Rethinking the Decline of the British-Caribbean Planter Class: A Case Study of Simon Taylor of Jamaica, 1760 - 1813

This project will shed valuable new light on the social, cultural and political activities of British West Indian planters during a period defined by democratic revolutions in America, France and Haiti; by a shift towards a more centralised and authoritarian British colonial policy; and by the rise of a transatlantic abolition movement. This period also saw a decline in the planters' political influence, cultural reputation and economic prospects, as slaveholders with properties in the Caribbean struggled to come to terms with the political problems posed by metropolitan criticisms of slavery and with the practical problems posed by the loss of mainland trading partners as a result of the American Revolution.

These broad themes will be explored via the extensive and rich letter collection of Simon Taylor, who was a wealthy and politically influential Jamaican sugar planter. Taylor's letters to friends, business partners, political allies and family members reveal details about all aspects of his life, ranging from information about his relationship with a free-coloured mistress to his political engagement with the anti-abolitionist West India Committee in London. This project will combine research on these letters with work on other sources, such as records of the Jamaican legislative Assembly, Taylor's last will and testament, contemporary newspapers and other published material. By using these sources to study Taylor and the world he inhabited, it will be possible to present a far more in-depth and subtle analysis of the planter class during the second half of the eighteenth century than we possess at present.

Key questions include:

- How did Taylor and other planters interact with other groups in local society? For example, how did he interact with poorer white managerial staff on his sugar estates, and what was the nature of his relationship with his free-coloured mistress and mixed-race children?

- How and to what extent did Taylor and other planters change their attitudes towards enslaved people between 1760 and 1813? Did they adapt their management techniques or their attitudes towards their workers in response to abolitionist campaigning?

- How and to what extent did Taylor's letters bind him into family, social, business and political networks that spanned the Atlantic? Did the Atlantic networks that Taylor forged connect him to places other than Jamaica and Britain?

- How influential were Taylor and other Jamaican planters during debates over the British Atlantic slave system? To what extent were he and his colleagues able to stave off and influence the reform of Britain's slave system?

- How did planters like Taylor perceive their connection with the imperial metropole? How did they attempt to reconcile their involvement with slavery with their identities as Britons? How did they respond to changing metropolitan ideas about Britishness?

In seeking to answer these questions, this work will build on my previous research, including my recently published monograph, Slaveholders in Jamaica (2009). I have also recently completed a short project on Simon Taylor's cultural identity, and as part of that, I worked on some of Taylor's letters. I therefore have a good sense of the value of these letters as a largely untapped source for the study of British Caribbean slave societies and transatlantic political debates. I have also acquired a full set of the letters on microfilm.

Who will benefit from the research?

The main direct beneficiaries of this work will be academics and research students working on the histories of Britain, empire, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, slavery and abolition during the long eighteenth century.

The results of this research will also benefit taught undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses on the histories of the long eighteenth century. Many such courses now include material on slavery and the Atlantic system and emphasise the cultural, social, and economic importance of the Caribbean region.

The research will also benefit wider public audiences. It will be possible to reach such audiences by engaging both with those working in the museum and heritage sector and with those working on outreach projects for organisations like the British Library and The National Archives.


How will they benefit?

Teachers and students will benefit from the publication of a book that offers new perspectives on the history of slavery in the Caribbean and on the processes of reforming and abolishing Britain's Atlantic slave system. No modern study has yet replaced Lowell Ragatz's 1928 monograph on the fall of the planter class. This project will result in a study of that topic, providing a reinterpretation of the planters' decline that takes into account recent scholarship on the history of slavery, imperial politics, British identity and culture. This will provide a vital addition to students' reading lists.

In addition, the project will result in an entry on Simon Taylor to be published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This will provide researchers, students, and the wider public with information on one of the wealthiest, most prominent, and influential West Indian slaveholders of the late eighteenth century. It will help to emphasise the ways that slaveholding planters were able to influence debates about slavery and freedom, playing an important part in British debates about enslaved people and the future of the Caribbean.

Through networks and events like those offered by the UK Society for Caribbean Studies, this project aims to engage and alter wider public understandings of slavery and abolition. Interest in these topics has increased in recent years, particularly since the commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

I will share the results of the research with those involved in planning and constructing exhibitions and outreach projects on slavery and abolition at places like the National Maritime Museum, the International Slavery Museum, the National Archives, and the British Library, ensuring that new perspectives and insights from the research reach as wide an audience as is possible. Conference papers showcasing work in progress along with the final book itself will provide means of reaching this audience, as will more informal conversations and networking activities.

In addition, the project will result in a website that will be of use to teachers and to those involved in public history or working in the heritage industry. The website will provide an overview of the project and its contexts. It will also include transcriptions of at least fifty of Taylor's letters, specifically selected for the light they can throw on key topics such as slave resistance, the rise of abolitionism, and proslavery ideology and politics. These will be accompanied by notes for teachers. These notes will be aimed primarily at those working in higher education, as this complex material is of most relevance to existing courses and programmes of study at this level. The website can be accessed directly by students or by members of the public. It can also benefit those groups indirectly by informing the ideas and approaches of teachers or curators.