Category Archives: The Letters
Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 April 1781
08/04/1781
Jamaica was prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts. The 1780s witnessed a succession of hurricanes. These, mixed with other factors, such as the scarcity of food provisions as a result of the American Revolutionary War, led to ill-health and starvation among enslaved people in Jamaica. Here, Taylor recounts to Chaloner Arcedeckne […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 April 1781
08/04/1781
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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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 April 1781
08/04/1781
Taylor’s complaints about British policies towards the colonies began in earnest during 1781. Until that time, his letters had contained little critical commentary on the duties laid by parliament on colonial trade or the attitudes of British government ministers towards the West Indian colonies. This changed as sharp increases to the sugar duties were imposed. […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 12 February 1781
12/02/1781
Taylor acted as a local proxy (or ‘attorney’ in eighteenth-century Jamaican parlance) for plantation owners living in England, acting on their behalf and managing their sugar estates/ One such absentee was his friend, Chaloner Arcedeckne, who owned the Golden Grove sugar estate in St Thomas in the East. Here, Taylor informs Arcedeckne about the sugars […]
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