The London Society of West India Planters and Merchants was an organization established to represent the views of the British West Indian plantocracy, i.e. the ruling class who owned and ran the slave-based plantations in what is now the Caribbean. The organization played a major role in resisting the abolition of the slave trade and that of slavery itself.
The Society was formed in 1780 and brought together three different groups: British sugar merchants, absentee planters and colonial agents. [1]
Estimates of the size of the West India Lobby vary between 20 and 60 members of parliament, the wide variance arising from whether tight or loose criteria are used to define what was an informal lobby. This informal way of organizing was effective prior to 1763 while their interest was aligned with the mercantilist approach which dominated British thinking: by supplying tropical staples, they did not compete with produce grown in Britain, and they provided a market for the produce they imported from within the empire. Thus informal contacts, dinners and individual solicitation were sufficient to see the passage of the Molasses Act or the defeat of Henry Pelham's proposed sugar duty. [2]
However, particularly during and following the American Revolution, the West Indian merchants lost not only a market for rum, but also a source of provisions. This situation was exacerbated with the entry of France into the American Revolutionary War in 1778. Still, West Indian planters exerted their influence in the House of Commons, and by the 1780s it was estimated that as many as 74 MPs were absentee planters or had connections with various British West Indian colonies. [3] [4] These connections also translated into financial arrangements with the Incorporated Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction of the Negro Slaves in the British West India Islands. The following is from the annual report of the Incorporated Society of the Conversion of Religious Instruction and Education of Negro Slaves in the British West India islands, “That the Treasurer of the West India Planters and Merchants, be authorized to pay over to the Treasurer of the Society of the Conversion of the Religious Instruction and Education of Negros in the British West India Islands of one thousand pounds from the general fund of the West India Planters and Merchants of the City of London. "
The society started with a predominantly Jamaican leadership, but by the 1830s, as emancipation approached, the leadership came to include a broader ranger of planter interests from across the British West Indies. [5]
The society evolved into the West India Committee.
The Society's minute books were purchased by the government of Trinidad and Tobago. They are currently held at the Alma Jordan Library, at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. [5]
The Baptist War, also known as the Sam Sharp Rebellion, the Christmas Rebellion, the Christmas Uprising and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32, was an eleven-day rebellion that started on 25 December 1831 and involved up to 60,000 of the 300,000 slaves in the Colony of Jamaica. The uprising was led by a black Baptist deacon, Samuel Sharpe, and waged largely by his followers. The revolt, though militarily unsuccessful, played a major part in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.
A slavocracy is a society primarily ruled by a class of slaveholders, such as those in the southern United States and their confederacy during the American Civil War. The term was initially coined in the 1830s by northern abolitionists as a term of disparagement and subsequently used in wider senses, including as a term for the planter class of such a society itself. Slavocracies are also sometimes known as plantocracies, after "planter" used as a term for the owners of plantations.
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet.
The emancipation of the British West Indies refers to the abolition of slavery in Britain's colonies in the West Indies during the 1830s. The British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which emancipated all slaves in the British West Indies. After emancipation, a system of apprenticeship was established, where emancipated slaves were required by the various colonial assemblies to continue working for their former masters for a period of four to six years in exchange for provisions. The system of apprenticeship was abolished by the various colonial assemblies in 1838, after pressure from the British public, completing the process of emancipation. These were the steps taken by British West Indian planters to solve the labour problems created by the emancipation of the enslaved Africans in 1838.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. Passed by Earl Grey's reforming administration, it expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act came into force on 1 August 1834, and was repealed in 1998 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
Daniel Gateward Davis (1788–1857) was an abolitionist and the inaugural Bishop of Antigua from 1842 until his death.
The Diocese of Barbados is one of eight dioceses of the Anglican Communion that is part of the Province of the West Indies.
Charles Rose Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford was a British politician, planter and peer.
Protestantism is the dominant religion in Jamaica. Protestants make up about 65% percent of the population. The five largest denominations in Jamaica are: The New Testament Church of God which is a part Church of God, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist, Pentecostal and Anglican. The full list is below. Most of the Caribbean is Catholic; Jamaica's Protestantism is a legacy of missionaries that came to the island in the 18th and 19th centuries. Missionaries attempted to convert slaves to varying Protestant denominations of Moravians, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians to name a few. As missionaries worked to convert slaves, African traditions mixed with the religion brought over by Europeans. Protestantism was associated with black nationalism in Jamaica, aiming to improve the lives of blacks who were governed by a white minority during colonial times. Today, Protestantism plays an important role in society by providing services to people in need.
James Phillippo was an English Baptist missionary in Jamaica who campaigned for the abolition of slavery. He served in Jamaica from 1823 to his death, with some periods lobbying in England for funds to support his work on the island. He led the founding of several Free Villages, having gained funds to grant freedmen and their families plots of land for farming in villages independent of planter control. He also wrote and published three books about Jamaica.
The West India Committee is a British-based organisation promoting ties and trade with the British Caribbean. It operates as a charity and NGO. It evolved out of a lobbying group formed in 1780 to represent the interests of the plantocracy.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
Slavery in Cuba was a portion of the larger Atlantic slave trade that primarily supported Spanish plantation owners engaged in the sugarcane trade. It was practiced on the island of Cuba from the 16th century until it was abolished by Spanish royal decree on October 7, 1886.
James Blair was an Irish planter and politician. He entered the Parliament of the United Kingdom as a Tory in 1818 to protect the interests of the West Indian planter class. Blair sat in the House of Commons from 1818 to 1830, and later from 1837 to 1841. When slave owners in the British Empire were compensated for the abolition of slavery in Britain's colonies in 1833, Blair received the biggest single compensation payment.
Bolton Street is a street in Mayfair London, between Curzon Street to its north, and Piccadilly to its south. It is named after the Duke of Bolton, and was from its construction during the 17th century and 1708 the westernmost street of London.
The West India Interest lobbied on behalf of the Caribbean sugar trade in Britain during the late eighteenth century.
Charles Nicholas Pallmer was an English politician, West Indies estate owner and a supporter of slavery. He twice served as a Member of Parliament (MP), with his later career overshadowed by high debts and bankruptcy.
Thomas Daniel was a shipping magnate, financier and sugar merchant in Bristol and London. His omnipotence was such that he was known as the "King of Bristol" and in later life "The Father of Bristol" because of his family's power in corporate and political affairs for over 50 years.