.[19]
Edward Welch witnessed Thomas Lake’s deed
of gift from Ann Williams. He was one of
the Welch family that owned the area in the north-east of Anguilla that we now
know as Welches. Of the three persons
who executed this deed, two of them, the grantor Ann Williams and one of the
witnesses Edward Welch, were unable to write their names.[20] They signed by making their marks. The writing of the letter ‘X’ in lieu of a
signature is a recognised procedure for persons who cannot read and write. They sign a legal document by marking the
letter ‘X’ in the designated spot after it is read over to them and they
confirm to the witnesses that they understand its contents and agree to
them. Thomas Howell, on the other hand,
was a man of some education and standing.
At any rate, he was literate enough to write his own name. We see him later appointed to be a member of
the Anguilla Council. In the absence of any
lawyer on the island, he probably drew the deed himself.
[1] Chapter 10: Crab Island Revisited.
[2] Ibidem.
[4] See Chapter
6: War and the Settlers.
[5] Dr Samuel Fahlberg (1758-1834) moved to St
Barts as a physician in 1784 after the island was ceded to Sweden by
France. In 1803 he was named Director of
Survey of St Barts, and thoroughly mapped the island for the Swedish West India
Company.
[6] Chapter 5: The Second Generation.
[7] See chapter 6: War and the Settlers.
[9] CO.152/14, folio 325: Hart to the
Committee on 10 July 1724, enclosure: Answer to Queries.
[10] CO.152/20: Mathew to the Committee.
[11] Anguilla Archives: Peter Rogers’ 1731 Will.
[12] Anguilla Archives: Elizabeth Rogers’
1739 deed.
[13] Anguilla Archives: John Richardson’s
1741 deed.
[14] CF Jenkins, Tortola: A Quaker Experiment of Long Ago
in the West Indies (1923), p.9, quoting Birkett.
[15] As appears from an endorsement of Jacob
Howell’s 1698 deed in the Anguilla Archives.
[16] Chapter 5: The Second Generation.
[18] Chapter 10: Crab Island Revisited.
[19] One 1978 architectural report on the housing of
Anguilla amused itself by describing the post-Hurricane Donna houses of
Anguilla as belonging to the “neo-Puerto Rican concrete style of architecture”.
[20] Probably the father of deputy governor
Edward Welch of 1749. See Chapter 17: The
Council.
