Dr Samuel B Jones was the resident doctor,
Magistrate, and Warden of Anguilla in the early 1930's.[1] While
he waited for court to open, and in between seeing patients in his clinic, he
read the deeds and wills filed in the Registry.
He wrote and published the first and best-known history of Anguilla.[2] In his Annals of Anguilla, he quotes
the 1740 will of John Richardson.[3] Richardson lived from 1679 to 1742. He was one of the third generation of Anguillians
and was deputy governor of Anguilla from 1735 to 1741. Dr Jones was interested in the bequest in the
will that reads,
Item. I give unto my son William Richardson and my
two grandsons John and William Richardson sons of my deceased son John
Richardson my small sloop called the Sea Flour, to attend and go forward
with the settlement at St Croix, and my will and desire is that Samuel Red
shall have the liberty in going and carrying what he has an occasion of towards
the settling of his plantation in St Croix but my son William is to have the
one moiety of said sloop.
Dr Jones expressed the hope that, “at some later date it may be possible to
discover to what extent the wishes of Governor Richardson were carried out in
regard to his colonization scheme for St Croix.” It is with something of a challenge from Dr
Jones that one picks through the Anguilla Archives and the Colonial Office
records in London, looking for some clue as to the connection between Anguilla
and St Croix in the first half of the eighteenth century.
The first useful document is Governor Walter
Hamilton’s dispatch of April 1716.[4] This is the dispatch in which he enclosed the
Account of the Virgin Islands, written by Abraham Howell and Thomas
Hornby,[5] the deputy governor of Tortola, and
Abraham Howell’s Petition of the People of Anguilla to permit them to
emigrate en masse to St Croix.[6]
The purpose of the Account was to buttress the Petition and to persuade
the Governor in Chief to give his official seal of approval to the settlement
of St Croix, then claimed by the French.
This is what they wrote,
Captain Howell has been at Crab
Island, and I have also been there some years ago, and now give your Excellency
the description as follows -
The land is extraordinary good,
and all of it except some rocky points near the sea manurable, the soil very
rich and level and is to the best our judgment in length about eight leagues
and in breadth about eight miles, very well timbered.
As to the roads, there is two
good roads, that is to say Sound Bay and Sandy Point at the west end. But for harbours there is but two, Great
Harbour and Portafairo, the first one ten foot water upon the bar but water
enough within, the latter is eleven foot on the bar, water within for great
ships; this is all that we know of Crab Island.
The next island of
consideration is Santa Crux which we have no knowledge of, having not been
there, but the inhabitants of these islands are, one or other of them,
continually there, and we have the following description from them: the length
of the island is 12 leagues, the breadth about eight or nine miles, the soil
extraordinary good, very well timbered, but one good road and that very good,
that a hundred sail of ships may ride.
Next is St John, about a league
in diameter, but very ordinary land not capable of settling many inhabitants,
viz, mountainous and difficult manuring, so that it is of consequence only for
an extraordinary good harbour for any shipping and good timber.
Next is Tortola of about 14 or
15 miles long and not above 2 miles broad, very mountainous, not capable of
making many sugar works; the land [ . . . ] is very good, but not much of it
manurable; there is but one good harbour for ships but several for small
sloops.
As for the rest of the small
Islands or keys rather, they are good for nothing but to feed goats on, being
rocky, barren land having nothing but scrubby bushes thereon, except one called
Joss Van Dicks which has some good house timber on it. The names:
First, Norman's Island
Chymanes little and great
St James's
Scrub
Thatch Islands little and great
The Dogs
St Peters Island
Prickle Pear
Salt Island
Mosquito
Coopers Island
Necker Island
Ginger Island
Little Statia
Jerusalem
The Anegadoes a stock island belonging to Thomas Hornbe
Guana Island
Beef Island
Testes
(sd) Thomas Hornbe
(sd) Abraham Howell
Governor Hamilton noted that the two
deputy governors claimed that Tortola was good for little. As for the people of Virgin Gorda, though it possessed
the most inhabitants of the British Virgin Islands, they lived very
meanly. It was, he wrote, a very
ordinary little island, of no profit to the Crown. As for Beef Island, it was hardly worth
mentioning.
The two deputy governors, he wrote, reported
to him that St Croix was frequently visited by the sloops of Anguilla and of
the Virgin Islands. The information was that
the soil was very good. It was also well
timbered, and it possessed a good roadstead.
This harbour was so large that one hundred ships might safely ride at
anchor in it. This part of the dispatch
tells us that the Anguillians were familiar with St Croix and considered it a
very desirable destination for settling.
Hamilton admits there was a downside to
occupying St Croix. The reason why these
two experienced and accomplished captains did not have the most recent
information on St Croix was that a Spanish pirate frequented its waters. This pirate only recently took an English
turtling sloop, probably from Anguilla or the Virgins. Despite this, Hamilton has received a
petition from the Anguillians to remove from Anguilla to settle St Croix. The Anguillians pleaded that their island was
so very poor and barren that it could not sustain them. In a very short time, they must leave it or
inevitably perish. What the Anguillians
wanted of the Governor were his patents to parcels of land on St Croix to allow
them to make their settlement there. The
Governor had no power to do so unless he was given a commission from London to
do so. He had no such
authorisation. He prudently deferred to
the decision of the Council on whether he might assist them in this way.
The Petition of 1716 to settle St Croix is
unsigned but bears all the hallmark of Abraham Howell's style and it says it
comes from him. The Petition reads (see
illus 1),[7]
To His Excellency Walter
Hamilton Esq, Captain General and Commander in Chief of all His Majesty's
Leeward Caribbee Islands in America and Vice Admiral of the Same
The Humble Petition of Abraham Howell Governor of the
Island of Anguilla for himself and in behalf of the rest of the Inhabitants of
said Island –
SHEWETH –
Unto your Excellency that your
Petitioner does for himself and the rest of the Inhabitants of Anguilla most
humbly take leave to represent unto your Excellency that the island they now
inhabit is so very poor and barren that it will not produce subsistence for the
Inhabitants, so that in a very short time they must leave the same or inevitably
perish for want of land to cultivate and manure. Now, may it please your Excellency, your
petitioner most humbly takes leave further to represent unto your Excellency
that there is a very large island called St Croix that is uninhabited and withal
of a very fertile soil and commodious, with good roads for shipping and trade.
Your Petitioner most humbly
prays your Excellency to take the premises unto your mature consideration and
grant Patents to the several Inhabitants of Anguilla for the settlement of St
Croix which in few years would be a place of trade that would raise a
considerable revenue per annum to the Crown of Great Britain.
And your Petitioner as in duty
bound shall ever pray, etc.
1. The Anguillian petition to settle St
Croix. CO.152/11, No 6, Enclosure No 4. (UK National Archives®)
This petition is expressed to be made by
the author as ‘governor of the island of Anguilla for himself and on behalf of
the rest of the inhabitants’ of Anguilla.
Although Howell was not deputy governor of Anguilla since 1689, he was
still in 1716, twenty-seven years later, carrying the honourary title. If Howell was still calling himself deputy
governor, then it is hardly surprising to see Hamilton referring to him
similarly. Neither the Governor in Chief
nor the authorities in London had any interest in or knowledge of the
government of Anguilla. Hamilton urged
the Board of Trade to allow the Anguillians to leave Anguilla and to settle St
Croix. He described St Croix as being uninhabited,
which can hardly have been true.
We learn more from Governor Mathew in 1733
of the history of the settlement of St Croix.
He wrote that the island was first settled by a group of homesteaders
from St Kitts in about the year 1640.[8] Sir Thomas Warner appointed one Johnson to be the first deputy
governor of St Croix. That settlement
did not last long. It proved very
unhealthy, and the settlers were also afraid of the Spanish from Puerto
Rico. They abandoned the settlement
after several years. Johnson was tried
for desertion after he returned to St Kitts.
The French finding the island deserted undertook its settlement. But, after several years, they too abandoned
the island and all the French moved to Saint Domingue. English log cutters and dye wood cutters resumed
their activities on the unclaimed island.
At the time of this report in 1733, there were, he wrote, about 100
English log cutters on the island. They
lived there with no form of government or organised society.
What was the point of this 1716
petition? Why did the Anguillians not do
as on Crab Island and just go off and settle the place without permission? There was a legal reason previously hinted at. Howell was now aware that to ensure success he
needed the protection of the British flag.
This he could secure only by getting the permission of the Governor in Chief
for the proposed settlement. If Howell
could persuade the Governor to accept St Croix as one of the Virgins and a part
of his Colony of the Leeward Islands, the Anguillians would be able to receive
grants of land and estates by way of patents.
Without the support and protection of the Governor and such forces as he
commanded in Antigua, there was no defence against the Danish or Spanish coast
guards and militias. With the Governor standing
behind them, they hoped they would not only enjoy the protection of the British
men-of-war in the area, but also receive legal title to the lands they occupied
and worked. This was preferable to
merely sneaking away to settle on a foreign island, furtively and against the
law of the time. They tried that approach
on Crab Island and failed.
Hamilton's protestations of indifference
as to whether the Lords of the Council gave permission for the settlement of St
Croix in his dispatch of April 1716 do not hide the axe he was busily grinding
away at. It will be remembered that at
this time Anguilla was classed as one of the Virgin Islands, although with its
own deputy governor. The Virgin Islands
were the northern half of the colony of the Leeward Islands. Hamilton referred to the urgings of one Captain
Walton. Walton was the deputy governor
of the British Virgin Islands. He was
busy urging the Lords of the Council to be made the first Governor of his
proposed colony. He agitated for a
separate government for the Virgin Islands which would have reduced Hamilton’s
territory and the inhabitants of his colony.
Hamilton, therefore, had an interest in playing down the value of the
Virgin Islands. He would be determined
to do everything he could to block such a development as Walton proposed. What Hamilton wanted was more, not fewer, people
in the four chief islands of the Leeward Islands. It was not in the interest of the Leeward
Islands for its northern half to be taken away and made into a separate
colony. In the event, Walton's bid was
unsuccessful. The Virgin Islands, like
Anguilla, remained half-forgotten outposts of the Leeward Islands. Prosperity was not to come to the Virgin
Islands and Anguilla until the development of the tourist and financial
services industries of the last quarter of the twentieth century. We can only speculate that, with their own
government and a separate administration, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands might
have gone on to develop their economies in the eighteenth century, instead of
having to wait for the twentieth.
By July 1717, no action was yet taken by the
Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations on the petition of the
Anguillians. Hamilton wrote again urging
the acceptance of his original suggestion that those Anguillians that needed
land be resettled in the formerly French part of St Kitts.[9] He explained that they again sent him a
delegation renewing their request that they be given patents for land on St
Croix. He feared that otherwise he would
soon begin to lose them to other neighbouring foreign islands. He learned that some of the Anguillians
planned to settle on the Dutch part of St Marten and would in consequence be
lost to the British Crown. His prophetic
warning about the determination of the people to emigrate arrived too late to
be of any effect, as we saw in the previous chapter.
In November of that year Governor Hamilton
visited all the Virgin Islands, including Anguilla and Crab Island. In his dispatch back to London, written in
January 1718, he proposed an alternative to settlement in St Kitts for the
remainder of the Anguillians.[10] He was now persuaded by Abraham Howell of the
advantages of settling the Anguillians on St Croix. He recommended that if the Anguillians were
moved all at once to St Croix, with tracts of land allotted to them by patent,
they might in time become a profitable colony and be able to defend
themselves. St Croix was his choice over
Crab Island for three reasons. First
because it was larger, second because its hills more frequently drew rain, and
third because it was further to windward from Puerto Rico. He hoped this would make it more secure from
the sailing vessels of the Spanish coast guard.
This was the first time that Hamilton urged that the Anguillians be
allowed to settle St Croix.
In March 1718, Governor Hamilton reported
that the inevitable destruction of the unlawful settlement on Crab Island took
place.[11] Many of the settlers, including Abraham
Howell, were taken away by the Spaniards to Puerto Rico. The people who remained on Anguilla were
still agitating to be allowed to go to St Croix. As Hamilton wrote in his March dispatch, they
were still pressing him to allow them to remove to St Croix. He prevailed upon them, he wrote, to await
their Lordships' directions. However, he cautioned that unless he received
these directions soon, it would be impossible to keep the Anguillians together.
They were at that point, he wrote, almost famished because of the long spell of
dry weather which lasted longer than any previously known on the island.
By 1719, Governor Hamilton lost all hope
of the Anguillians being allotted land in St Kitts. He made no more mention of it after that
date. The Anguillians, in the meantime, ceased
waiting for permission to leave Anguilla, assuming they ever allowed this
technicality to stand in their way in the first place. Some of the settlers from Crab Island escaped
capture by the Spaniards in 1717. They settled
in the other Virgin Islands. Others that
were returned to Anguilla after their release saw no reason to remain there. Some of them moved on to other Virgin
Islands. There was even talk of going to
the Bahamas. Some, including deputy
governor George Leonard, moved to Antigua at least until after the drought
ended in about the year 1725.
At this point, some of the more persuasive
Anguillians were able to force Governor Hamilton's hand, and he issued them
with short grants for land in Tortola. He wrote to the Committee in June 1720
that the drought lasted in all the islands for five months.[12]
Perhaps it lasted for five months in
Antigua with its mountains and regular rainfall. We know that the drought in Anguilla endured
for another five years. He did report
that the drought was particularly severe on Anguilla, which was abandoned by
several of its inhabitants and with more expected to follow. He expressed his fear that unless provision
was made for them, they would settle on the Dutch islands. To prevent this, he gave them grants in
Tortola. He wrote that he was convinced
that this measure at least would keep them from scattering and settling in
foreign islands.
The drought in Anguilla as we know eased
after 1725. By that time the Anguillians
simply ceased complaining about the weather.
They gave up trying to find an excuse for their determination to settle
in foreign-owned islands. They proceeded
to do as always, that is, as they thought best for themselves. Not quibbling whether they received either
patents or mere grants from the Governor, numbers of them that were without
land in Anguilla moved not only to Tortola, but also to St Martin, which was
French, and St Croix, which was Danish.
It was not until 1734 that St Croix is
again associated in the Colonial Office records with Anguilla. This was just six years before deputy governor
Richardson made his last will. A new
twist enters the story. In March of that
year, Governor Mathew wrote from Montserrat to the Committee.[13] He confirmed the report that the French sold
their interest in St Croix to the Danes.
One Beverode, the new Danish governor, sailed through the islands on his
way to St Croix. He held a commission to
dispose of forty or more estates to settlers by patent or grant from the Danish
Crown. This windfall, Mathew feared,
would prove irresistible to a great many of the poorer inhabitants in Anguilla,
Spanish Town and Tortola. He warned
again that these persons seemed determined to remove to St Croix and become
Danes.
In November 1734 Governor Mathew wrote the
Committee explaining again his fears about the new Danish settlement in St
Croix.[14]
In their new project, he wrote, the
chief means they propose to settle it was by debauching His Majesty’s subjects
in the Leeward Islands to become settlers and Danish subjects there. He feared the Danes’ success in enticing away
his people would be fatal for the Leeward Islands. The presence of neutral ports at our nose, as
he put it, meant that in time of war with the French, Denmark remaining
neutral, there would be free ports that the French privateers could take their
prizes to, recruit fresh crews, and re-provision with food and ammunition,
which he would not be able to stop.
Having read these dispatches, our
suspicions are raised. Was Dr Jones mistaken
in his assessment of St Croix? Could it
be that deputy governor John Richardson's son, William Richardson, and his
grandchildren, John and William Richardson, and his partner Samuel Reid, were
not joining a British settlement on St Croix?[15] Were
they were committing the unforgivable colonial sin of going to live in a
foreign colony? Was the Anguillian
deputy governor encouraging his family and others to leave the British
territory of Anguilla to settle illegally among the newly arrived Danes? It seems, indeed, that his grandsons John and
William were among the Anguillians enticed away by Governor Beverode’s offer of
patents to land.
From this 1734 dispatch, we learn that
Anguillians by this time were openly emigrating to St Martin and St Croix. There is other evidence relating to St
Martin. In 1775, the heirs of Phillip
Driscall and his wife, the widow Joan Glading, went to court in Anguilla. As a result, there is preserved in the
Anguilla Archives a part of their marriage contract of 1720 made in St
Martin. By this contract, Joan agreed
that if Phillip should die before her, she should enjoy as dower one third of
his whole estate during her life. In
exchange, she renounced all her right to the rest of his estate. This document is as rare as it is special. It is one of the few legal documents
preserved in the Anguillian Archives relating to the affairs of the Anguillians
who settled St Martin in this early period.
Fifty-five years later, George Gordon and George Patterson were married
to the granddaughters of Phillip Driscoll, by now deceased. On behalf of their wives, they claimed the
whole of the estate. The Anguilla
Council, acting in its judicial capacity, delivered its judgment. One of the exhibits was a settlement of the
estate of Phillip Driscoll by of the Governor and Council of St Martin dated
16th February 1734. This judgment fully
discharged any further claim by Joan Driscoll or her heirs. The Anguilla Council accepted that finding as
binding on them. The document is
incomplete, but the significance of the contract and of the judgment is
clear. Anguillians were emigrating to
the neighbouring half-French, half-Dutch island of St Martin and acquiring
estates there.
Governor Mathew continues to refer to the problem
of the Anguillians dispersing to foreign islands. In his dispatch to the Committee of 31 May
1736, he reminded them of his previous fear that his colony of the Leeward
Islands would suffer damage from the Danes settling St Croix.[16] The islands now began to feel some of the
effects of that settlement. The Danes
were not interested in settling it themselves.
Their Governor Moth was continually pestering the Leeward Islanders with
offers and encouragement. Lately, no
fewer than seventeen members of Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert's militia company in
Antigua ran off to St Croix in a boat.
Just three days previously he intercepted another vessel with six
British families attempting to emigrate there.
Even though they died as fast as they got to St Croix, he claimed, there
was little he could do to prevent them going if they were really
determined. As a result, his colony was
daily weakening.
When the Committee replied on 8 October,
they offered no solution.[17] They made the usual request that he do all he
could to restrain the population. As
they put it, since the unhealthiness of St Croix did not prevent his Majesty's
subjects under his government from going to that island, they could only
recommend to him that he use his best endeavours to keep them at home. This was small support for the effort he was
making.
After October 1736, the Colonial Office
records make no further mention of the problem of the dispersal of the Leeward
Islanders to St Croix. The picture that emerges
so far is clear. It was in 1735 that
Governor Mathew appointed John Richardson to be deputy governor in Anguilla, in
succession to George Leonard. The
settlement in St Croix by members of his family and other Anguillians was
illegal. The 1740 will tells us that
they moved to St Croix with Richardson's encouragement and support, probably
both before and after he became deputy governor. Subsequently, as deputy governor, he was able
to encourage and assist the settlement on St Croix. He also possessed the means to do so. As one of the earliest successful sugar
planters on the island, he was the wealthiest Anguillian of his time. That is why he was appointed deputy
governor. As an inter-island trader and
sloop owner, he had the means of transportation needed to encourage and assist
the emigration to and settlement of St Croix.
As the century progressed, Anguillian
sloops continued, under the aegis of the local deputy governor and Council, to
connect Anguilla with St Croix, Tortola and other Virgin Islands, where so many
of the population had family and business connections. The Anguillian sloops of this time traded
from one island to the other, regardless of the Navigation Acts and
customs duties and prohibitions against trade with foreign islands. In the beginning, the sloops brought valuable
dye wood and building timber from the forests of Crab and St Croix to the
merchants of the Leewards. Later in the
century, they traded as far as New York and London.
The Sea Flower was eventually lost
in 1768. Her captain, Boaz Bell, sold
her and her cargo of salt to the Spaniards in Puerto Rico, when she became so
leaky that her crew were unable to continue their voyage. These Anguillian sloop owners and captains
built the foundations of the present tradition of complete irreverence for all
national boundaries and customs barriers that characterize the best Anguillian businessmen
of today.
The documents we looked at show us that
the Anguillians reciprocated the disrespect that the authorities showed
them. They freely moved between the
Dutch and Danish territories as if these were mere extensions of Anguilla. They made their own laws and elected their
own governors. They were polite enough,
but they did not blindly obey the instructions of a distant governor. When his instructions ran contrary to their
obvious vital interests, they ignored them without hesitation. Deputy governor John Richardson was an
archetypal Anguillian. It was in his
mould that following generations of successful Anguillian boat captains,
merchants and traders and our many immigrants to Curacao, Perth Amboy, and
Slough, were cast.
Next:
Chapter 16 -
[1] See Chapter 3: The Carib Raid.
[2] Dr SB Jones: Annals of Anguilla
(1936).
[3] Anguilla Archives: John Richardson’s Will of 9
January 1740. See also Chapter 18: Sugar Arrives.
[5] He spells his name “Hornbe” in the
Account.
[6] The Account is also discussed in Chapter
10: Crab Island Revisited.
[7] CO.152/11, No 6: Hamilton to the Committee
on 10 April 1716, enclosure No 4: The 1716 Anguillian petition for permission to settle
St Croix.
[8] CO.152/20: Mathew to the Committee on 19 March
1733.
[11] CO.152/12/3, No 87: Hamilton to the
Committee on 15 March 1718.
[12] CO.152/13, folio 77: Hamilton to the Committee
on 14 June 1720.
[13] CO.152/20, folio 109: Mathew to the
Committee on 19 March 1734.
[14] CO.152/21, No 58: Mathew to the Committee
on 26 November 1734.
[15] Although the will spells the name 'Red', we
can assume this was an error as that spelling does not reappear in any of the
records.
[16] CO.152/22: Mathew to the Committee on 31
May 1736.
[17] CO.153/16: Committee to Mathew on 8 October
1736.
