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Sophistry, Security, and Socio-Political Structures in the American Revolution; or, Why Jamaica did not Rebel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

T. R. Clayton
T. R. Clayton
Affiliation:
St. John' College, Cambridge
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Extract

Britain's most important American colonies did not rebel in 1776. Thirteen provinces did declare their independence; but no fewer than nineteen colonies in the western hemisphere remained loyal to the mother country. Massachusetts and Virginia may have led the American revolution, but they had never been the leading colonies of the British empire. From the imperial standpoint, the significance of any of the thirteen provinces which rebelled was pale in comparison with that of Jamaica or Barbados. In the century before 1763 the recalcitrance of these two colonies had been more notorious than that of any mainland province and had actually inspired many of the imperial policies cited as long-term grievances by North American patriots in 1774. Real Whig ideology, which some historians have seen as the key to understanding the American revolution, was equally understood by Caribbean elites who, like the continental, had often proved extremely sensitive on questions of constitutional principle. Attacks of ‘frenzied rhetoric’ broke out in Jamaica in 1766 and Barbados in 1776. But these had nothing whatsoever to do with the Stamp Act or events in North America.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 319 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Metcalf, George, Royal government and political conflict in Jamaica 1729–1783 (London, 1965), p. 2Google Scholar.

2 Ibid. p. 32.

3 The most significant studies of Caribbean responses to the American revolution are as follows: Toth, Charles W., The American revolution and the West Indies (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Hewitt, M. J., ‘The West Indies in the American revolution’ (unpublished D.Phil, dissertation, University of Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar, Metcalf, Royal government; Brathwaite, Edward, The development of Creole society in Jamaica 1770–1820 (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Garrington, S. H. H., ‘Economic and political developments in the British West Indies during the period of the American revolution’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1975)Google Scholar.

4 See Wood, Gordon, The creation of the American republic (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1969)Google Scholar.

5 Bailyn, Bernard, The ideological origins of the American revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), esp. p. viGoogle Scholar. For a summary of the works of the progressive historians, see Greene, Jack P. (ed.) The ranterpretation of the American revolution 1763–1789 (New York, 1968), pp. 8–17Google Scholar.

6 The widespread and realistic fear of this encirclement, at times verging on paranoia in both North America and London, had exerted a very significant influence on international relations in the thirty years before the outbreak of general war in 1756. See Clayton, T. R., ‘The duke of Newcastle, the earl of Halifax, and the American origins of the Seven Years' War’, Historical Journal, XXIV 3 (1981), 571–603CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 The clearest example of the power of the Jamaican planter lobby came during the deliberations over the peace of Paris in 1763 when, despite very strong pressures on the ministry to acquire Guadeloupe in preference to Canada, the Jamaican lobby (anxious to limit the area of the empire under sugar) decisively swung the political balance in favour of Canada. Several of the Jamaicans' opponents at the time shrewdly predicted that the resulting securing of the North American colonies would prove an invitation to independence. See Toth, , American revolution, pp. 13–19Google Scholar; Grant, William L., ‘Canada versus Guadeloupe: an episode of the Seven Years' War’, American Historical Review, XVII (1912), 735–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Metcalf, , Royal government, pp. 27–8, 118–33Google Scholar. For a detailed analysis of the powers of the Jamaican assembly before 1730 see Whitson, A. M., The constitutional development of Jamaica, 1660–1729 (Manchester, 1929)Google Scholar. The most blatant example of the Jamaican assembly's ignoring of royal instructions was its consistent refusal to insert a suspending clause in acts which impinged upon the royal prerogative. See Metcalf, , Royal government, p. 29Google Scholar.

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11 Lyttelton to lords of trade, 24 Dec. 1765, P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], c[olonial] o[ffice papers], C.O. 137/34, fos. 48–9; Howell to secretary of state, 31 May 1766, C.O. 137/62, fos. 208–9. Metcalf, , Royal government, p. 164 n. 2Google Scholar argues that there was ‘undoubtedly a strong feeling against the tax’. But the only manuscript he cites in support of this assertion (B.L. Add. MSS 18959, fos. 10–11) only proves that the well-known whig theorist Edward Long disapproved of the Act.

12 Rose Fuller (who, along with another leading absentee Jamaican planter, William Beckford, had actually approved of Grenville's plans in March 1764) did make an unsuccessful attempt to present a petition against the Stamp Act to the house of commons in February 1765 but it was from ‘several persons trading to and interested in Jamaica’ in London, not from resident members of the provincial elite See Thomas, P D G, British policies and the Stamp Act crisis (Oxford, 1975), pp 55, 217Google Scholar, Bullion, John L, A great and necessary measure George Grenville and the genesis of the Stamp Act 1763–1765 (Columbia, MO, 1982), pp 161 2, 272–3Google Scholar.

13 Graham to Arcedetkne, 20 September 1765, Jamaican estate papers, Vanneck MSS, Cambridge University Library, bundle 2/1 Chaloner Arcedeckne, the son of Andrew Arcedeckne and Elizabeth Kersey, was born in Jamaica, probably in 1743 or 1744 He was educaud at Eton College (1753– 9) and, except for a visit to Jamaica in the early 1760s, spent the rest of his life in Suffolk, England He sat as a member of parliament for Wallingford (1784) and Westbury (1784–6) Jamaican Island Record Office, Spanish Town, wills, vol 37, 40–232; Austen-Leigh, R A, The Eton College register 1698–1790 (2 vols Eton, 1927), 11, 14Google Scholar.

14 On Robert Graham see Graham, R B Cunninghame, Doughty deedy an account of the life of Robert Graham of Gartmore, poet and politician 1735–1797 drawn from his letter books and correspondence (London, 1925)Google Scholar

15 The leading modern historian of the eighteenth-century Caribbean Richard Sheridan, has argued that Simon Taylor ‘may have exercised greater influence in Jamaica, and for a longer period, than any other individual’ Sheridan, Richard, ‘Simon Taylor, sugar tycoon of Jamaica, 1740–1813’, Agricultural History, XLV (1971), 286Google Scholar. Sheridan's conclusion was not based on an analysis of Taylor's correspondence, since none was known to have survived, but his letters to Chaloner Arcedeckne are preserved in the Vanneck MSS A detailed analysis of this correspondence, however, supports Sheridan's emphasis on the importance of Taylor See Clayton, Roy and Wood, Betty, Politics and society in Jamaica 1760–1810 a case study of Simon Taylor, forthcoming monograph Taylor, was born in Jamaica in 1740Google Scholar and, like Arcedeckne, attended Eton College during the 1750s When he died in 1813, his estate was valued at £739, 207 sterling, and he served as a member of the Jamaican assembly for Kingston (1708–81) and St Thomas in the East (1784–1810) Leigh, Austen, Eton register, 11, 512Google Scholar, Wright, Philip (ed.), Lady Nugent's journal of her residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805 (Kingston, Jamaica, 1966), p 318Google Scholar, Sheridan, , ‘Simon Taylor’, 285–96Google Scholar.

16 Tavlor to Arcedeckne, 15 Nov 1765, Vanneck MSS, 2/1

17 Pinfold to lords of trade, 21 Feb 1766, P R O, C O 28/32, fos 197–8

18 See the exceptionally laudatory address of the assembly and council of Barbados to Governor Pinfold in ibid fos 199–200

19 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 2 May 1767, Vanneck MSS, 2/2

20 Jamaican assembly minutes, 17 Oct 21 Dec 1764, P R O, C O 140/44, fos 1–161 The quotations are from fo 160

21 Lyettelton to lords of trade, 24 Dec. 1764, P.R.O., C.O. 137/33, fos. 180–6; same to same, 3 Jan. 1765, C.O. 137/34, fos. 28–9.

22 For an excellent summary of this privilege controversy see Metcalf, , Royal government, pp. 160–7Google Scholar.

23 Jamaican assembly minutes, 21 Dec. 1764, P.R.O., C.O. 140/44, fos. 161; Lyttelton to lords of trade, 24 Dec. 1764, C.O. 137/33, fos. 180–6; Jamaican assembly minutes, 19–22 March 1765, C.O. 140/44, fos. not numbered; Lyttelton to lords of trade, 24 March 1765, C.O. 137/33, fos. 212–15; same to same, 20 August 1765, C.O. 137/33, fos. 224–9; Jamaican assembly minutes, 13–16 August 1765, C.O. 140/40, pp. 529–30.

24 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 11 July 1765, Vanneck MSS, 2/1; lords of privy council to Lyttelton, 19 March 1765, P.R.O., C.O. 137/33, fos. 199–201; Metcalf, , Royal government, pp. 167–8Google Scholar.

25 Jamaican assembly minutes, 24 June 21 August 1766, P R O, C O 140/45, fos 1–370 and the following 1–85 numbered separately, upper house minute, 3 July 1766, C O 140/43, fos not numbered, Elletson to Conway, 7 July 1766, C O 137/34, fos 52–3 and C O 137/62, fos 210–12, Elletson to lords of trade, 29 September 1766, C O 137–34, fos 60–1 and C O 137/62, fos 221–2 Simon Taylor was convinced that Elletson ‘never would have got an Assembly to do business with him’ had he not succumbed, ‘It was a matter of force on him than his own choice’ According to contemporary historian Bryan Edwards, himself a new member of the assembly and an uncle of Councillor Bayly over one thousand spectators crowded into the assembly building to witness the erasure from the records, and this was followed by a great spasm of exuberation throughout the island ‘The towns were splendidly illuminated, the shipping in the ports were dressed in the gayest colours, and such joy and satisfaction appeared in every countenance, as we may imagine were displayed by the English Barons on receiving Magna Charta from the reluctant hand of King John’ Taylor to Arcedeckne, 24 Jan 1767, Vanneck MSS, 2/2, Edwards, Bryan, The history of the British colonies in the West Indies (2 vols London, 1801), 11, 428 nGoogle Scholar, Metcalf, , Royal government, p 168Google Scholar.

26 Ibid. p 169, Jamaican assembly minutes, 24 June 21 August 1766, P R O, C O 140/45, fos 305–21

27 Kaplanoff, M. D., ‘England, America, and the American revolution’, Historical Journal, XXI, 2 (1978), 409–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Vanneck MSS, 2/2, 2/3 passim, but particularly Taylor to Arcedeckne, 25 March 1768 and 25 July 1768 in 2/3. The latter contains the delightful comment ‘…there has been the Devil to play between two disbanded Councillors, viz Bayly and Kennion about the latters having debauched the others Quadroon girl. Bayly says he is very glad he did not catch them in Bed together or he would have been under the necessity of putting him to death’. Jamaican assembly minutes, Oct. 1767–Oct. 1770, P.R.O., C.O. 140/46, pp. 31–277; governors' correspondence 1767–1770, C.O. 137/63–5, passim.

29 Keith to Dartmouth, 19 Nov. 1774, P.R.O., C.O. 137/70, fos. 3–6; Taylor to Arcedeckne, 19 November 1774, Vanneck MSS, 2/7.

30 Carrington, , ‘Economic and political developments’, pp. 245–6Google Scholar.

31 Ibid. pp. 246–7.

32 Morrison to earl of Liverpool, 19 Sept. 1811, C.O. 137/131, fos. not numbered (not C.O. 187 as cited by Carrington, p. 247).

33 Jamaican assembly minutes, 31 October–22 December 1775, P.R.O., C.O. 140/46, p. 576.

34 Keith to Germain, 27 March 1776, P.R.O., C.O. 137/77, fos. 81–8.

35 Keith to Dartmouth, 4January 1775, P.R.O., C.O. 137/70, fos. 23–6. Keith continued ‘…it was by no means certain to be understood as the sense of a fair majority of the Assembly of this Island…and the Speaker Sir Charles Price Jr. was officially obliged to sign it contrary to his own sentiments and opinion’. See also Keith to Dartmouth, 12 June 1775, ibid. fos. 76–81.

36 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 5 June 1775, Vanneck MSS, 2/8.

37 Ibid, address of Jamaican assembly to the king, 23 December 1774, P R O, C O 140/46, PP 569–70

38 Spry to Hillsborough, 8 May 1770, P R O, 28/53, fo 34 same to same, 1 June 1772, ibid fos 154–5

39 For a more detailed discussion of these events see Carrington, , ‘West Indian opposition’, pp 32–3Google Scholar, Mills to Duke, 15 June 1774, P R O, C O 28/55, fo 64, Duke to Mills, 15 June 1774, ibid fos 66–7, Mills to Duke, 11 August 1774, ibid fos 68–9, Hay to Dartmouth, 13 August 1774, ibid fos 60–1, Duke to Mills, 12 August 1774, ibid fo 72

40 Hay to Dartmouth, 29 August 1775, P R O, C O 28/56, fos 10–12

41 Hay to Germain, 15 February 1776, ibid. fos. 29–30; minutes Barbados assembly, 14 February 1776, C.O. 31/39, fos. 58–60. Hay attributed Duke's hold over a majority of the burgesses to the fact that he was a lawyer who had ‘a superiority over the planters who are the other members, and who are many of them very plain men, without qualification, for a freehold of Ten pounds pr. annum is sufficient qualification for a member of the Assembly, the same as for a freeholder’.

42 Barbados assembly minutes, 19 March 1776, P.R.O., C.O. 31/39, fos. 61–8.

43 Carrington, , ‘West Indian opposition’, p. 35Google Scholar; Ford, Worthington C. (ed.), Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789 (Washington D.C., 1904), 1, 70Google Scholar.

44 Hay to Germaine, 13 April 1776, P.R.O., C.O. 28/56, fos. 40–2. For the commonplace elements of Real Whig ideology see Bailyn, Ideological origins, passim.

45 Carrington, , ‘West Indian opposition’, p 37Google Scholar, Hay to Germaine, 25 July 1776, P R O, C O 28/56, fos 61 3

46 Carrington, , ‘West Indian opposition’, pp 37 49Google Scholar

47 In November 1775 the Jamaican assembly willingly instituted measures to improve the island's defences and to raise money for the proper maintenance of the 50th and 60th British regiments in Jamaica On 22 December 1775 the assembly penned a loyal address to the king expressing gratitude for his ‘most gracious intention to provide for our security by sending Troops’ and assuring him that they would ever be ready ‘to defend Your Majesty's sacred Person and Government with our Lives and Fortunes’ Jamaican assembly minutes, 2 Nov–22 Dec 1775, P R O, C O 140/46, pp 576–632, council minutes, 22 December 1775, C O 140/54, fos not numbered, Gipson, Lawrence H, The British empire before the American revolution (15 vols New York, 1958–1970), XIII, 76–7Google Scholar

48 Metcalf, , Royal government, pp 201 2Google Scholar In November the council and assembly politely requested the king to provide more adequate naval protection for the coasts of Jamaica against the depredations of American privateers, but concluded by stressing their ‘most zealous Attachment to the best of Kings The Father and Protector of a grateful and Affectionate People’ Address, 21 November 1777, P R O, C O 137/73, fo 3

49 By July 1779 Dalling found the assembly ‘very unwilling to raise any new supplies, at which I am not much surprised for I verily believe the Country never laboured under greater inconvenience for want of money than at present, the different sources by which it formerh flowed into this Country being entirely stopped’ Dalling, to Germain, , 5 07 1779Google Scholar, P R O, C O 137/75, fos 59 63

50 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 26 June, 28 Aug, 26 Nov 1781, Vanneck MSS, 2/9, 11 June 1782, ibid 2/10 There is unfortunately a gap in Taylor's correspondence to Arcedeckne between 1775 and 1781 Taylor's disaffection was by no means untypical In September 1778 the Reverend William Jones, who toured extensively in Jamaica between 1777 and 1780, noted in his diary that ‘A General Murmur of discontent is heard buzzing thro’ every part of Jamaica, that so little is paid to its safety and defence by the Mother Country' By 1780 Dalling, was aware of the existence of a substantial body of ‘disaffected in the Country sowing the seeds of sedition by propagating a belief that their rulers had not made application to the commanders in North America for assistance’Google Scholar and who ‘thwarted’ in the assembly all his efforts to execute his royal instructions Christie, O F (ed), The diary of the Revd William Jones 1777–1821 curate and vicar of Broxborne and the hamlet of Hoddesdon 1781–1821 (London, 1929), p 39Google Scholar; Dalling to Germain, 19 May 1780, P R O, C O 137/78, fos 62–70

51 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 8 May 1782, Vanneck MSS, 2/10

52 See, for example, Lyttelton to Egremont, 27 February 1762, P R O, C O 137/61, fos 68–70

53 Keith, Answers to queries relative to the island of Jamaica, 1774', P R O, C O 137/70, fos 88 90

54 The Jamaican figure is calculated from information in Keith, 'Answers to queries For the proportion of black in the continental colonies see Jordan, Winthrop, White over black American attitudes towards the Negro 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill, N C, 1968), p 103Google Scholar

55 For the insurrection of 1761 see Lyttelton to Egremont, 26 Jan 1772, P R O, C O 137/61, fos 58–9 The insurrection of 1763 is discussed in a series of letters dated 5 April 1763 in council minutes C O 140/42, fos not numbered In 1765 there was an insurrection of new Negroes in St Mary Lyttelton to lords of trade, 24 Dec 1765, C O 137/64, fos 48–9 In 1766 a group of new Coromantees rose in Westmorland and in December there was an insurrection in Portland Elletson to Scott, 10 Oct 1766 and 20 Dec 1766, Elletson letter book, Jamaican Historical Review, 1 (1946), 337, 362Google Scholar Address of council and assembly of Jamaica to Crown, 31 Dec 1773, C O 137/69. fo 57

56 See Sheridan, Richard, ‘The Jamaican slave insurrection scare of 1776 and the American revolution’ Journal of Negro History, LXI (1976), 290–309CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is also a wealth of detail in P R O, C O 137/71, fos 201–400

57 Lindsay, to Robertson, , 6 08 1776, Robertson-McDonald papers, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, MS 3942, fos 259–64Google Scholar

58 Wax, Darold D., ‘“The Great Risque we Run”: the aftermath of slave rebellion at Stono, South Carolina, 1739–1745’, Journal of Negro History, LXVII, 2 (summer 1982), 136–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maier, Pauline, ‘The Charleston mob and the evolution of popular politics in revolutionary South Carolina 1765–1784’ Perspectives in American History, IV (1970), 176Google Scholar; Nadelhaft, Jerome J., The disorders of war: the revolution in South Carolina (Orono, Maine, 1981), p. 5Google Scholar.

59 Ibid. p. 10; Waterhouse, Richard, ‘South Carolina's colonial elite: a study in the social structure and political culture of a Southern colony, 1690–1760’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1973), passimGoogle Scholar.

60 Weir, Robert M., ‘“The Harmony We are Famous For”: an interpretation of pre-revolutionary South Carolina politics’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXVI (1969), 487–96Google Scholar.

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67 Nadelhaft, , Disorders of war, pp. 10, 25–6Google Scholar.

68 Ibid. pp. 9–10.

69 The crucial differences between Pennsylvania and other mainland colonies were, first, the proprietary nature of its government, which had long insulated the province from the rigours of imperial interference, secondly, Franklin's attempt to establish royal government in the colony between 1765 and 1768 by presenting Pennsylvania as a less turbulent colony than neighbouring provinces; and, thirdly, the values and behaviour of Pennsylvania's dominant Quaker elite, which retained almost complete control of provincial political life until 1774 and did not take the lead, as did many other colonial elites, in opposition to the new metropolitan programme. In 1774 radicals like Charles Thomson, Joseph Reed and John Dickinson skilfully constructed a balanced coalition of diverse and hitherto politically deprived social, occupational, denominational and ethnic groups. By the spring of 1776 over 1,200 ‘new men’ over Pennsylvania as a whole had received some fulfilment of their political ambitions in revolutionary committees and had achieved the upper hand over more pacific and conservative members of the old Quaker elite, many of whom opted out of politics completely. See Ryerson, Richard A., The revolution is now begun: the radical committees of Philadelphia, 1765–1776, (Philadelphia, 1978), passim, but particularly pp. 4. 8, 23, 65–73Google Scholar.

70 Countryman, Edward, A people in revolution: the American revolution and political soaet) in Naw York 1760–1790, (Baltimore, 1981)Google Scholar, passim.

71 See below, p. 34.2.

72 Keith, ‘Answers to queries’ (cited above n. 53). On the skilled slave and free black population see Brathwaite, , Development Creole society, pp. 154–6, 160–4, 167–175Google Scholar. For contemporary comments on the affluence of free Negroes see Lyttelton to Egremont, 12 May 1762, 11 Jan. 1763, P.R.O., C.O. 137/61, fos. 116–17, 149–50.

73 Figures from the early nineteenth century suggest that the resident ‘upper class’ – affluent merchants and planters – comprised roughly 20 per cent of the total white population, which would have been around 2,500 in 1774. Another 1,000 or so were Portuguese Jews and were excluded for religious reasons from the political and social world of the upper class. Brathwaite, , Development Creole society, pp. 105, 113, 135Google Scholar.

74 For the grievances of coffee and pimento planters see their petition of May 1773 in C.O. 137/68, fo. 83.

75 Nash, Gary, The urban crucible, social change, political consciousness and the origins of the American revolution, (Cambridge, Mass. 1979), esp. pp. 233–79, 294–6, 303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, , Men in rebellion, esp. pp. 23–6Google Scholar. For the frustrations of young aspiring politicians in Massachusetts in the 1760s see Pencak, William, War, politics and revolution in provincial Massachusetts, (Boston, 1981), pp. 202–3Google Scholar; Edmund, and Morgan, Helen, Stamp Act crisis, pp. 160–2, 121–131Google Scholar.

76 For a convenient review of the wide range of scholarship on which this conclusion is based see Frank, Willard, ‘Colonial disequilibrium and the American revolution: a review of some recent writing of history’, in Rutyna, Richard A. and Stewart, Peter C. (eds.), Virginia in the American Revolution, (New York, 1977), pp. 1–37Google Scholar.

77 Nash, , Urban crucible, esp. pp. 351–7Google Scholar.

78 Isaac, Rhys, The transformation of Virginia 1740–1790, (Chapel Hill, 1982), pp. 243–69Google Scholar.

79 Trelawny to Hillsborough, 12 April 1771, P.R.O., C.O. 137/36, fos. 78–81 and enclosures, fos. 86–7.

80 Graham to Arcedeckne, 17 April 1765, Vanneck MSS, 2/1.

81 See Greene, Jack P, ‘The foundations of political power in the Virginia house of burgesses 1720–1776’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser XVI (1959), 485 506CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Zemsky, Robert, Merchants, farmers, and river gods an essay on eighteenth-century American politics, (Boston, 1971), esp pp 28–38Google Scholar.

82 Jamaican assembly minutes, 17 Oct 21 Dec 1764, P R O, C O 140/44 fos 17,160 Taylor to Arcedeckne, 11 July 1765, Vanneck MSS, 2/1 For a more detailed study of political structure in Jamaica see Betty Wood and Roy Clayton, Politics and Society in Jamaica 1760–1810, (forthcoming)

83 Metcalf, , Royal government, p 167Google Scholar