Dispatch 1: Caribbean
I'm almost half-way through my Caribbean trip visiting 5 islands of St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Barbados and Grenada exploring cod-merchant Charles Robin's role in a British slave plantation based economy in the 18th and 19 centuries.
Before my trip in the Caribbean I spend a year researching secondary and primary sources of trade geometries from the Jersey/ Canada/ UK perspective as part of my maritime project Entrepôt. Through a photographic discourse my aim is to respond artistically and creatively to new information discovered through archival research and field-studies in the Caribbean entrepôt. In particularly, the aim is to explore through an image-making process the following questions:
Which plantations bought salted codfish sold at markets in the Caribbean?
To what extend did salt-cod form part of the diet of enslaved people on the plantations?
Who were the shipping agents in the Caribbean facilitating import of salted cod and export of plantation goods?
To what extend did the Charles Robin Company profit from being a trading partner in a plantation economy based on slavery in the Caribbean?
What do historical and contemporary legacies of slavery and post-colonialism in Caribbean islands look like?
Most colonial records of the British Empire is held at the National Archives in Kew, but local archives always have specific knowledge and often some discoveries are made that leads to photographic responses. The first stop was the National Archives Authority of St Lucia housed in an old British military Baracks on Mt Vigie in the capital Castries. Having been in communication before my visit records in relation to importation, consumption and trading in salted cod in exchange for plantation goods were limited, so I turned my attention to one sugar plantation "Soufrière Estate'.
In the UCL database on Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery 33 individuals are listed with addresses in Jersey who received compensation when the Abolition of Slavery Bill was passed in Parliament in 1833. In a total of 81 claims, the majority of claims are from plantations in Jamaica (51 claims, equal 63%). However, there are five claims from Barbados, two from Grenada and two from St Lucia . For example: Rev. William Garnett of St Michael, Barbados was awarded compensation for 10 enslaved people in St Lucia on 8th Feb 1836 for total sum of £159 4s 4d and another in Barbados on 21st March 1836 for 7 slaves for the value of £217 10s 0d. His daughter, Elizabeth Mary Garnett married Michael Jackson who also was awarded compensation twice for two claims, one from Barbados and another from 'Soufrière Estate' in St Lucia as part of his marriage settlement to Garnett’s daughter.
Thanks to the research done by the late author and academic Jane Edwards in Jersey a photograph exists showing a white man seated in the left corner and a lady of mixed race with two black servants holding a drinks tray. It's possible that the seated figure is Michael Jackson and one of his daughters made at their residence on Portland Place, St Helier where he and his father-in-law Rev William Garnett both bought houses. The group portrait was made by John Brodie who was a brandy distiller and amateur photographer. He had settled in Jersey with his fellow Scotchman, William Collie, an artist. They both lived on Belmont Road in St Helier from where Brodie were running his liquor business.
The group portrait is one of as many as 64 that are either captioned or attributed to 'Brodie' as part of an extraordinary collection of early photographs of Jersey in the album of Richard Willats held in the Graphics Department at Princeton University. Richard Willats had a shop in London and was a manufacturer and dealer in photographic supplies, including the iodised paper needed for the new calotype process which Brodie used to produce his images. As it happens, I visited the said department in Princeton in 2014 when I was developing Atlantus - a transoceanic photographic project that explore a shared history of Jersey - New Jersey - with Gareth Syvret, former photo-archivist at the Société Jersiaise, who insisted I viewed Willats' album. According to Edwards, the servant standing on the right was also the subject of an individual portrait by Brodie and is described in the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection catalogue as an 'African Englishman'.
In St Lucia several hundreds of plantations growing crops of coffee (180), sugar (102), cocoa (88) and cotton (57) were in operation at the height of British imperial rule (1819*) and in the national archive a folder on the plantation 'Soufrière Estate' was presented to me by Melisa, the Records Liaison Officer. Studying it closely, it became abundantly clear that 'Soufrière Estate' was not just 'another' sugar plantation, but in fact one of the oldest estates in St Lucia. The estate was a portion of the original 2000 acres of land granted to three Devaux brothers by King Louis XIV in 1713 in recognition of their services to Crown and Country. Later on mineral springs were discovered and were used as restorative baths by the French soldiers. In 1784, the Baron de Laborie, the French Governor of St Lucia, sent samples of the water to Paris for testing and it is believed to be good for rheumatism and skin complaints.
An old advert in the archive folder describes Soufrière Estate, and in essence encapsulates St Lucia's nostalgic view of its past (which doesn't seem to include much contemporary discourse around slavery and its effects on the island social, political and economical histories and hierarchical structures - a view shared by staff at the national archive.)
'Within the confines of this property lies the essence of French and British history in St Lucia. The estate produced sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, cocoa and limes. Towards the 18th century two events took place which reduced the island and this estate to shambles. First was hurricane of 1780 by which most buildings, crops and roads were destroyed. The second was the French Revolution. The island of St Lucia changes hands 14 times between the French and the British. It was during the French Revolution that the Guillotine was erected in the town square of Soufrière. The old estate Mill and Waterwheel that was built in 1765 originally was used to crush the sugar cane. When the sugar cane crops were destroyed the huge waterwheel crushed lime and also supplied the first hydro-electricity to the town of Soufrière.'
In the early 1900s André du Boulay acquired the former sugar estates, Soufrière, Diamond, La Pearle, Ruby and Palmiste. The baths stayed in a state of ruin until André restored them for his private use. In 1982 upon his death, his daughter Joan Devaux (neé du Boulay) took over the management of the estate and transformed it from a working plantation into one of the major heritage sites in the region, that today is a spectacular tourist attraction that includes the Botanical Gardens, Waterfall, Mineral Baths, Nature Trail, Old Mill Restaurant, and the historic Soufrière Estate House. In the tourist season busloads of passengers from Caribbean cruise ships happily make a 3-4 hour roundtrip from Castries harbour to see the famous Diamond waterfall that are part of its extensive gardens of 6 acres. In St Lucia the du Boulay family is akin to the de Carteret family in Jersey with influence in local politics and extensive business interests from agriculture, tourism, grocery and even a law firm.
At the St Lucia archives I asked Tricia in the Genealogical Research Department to trace land ownership of Soufrière Estate and find any records in relation to Michael Jackson as I wanted to find out when he and his business partner Peter Muter acquired it and when they sold it. Further analysis of the 16 records found is needed, but it appears they both sold it in either 1837 or 1838. Their names are listed as owners of Soufrière Estate on both documents; Returns of Plantation Slaves 1819 and 1834, the last one was used to collect data on slave ownership for the compensation paid for the financial loss of the planters when the Abolition of Slavery Bill was passed in Parliament in 1837. With the money accrued both from the compensation and the sale of the estate, it appears Michael Jackson settled in Jersey, which in the mid-19th century was already a low-tax jurisdiction, hence the influx of British ex-colonialists and high ranking military officers who served in one of the many wars that the British were engaged in during its empire building.
Looking through an old 19th century newspaper, St Lucia Gazette I came across an advert, dated 27 July, 1843 which read; 'Landing ex "Funchal" Prime Cod-fish' by William M. Muter who was Peter's brother. According to UCL site on the Legacies of British Slavery he was a major merchant, ship owner and slave-owner who was in London in 1837, but apparently resident in St Lucia again in the 1840s. He owned at least 3 large sugar plantations and made a total of 18 successful claims for compensation in relation to other estates, that he either part owned or acted as the administrator or executor. I wondered if Michael Jackson and Peter Muter bought salted cod from Charles Robin, or perhaps other Jersey merchants during their plantation ownership and fed it to their enslaved people? The history books about triangular transatlantic trade tells us that salted cold from Canada was sold to planters in the West Indies. Charles Robin himself in his diary referred to it as 'West India fish' and we know from his own business records that he sent at least one or two ships annually to the Caribbean with salted cod en-route to his prime markets in the Mediterranean where he would sell his much priced dry-cod, known as Gaspé cure.
However, the diet of enslaved people in the plantations were much more varied and complex according to which colony it belonged to and the individual master of the plantation and many other factors such as natural disasters that were highly destructive to local food-crop production and man-made disasters, such as wars that were disruptive to food import. For example, in the archives in Martinique I found evidence in the Code de la Martinique 1787-1804 that there were laws in place by the French authorities that it was the master's obligation to feed his enslaved people a proper diet, but in reality this was rarely observed as it was more economical to work a slave to death then to feed him or her well, especially in the early period (1660s-1770s) when enslaved labour was cheap and easy to replace. (for a much more nuanced analysis, see 'A Reassessment of the Provision of Food to Enslaved Persons, with Special Reference to Salted Cod in Barbados by James E Candow, published in The Journal of Caribbean History, Vol 43:2, 2009)
In Soufrière, I managed to meet by chance David du Boulay, grandson of André du Boulay who lives at La Pearle Estate. He kindly showed me the old rum distillery including its large water wheel, still intact and in working order at the adjoining Ruby Estate where his sister Michelle lives. In his father's time the family owned estate employed hundreds of people in agriculture and hospitality. Today, the workforce is reduced significantly, but they still harvest coconuts and bananas for market amongst other things. David is working on future plans to develop parts of the estate into a tourist enterprise, but needs financial investors to make it viable. I asked him, if it wouldn't be easier to sell the land and his reply, surprised me. " I was brought up by father and grandfather to keep the land. In the du Boulay family we have a motto; people matters more than profit.'
There is a third picture attributed to Brodie in the Willats' album showing a group of four men seated outside Brodie's distillery. Going by appearance the man seated in the right corner looks like Michael Jackson and it's perhaps no coincidence that he would come to know both William Collie and John Brodie and visit Brodie's distillery as he himself had owned a sugar plantation and rum distillery in St Lucia. It's plausible that they were brought together for the love of good liquor and no doubt Jackson would have told stories about his time in the Caribbean while enjoying a drink, or two. Both the interior group portrait around the table and the exterior group portrait outside Brodie's distillery evolves around alcohol, both its consumption and production, which is essentially what my photographic quest in the Caribbean is exploring in relation to salted cod from Canada produced by Jersey merchants and consumed by enslaved people. Currently, I’m in Dominica, another British ex-colony and an island where Robin sent the majority of his ships from his HQ in Paspébiac in Gaspé laden with salted cod ready for market.
Images in order of appearance:
1. John Brodie, Group portrait, two men, two women, 8 x 8.5 inches
2. John Brodie, Group portrait, four men, 10.9 x 15 / Calotype
3. David du Boulay, Proprietor, La Pearle Estate, Soufrière, St Lucia, 2024
4. Mark Taoin, Farm Worker, La Pearle Estate, Soufrière, St Lucia, 2024
5. Newspaper ad from St Lucia Gazette advertising 'Prime Cod', 27 July 1843. Courtesy of the National Archives Authority of St Lucia.
*For more details of a British plantocracy in St Lucia, see Julien Harmsen, Guy Ellis and Robert Devaux, A History of St Lucia (2012). Vieux Fort: Lighthouse Road Publications
