Slavery and Revolution

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Category Archives: Navy

Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 26 November 1781

By Admms |

By the end of November 1781, news of the British capitulation at Yorktown had reached Jamaica. In Taylor’s formulation, the failure of British forces in America, combined with the new high duties on sugar, amounted to a catastrophe for Jamaican planters. This war with the whole world must and will involve Britain and her dependencies […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 28 August 1781

By Admms |

Taylor’s callous disregard for enslaved people as anything other than commodities and units of labour is evident in his reaction to the effects of the storm at Arcedeckne’s Golden Grove estate, which he managed as Arcedeckne’s attorney. The shocking human cost of the hurricane is nevertheless apparent, although Taylor conflates this with a diatribe about […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 26 June 1781

By Admms |

The increase in the duty on sugar came in the budget of March 1781. A duty that had been a little under 6s 4d per hundredweight in 1776 now rose to over 11s 8d. The Prime Minister, Lord North, explained that the new tax was necessary because of the expenses of the war, which compelled […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 April 1781

By Admms |

What began as a fairly small conflict between Britain and the rebellious colonists of Massachusetts had, by 1781, escalated to become a global war between Britain and her traditional Catholic rivals, France and Spain. With the entry of the Dutch into the war, Britain found herself facing an even more formidable hostile alliance, a war […]

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