Slavery--Estate ledger for Saxham Estate, Jamaica, including a list of slaves, 1783

SLAVERY--JAMAICA

estate ledger, for Saxham Estate in Hanover Parish, Jamaica

partially printed in red ink, commencing with a "list of Negroes ... 12th of May 1783", 7 pages, detailing 250 enslaved people, arranged by occupation in three field gangs, a gang of those sick with yaws, house slaves and those with specialised occupations (including a doctor, blacksmiths, masons, sawyers, cook, etc.), as well as 12 invalids and 12 children under three, with notes on each person ("able tho' very Lazily inclined", "Bloated & almost Dead", "a Dirt Eater & a Runaway", "almost Worthless a very bad sore", "with Child", etc.), followed by lists of mules and cattle, notes on the change in numbers of livestock from 1 January to 12 May 1783, "Boiling House Work" summarising sugar production, record of spirits distilled, and crop invoices, 34 pages, plus blanks, folio, 1782-83, 20th century marbled boards, one leaf remargined

A DETAILED SNAPSHOT OF A LARGE SUGAR ESTATE WHEN THE WEST INDIAN SLAVE ECONOMY WAS AT ITS HEIGHT. It shows the employment of almost the entire population, including pregnant women, children, the chronically sick, in a sophisticated mode of production with complex division of labour. The development of commercial sugar production in Jamaica generated fortunes for British landowners - at the cost of many thousand lives of enslaved Africans. In the 1780s Saxham estate in western Jamaica belonged to Hutchison Mure, who had named the estate after his village in Suffolk.  

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