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The World of Alexander Campbell: An Eighteenth-Century Grenadian Planter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

Mark Quintanilla
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Extract

In 1763 few Europeans doubted the enormous importance of their Caribbean possessions, a fact indicated by the ready willingness of the French to cede Canada in order to regain British-occupied Martinique. The British were no different, and in the West Indies they were in the process of establishing a New World aristocracy whose riches were based upon African slavery and the production of tropical crops. The British prized their Caribbean territories, especially since the sugar revolution that had begun during the mid-seventeenth century first in Barbados where the crop had become dominant by 1660 and then in Jamaica. British planters continued their success in the Leeward Island settlements of Antigua, St. Christopher, Nevis, and Montserrat, where entrepreneurs converted their lands to sugar cane by the early 1700s. West Indian planters became influential within the British Empire, and exercised profound social, political, and economic importance in the metropolis. By the eighteenth century they were the richest colonists within the empire; they were landed aristocrats who could have vied in wealth and prestige with their counterparts in Britain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , Summer 2003 , pp. 229 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2003

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32 PP, 29 (1790), p. 135.

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42 ”State of the Island of Grenada, 1772,” PRO, CO 101/16.

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47 This was a common feature throughout the Caribbean as planters sought to generate the necessary investment capital through the production of smaller crops. See: Craton, Michael, Searching for the Invisible Man, p. 12.Google Scholar According to Cox these crops provided the basis of support for free colored populations, see Cox, Free Coloreas, p. 64.

48 “Governor Melville’s Response to the Additional Heads of Enquiry,” PRO, CO 101/28.

49 Among these cases between French and British colonists in Grenada are Herbert v. Scott and Rochará v. Campbell, see PRO, CO 101/25.

50 Ragatz, Fall of the Planter Class, pp. 175–81.

51 Drescher, Econocide, pp. 60–64; Ward, British West Indian Slavery, pp. 38–60.

52 O’Shannesy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia, 2000).

53 PP, 29 (1790), p. 138.

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56 Ragatz, Fall of the Planter Class, pp. 127–28; O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided, pp. 131–32. Curious for its omission of Campbell v. Hall is Oldham’s, James The Mansfield Manuscripts and the Growth of English Law in the Eighteenth Century (Chapel Hill, 1992).Google Scholar

57 “16 October 1772 lease agreement between Alexander Campbell and John Aitcheson,” Grenada Deeds W2, f. 121; “21 July 1773 Purchase Agreement between Alexander Campbell and John Aitcheson, Sr.” Grenada Deeds R2, 504–08.

58 ”22 May 1772 Purchase Agreement between Alexander Campbell and Hugh Dalrymple and John Dumaresq,” Grenada Deeds E2/1772, ff. 490–93, ff. 508–14; “18 May 1772 Purchase Agreement between Alexander Campbell and Hugh Dalrymple,” Grenada Deeds M2/1773, ff. 81–95.

59 “3 January 1777 Purchase Agreement between James Cockburn and Alexander Campbell,” Grenada Deeds A3, ff. 485–511.

60 “Lushington & Law Ledger,” ff. 48–51.

61 “16 October 1772 lease agreement between Alexander Campbell and John Aitcheson,” Grenada Deeds W.2, f. 121.

62 ”State of the Island of Grenada, 1772,” PRO, CO 101/16.

63 PP, 29 (1790), pp. 138–39.

64 Ibid. In addition, Ward describes the encroachment of planters on slave provision grounds (British West Indian Slavery, p. 19). See also Higman Slave Populations, pp. 210–12.

65 PP, 29 (1790), pp. 156–59.

66 “13 July 1787 Lease and Mortgage between Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell and John Campbell, Sr.,” Supreme Court Registry, Kingstown, St. Vincent Deeds 1787, fF. 224–27 (hereafter cited as St. Vincent Deeds); “13 December 1790 Mortgage between Alexander Campbell, John Campbell, Thomas Campbell, William Lushington and James Law,” St. Vincent Deeds 1791, ff.1-32.

67 “Lushington & Law Ledger,” ff. 40–51.

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72 For Duncan Campbell see above, n. 54. James Campbell held estates in Grenada, Tobago, Dominica, and St. Vincent, and served in the assemblies of Grenada and Tobago for much of the 1760s and 1770s, and later in the Councils of both colonies (Scots Magazine 59 (1797): 78. Thomas Campbell was a merchant in St. George and served on the Council of Grenada during the 1790s before dying in Demerara in 1795 (Scots Magazine 57 (1795): 480.

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80 Campbell’s defense of the plantation system is part of a protracted historical debate. Lowell Ragatz saw the plantation system in decline after 1763. Eric Williams argued that abolition itself occurred because of Britain’s industrial interests. Seymour Drescher contends that slavery and the West Indian system were just as profitable at the end of the Eighteenth and early nineteenth century as it had been at the beginning of the eighteenth century. For the latest summary of the debate see: Drescher, Seymour, “The Decline Thesis of British Slavery since Econocide” in From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery (New York, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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87 “Agreement between Alexander Campbell of St. Andrew Parish, Grenada, John Campbell, Sr. of Glasgow, and Thomas Campbell of St. George’s, Grenada, 30 November 1787” St. Vincent Deeds 1787, ff. 227–47. See also: Slade, H. G., Proceedings of the Society for Antiquities, Scotland 114 (1984): 497.Google Scholar

88 ‘Lushington & Law Ledger.”

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90 Hancock, Citizens of the World, pp. 10–14.

91 Patterson, A Topographical Description; “An Account of Sugar, Rum, Molasses, Cotton, Coffee, Cocoa and Indigo made in the Island of Grenada, 1792,” PRO, CO 101/33.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

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98 Henry Dundas to Samuel Williams, 2 January 1793, PRO, CO 101/33.

99 In 1793 James Campbell claimed that he had spent the years between 1763 and 1791 in residence in the West Indies (Letter to Henry Dundas, 7 December 1793 PRO, CO 101/33, Miscellaneous). James Campbell returned to Grenada in 1796 after the death of Alexander Campbell and continued his residence in the West Indies until his death at Argyle, Tobago in 1805. At the time of his death he was President of the Council of Tobago (Scots Magazine 68 (1806): 78.

100 Samuel Williams to Henry Dundas, 10 November 1792, PRO, CO 101/33.

101 Cox, Free Coloreas, p. 14.

102 Ninian Home to Henry Dundas, 15 February 1793, PRO, CO 101/33.

103 In his letter to Henry Dundas James Campbell claimed to have been resident in the West Indies since 1763. Yet he left the Ceded Islands on many occasions, including a trip to Bermuda for his health. During the 1790s there was a high rate of absenteeism in Grenada as planters and merchants increasingly left the island to pursue opportunities in Dominica or even foreign Caribbean territories (PRO, CO 101/33, Miscellaneous).

104 Ninian Home to Henry Dundas, 2 May 1793 and 16 July 1793. PRO, CO 101/33.

105 Kenneth Francis McKenzie to Henry Dundas, 28 March 1795, PRO, CO 101/34.

106 “Alexander Campbell and Lushington & Law, 1792,“ Grenada Wills E2, 601–09,” Alexander Campbell and Lushington & Law, 1799–1800," Grenada Deeds H2, 434–38. See also PRO, CO 101/35, Miscellaneous, which contains several petitions from planters who claimed considerable losses.