Slavery

Brilliant! Thank you for making me chuckle!!

On a slightly different scale - which was, to be honest, what drew me into this post - I'd be interested to know if many of you have come up against slavery in your search for ancestors. Brothers of one of my Gtx5 Grandmothers were deeply involved in the slave trade and ownership of plantations in Jamaica at the turn of the 18th/19th century. This came as quite a shock when I first found out about it but now I'm trying to put it all into context.

I have slave ancestry (Jamaica) on one side of my family but diluted as my maternal g.mother's father was the son of a plantation manger and her mother's mother (my gt.g.mother) must have been born into slavery.

It's so difficult to trace this sort of ancestry, especially when one has only a forename to go on and the local parish priest didn't record the names of my gt.g.mother's parents when she was baptised because she was illegitimate...

^ Brothers of one of my Gtx5 Grandmothers were deeply involved in the slave trade and ownership of plantations in Jamaica ^

Do you know which plantations they owned, AcornFairy?

I don't have a problem with the slave ancestry; it's in the past. But I found it difficult when, in 2007, there was lots of apologising for Britain's role in the slave trade. Where did I fit in as a product of slave and bosses?

The third person is a housewife? or am I reading it wrong

Probably an accurate description.

JaneJudge I think you are reading the post correctly. I think OP, at the end of her post, is referring to the Housewife.

But the housewife is called Elizabeth Riddiford? Is she the same person as Lizzie Wilson? Sorry

Fwiw I understand the humour. I say to my lot I do all the 'invisible' jobs. The things no one sees unless I stop doing them

Is Lizzie Willson's age 82? That would seem to make her the farmer's mother?

Yes, I agree it was probably a jocular remark.

Sorry to introduce real slaves into this thread

JaneJudge

The third person is a housewife? or am I reading it wrong

Yes indeed, but that was also changed to “unpaid domestic duties”. ?

Aldom

JaneJudge I think you are reading the post correctly. I think OP, at the end of her post, is referring to the Housewife.

The presumed wife (same surname as the farmer) is the feisty one who considered herself a “farmer’s slave”. The entry “housewife” in the third line shown was presumably changed to fall in line with the previous correction.
I like to think Lizzie Willson was simply having a bad day or was very witty.

The presumed wife appears to be 20 years older than her 'husband'.

I've seen plenty of age differences over the years, but that one is a bit startling.

I think she was the farmer's older unmarried sister - otherwise the slave entry would have been corrected to 'housewife'.

No, she’s shown as being married(‘M’).

Yes, you're right! The 8 in 82 looks a bit smudgy - maybe it's 62.

Still wondering why she wasn't corrected to 'Housewife'

They always put ‘unpaid domestic duties’ down for housewives in the 1939 register. It’s a fascinating resource. I found an ageing brother and sister I knew of living together in a little cottage both described as married - which neither of them was ....

I found The Legacy of Slave Trade Owners. It shows a map of Britain with the surnames of all who had between 1 and several slaves. And how much compensation they were paid. I was relieved to notice our family surnames were not slave trade owners. There were owners all over Britain.

Yes, MaizieD, I do know one of them.

My Gtx5 Grandmother Jane Parkinson had a brother, Robert, who owned the Whitehall Pen plantation in Westmoreland, Cornwall, Jamaica. When Robert died in 1796 he left the estate to another brother, Ralph. Ralph died in 1806 and Whitehall Pen passed to Matthew Parkinson. Matthew was a son of another of Jane’s brothers, John; who does not seem to have had any direct involvement with the Jamaican goings on. (Hopefully!)

The most prolific of Jane’s brothers was Leonard Parkinson. Although I have found no references to his ownership of any specific plantations he was closely connected to what was going on in Jamaica. He has been described as a planter and businessman and he was in partnership with George Goodin Barrett: “Messrs Barrett and Parkinson, slave traders”. When he died he was back in England and the owner Kinnersley Castle in Herefordshire.

I liked your comment “I don't have a problem with the slave ancestry; it's in the past. But I found it difficult when, in 2007, there was lots of apologising for Britain's role in the slave trade. Where did I fit in as a product of slave and bosses?”

Recent outpourings of apology and guilt concerning historic slave trading and other such matters have made me feel uncomfortable. Our ancestors’ deeds were done in circumstances very different from those existing today and I actually find it rather patronising for contemporary critics to presume they know better than those who went before. What matters now is that we learn from the past and leave the best legacy we can for future generations.

Thanks for that, AcornFairy. I've had a few coincidences in life recently and I thought it would be possible that your forebears were connected with plantations that my 2xgtgrandfather managed! But no, they're not.

My 2xgtgfather went to Jamaica from Britain in the 1840s, so didn't manage any slave labour or 'apprentices'. His wife was Jamaican born, but I can't find anything more about her.

Jamaica is a lovely country (though a bit scary in places). Have you ever been there?
We've been a couple of times, first time I made an attempt to consult their records, but that was a bit of a failure, they're not 'quite' as well organised as Kew... I've learned more from Ancestry and Family Search

My mother’s family were in the Americas from around 1650, not just as plantation owners but administrators, military and pirates too. There was close contact with the UK in the 1920s since then nothing that I know of, no chance of a name there are a lot of them around now