The Jamaican Diaries of Robert Hibbert 1772-1780: Detailing a merchant family's involvement in and defence of the colonial slave trade based economy

by Nick Hibbert Steele

Overview

The Jamaican Diaries of Robert Hibbert 1772–1780 is a deeply personal work that has evolved over the last 15 years. It is intended to foster a greater understanding of a very difficult time in history, in which the enslaved and the enslavers inhabit different, disturbing interlocking narratives, now distorted by time and politics. At its core is the dark stain of an empire and many fortunes built upon the enslavement of the unfortunate.

It contains much thorough research into people, places, events and sources that developed as the author followed the twists and turns of a family history often frustratingly opaque and sometimes sensationally public.

The book is part genealogy and part social history: a previously unpublished diary of a major figure in the West Indian slave trade, with contemporary sources and biographical notes on those that strutted the Atlantic world of the late eighteenth century. It lays down a chronology to allow a picture of the day-to-day happenings in Jamaica to emerge.

This work exposes the deep, raw wounds that have resonated through the centuries, creating a need for a deeper study into many facets of British Atlantic history from a different perspective – one in which the narrative of the enslaved and the enslavers can be read together in both the geopolitical context of the times and the legal, ethical, humanitarian and religious belief systems of those times on both sides of the Atlantic.

In order to consider how the slave trade was run, financed, organised and evolved, the author provides a detailed examination of the Jamaican economy of the time, and offers a better and more balanced understanding of the slave trade’s establishment, adoption, adaption, abolition and, lastly, its legacy, in all its hydra-like forms.

The second volume of this work will cover the years when the Diaries resume, 1787 to 1802. The Robert Hibbert diaries and the family involvement with Jamaica extend past the abolition (1834) and emancipation (1838) of slaves to the middle of the nineteenth century.

About the Author:

Nick Hibbert Steele, born in London but for the last 35 years resident in Australia, has been very active in researching a family history that many would have avoided. When asked about the remarkable likeness of two people united by name manifested in an image 200 years old, he said, ‘When I saw the portrait...I just had to follow the history. Beware of your ancestors. When you start rummaging through your ancestry you must be prepared to confront the unthinkable. Do you rebury the past or do you examine the history through a new lens of previously unseen documents?’ For a number of years Nick has been a contributor to the Slave Voyages Database at www.slavevoyages.org.

He has employed his long experience in business to interpret the commercial practices of the past in this analysis of the slave trade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780648756705
Publisher:	Asset Sales (Australia) Pty.Ltd.
Publication date:	12/15/2019
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Nick Hibbert Steele, born in London but for the last 35 years resident in Australia, has been very active in researching a family history that many would have avoided. When asked about the remarkable likeness of two people united by name manifested in an image 200 years old, he said, 'When I saw the portrait...I just had to follow the history. Beware of your ancestors. When you start rummaging through your ancestry you must be prepared to confront the unthinkable. Do you rebury the past or do you examine the history through a new lens of previously unseen documents?' For a number of years Nick has been a contributor to the Slave Voyages Database at www.slavevoyages.org.

Table of Contents

Glossary

Abbreviations

Editing notes

General chronology of the settlement of Jamaica and the West Indies, and the abolition of the slave trade, with Hibbert involvement noted

Governors of Jamaica: a rum lot

Introduction

Chapter 1

Notable Players in Jamaica

The Beckfords

Colonel Peter Beckford 1643–1710

Speaker Peter Beckford 1672–1735

Alderman William Beckford MP 1709–1770

William Thomas Beckford 1759–1844

William Beckford of Somerly 1744–1799

Other Identities

Captain John Boyd 1734–1819

Lewis Cuthbert 1737–1802

George Cuthbert 1745–1789

George Cuthbert 1767 d. 1835

Bryan Edwards MP FRS 1743–1800

Doctor David Grant 1742–1817

James Hakewill 1778–1843

Edward Long 1734–1813

Doctor John Frederick Nembhard 1711–1777

Ann Peyton Hamilton Nembhard 1737–1806

Prince Eugene of Savoy 1663–1736

Nathaniel Phillips 1733–1813

Teresia Constantia Phillips 1709–1765

Admiral George Brydges Rodney 1719–1792

Hercules Ross 1745–1816

Nathan Sprigg 17xx–1778

Hon. Simon Taylor 1739–1813

Hon. John Tharp 1744–1804

Good Hope Estate

Chapter 2: Kingston and Port Royal

Chapter 3: Jamaican Currency and Finance

Chapter 4: Slave Factors and Finance

Chapter 5: The Establishment of the Hibbert Vertically Integrated West India House

Chapter 6: The Early Hibberts: The Rise to Prominence

Chapter 7: Hibbert Biographical Notes

Identifying the principal Hibberts in Jamaica

Dr Henry Hibbert (Divine) 1600–1678

Robert Hibbert 1654–1709

Robert Hibbert 1684–1762

Margaret Tetlow Hibbert 1690–1759

Hon. Thomas Hibbert 1709–1780

Mrs Charity Harry

Jane (Jenny) Harry Thresher 1755–1784

Robert Hibbert 1717–1784

Abigail Scholey Hibbert 1721–1793

John Hibbert (JH1) 1732–1769

Jannett Gordon Hibbert 1739–1778

Thomas Hibbert 1744–1819

Sophia Boldero Hibbert 1760–1827

John Hibbert (JH2) 1748–1770

Thomas Hibbert Junior (TH3) 1761–1807

Robert Hibbert (RH1) 1750–1835

Letitia Hamilton Nembhard Hibbert 1765–1851

Chapter 8: Setting the Scene

Chapter 9: The Diaries

Appendix: Ships, Captains and Slave Sales Log

Select Bibliography

Index