Economic prospects for Taylor and Arcedeckne improved with the ending of the war. Taylor laid out his plans for buying more enslaved workers from the next ‘Guinea man’ (slave ship) to arrive from ‘a good’ part of Africa and indicated that slaves from Africa were in much demand across the Caribbean. He noted that the enslaved people living on Arcedeckne’s property were in good health (before commenting on the state of the livestock), and his letter details some of the many tasks and jobs involved in maintaining a sugar estate.
[…] there will not be any danger or your negroes wanting a belly full, and there is plenty for new negroes as soon as any Guinea man from a good country arrives, many ships have been expected but there has as yett but few arrived from their having stopped at St. Thomas’s and there disposed of their cargos for to supply the French and Spaniards […] as soon as negroes come in I must buy as many as I can for you, untill I gett 30 this year, and when I can buy payable in 1785 I must again gett 30 more for there is really plenty of work for them in clearing and billing your pastures which are really foul at the estate, and making fences and planting the rocky parts into Guinea Grass, for it is absolutely necessary to have pasturage as canes, from the looks of your people a man would hardly know them they are so much altered in their looks for the better, the cattle are in good working order but not so fatt as I could wish, the mules are in good order and from every appearance there ought to be a good crop […]
(Vanneck-Arc/3A/1783/19, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, Kingston, 1 June 1783)
Category Archives: Slave trade
Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 30 March 1783
Taylor’s comments here illustrate how far the uncertainties of war hampered planning in plantation management. With the cessation of hostilities, much remained to be decided, but Taylor felt relieved and able to make plans for the future, which included the purchase of enslaved Africans for Golden Grove.
I would upon the presumption of a peace, have bought you a doz. of negroes lately, but I considered that sugars would sell very low indeed for the first year, did not know what terms the peace was to be made, and was very diffident what to do, but now thank God that blessed event has happened we can with ease and safety with prudent management go on improving every year, and adding to the strength yearly.
(Vanneck-Arc/3A/1783/12, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, Kingston, 30 March 1783)
Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 26 November 1781
Taylor saw enslaved people as little other than units of production but understood the necessity of enforcing routines that were conducive to efficient and sustained work. Here he talks about the value of having a medical doctor resident at Arcedeckne’s Golden Grove estate and critiques the practices of the white overseers who superintended the daily management of estates, many of whom used their position to find work for their own ‘jobbing’ gangs of slaves and to claim large bonuses to their salaries for producing large crops in the short-term, while subjecting enslaved people to such abuses that the estate was unable to keep up the output.
[…] I am glad you approve of my having let the doctor have the house, and you will be very wrong again ever to let an overseer have any land from you but for a specified number of years. Buying of more negroes is certainly the way not to have jobbing, but it is ruin to buy negroes to have them immediately killed and worked to death to aggrandise an overseer’s name by saying he made such and such a crop for a year or two, and then for the estate to fall off and the real strength gone to the devil, as for words or writing it is only whistling to the wind. I assure you your negroes are not what you have a right to expect or what they ought to be and there is no probability at present of any that may be put on thriving, it is very easy to destroy a good gang of negroes but very difficult to raise one and requires a great deal more pains than has been or will be taken of them, the first thing to be done for new negroes is to get them plenty of provisions to let them make grounds and build houses and to be easily worked untill they are seasoned but to work them immediately hard only breakes [sic] their hearts. […]
(Vanneck-Arc/3A/1781/28, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, Kingston, 26 November 1781)