Slavery and Revolution

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Category Archives: North America/USA

Simon Taylor to Simon Richard Brissett Taylor, 30 August 1806

By Christer Petley |

Taylor’s letters reflect the dilemmas of slaveholding colonial planters with British identities who had, nevertheless, become disillusioned about their place within the empire. By 1806, Taylor was recommending his nephew, and principal heir, Sir Simon Brissett Taylor, who was by then aged twenty-two, to explore the possibility of moving the Taylor family and their investments […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 3 June 1787

By Admms |

Taylor continued to rail against British trade policy throughout the 1780s. He criticised the 1786 Anglo-French commercial treaty, which liberalised aspects of trade between the two nations, and continued to complain about the difficulty of obtaining plantation supplies and about other perceived shortcomings of the post 1783 Atlantic commercial regime. […] I sincerely hope the […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 14 December 1786

By Admms |

Here Taylor discusses the quality of sugar shipped to England from Chaloner Arcedeckne’s estate, Golden Grove, and discusses the poor health of enslaved people, particularly in western Jamaican parishes, linking this to the unusually bad weather and restrictions on trading with the United States. Taylor provides some detail on his strategies for providing sustenance for […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 16 January 1783

By Admms |

At the beginning of 1783, Taylor looked forward to peace, hoping that the post-war British Atlantic would resemble that of 1775, even to the extent of bringing America back into the British empire. He showed irritation with both American patriots and British policy. And, although he had remained loyal to the metropole throughout the conflict […]

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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 May 1782

By Admms |

The victory of Sir George Rodney over the combined French and Spanish fleet at the Saintes on 12 April 1782 ensured that Jamaica would not face an invasion. Taylor remained fearful of the number of enemy troops who remained in the region and worried about the diminution of the white population of Jamaica. Nevertheless, with […]

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