The Plantation Papers of the Barham Family

Tessa van Wijk https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2011-8697

Tessa van Wijk is a Research Master student of Literary Studies at Radboud University in the Netherlands. As part of her programme, she spent 4.5 months researching correspondence related to slavery at Electronic Enlightenment. She edited 16 letters of the Barham Papers’ Jamaica Correspondence, held in the Bodleian Libraries’ Special Collections. These letters have now been added to Electronic Enlightenment. The letters that were chosen for this mini-edition date from 1764–1792 and are addressed either to Joseph Foster Barham I or his son Joseph Foster Barham II.

The son of Colonel John Foster (1681–1731) and stepson of Dr Henry Barham (1692–1746), Joseph Foster Barham I took his stepfather’s last name in order to accede to his Jamaican sugar plantation (Mesopotamia Estate, Westmoreland). He had previously already inherited his father’s sugar plantation in Jamaica (Island Estate, St Elizabeth). While Joseph Foster Barham I did visit his estates in Jamaica in 1750, he only stayed there for about a year, and this would remain his only visit to the island and his estates. He rather chose to appoint people to manage his estates on his behalf, requiring them to frequently report on the estates and the enslaved people working on them. Foster Barham I passed away of a stroke in 1789, after which his son, also Joseph Foster Barham, came into possession of his estates. Joseph Foster Barham II would later also become owner of two additional Jamaican estates, the Springfield Estate (Hanover) and the Windsor Estate (St Elizabeth). He would continue his father’s approach of hiring plantation managers for his Jamaican estates.¹

The letters added to Electronic Enlightenment were for the most part written by these different managers (or overseers depending on the terminology used) of the Foster Barham plantations, specifically the Mesopotamia Estate and the Island Estate. One letter, however, was written by the Foster (Barham) family’s attorney, William Smalling, and one was written by Robert Pinkney, physician to the Mesopotamia Estate in Westmoreland. The different managers of the Mesopotamia Estate and Island Estate whose letters have been included in this mini-edition are Daniel Barnjum, Charles Rowe, James Wedderburn, John Graham and John Vanheelen.

The letters written by these men mostly discuss business matters related to the estate, such as shipping details. However, enslaved workers were also a key part of the estates and the success of these letter writers. As such, they are often referred to in the letters. For this mini-edition, 16 letters referring to enslaved people on the respective estates have been selected and edited, in order to hopefully provide some insight into the history of slavery and the enslaved people’s lived experiences. The letters were diplomatically transcribed to represent them as they were originally written and take into account idiosyncratic differences in language and spelling. The 16 letters were chosen after a survey of over 300 documents, consisting mainly of letters but also of some legal papers. Given time constraints, it was not possible to go through all of the Barham Papers’ Jamaica Correspondence. As such, the decision was made to go through the first 6 folders dating from 1761 until 1792. After the survey of these 300 letters and some legal papers, the 16 letters for this mini-edition were chosen to represent 7 themes relating to the management of the sugar plantations and specifically the enslaved workers. The 7 themes present in these letters are the following: (1) providing for enslaved people, (2) efficiency and purchasing of enslaved workers, (3) punishment and reward of enslaved workers, (4) enslaved workers rebelling, revolting and/or running away, (5) pregnancy, birth and enslaved children, (6) illness & health of enslaved workers, and lastly (7) (anti-)slavery debate and sentiment. It is important to note that these letters refer to enslaved people from the point of view of those exploiting them. As such, the nature of them is biased, racist, and violent in language and content.

Unfortunately, due to silences in the archive, we are often limited to using such accounts by individuals involved in the slave trade and the system of slavery when researching the history of slavery and wanting to gain some insight into enslaved people’s lived experiences. It is therefore paramount that we read such materials critically. Caitlin Rosenthal argues in favour of taking a ‘slow’ approach. We must acknowledge the biases embedded in the material, and the fact that they represent slaveholders’ values, in order to avoid replicating these biases and values.² By doing so, we can at times discover something about enslaved people and their lives through materials created by the people exploiting them. Several of the 16 letters from the Barham Papers’ Jamaica Correspondence added to Electronic Enlightenment, for example, can tell us something about the health and well-being of the enslaved people working on the Mesopotamia Estate and Island Estate. This subject comes to the fore, for instance, in this letter from 1781:

This letter details the living conditions of the enslaved workers on the Island Estate. As such, even if it consists here of a written account by someone involved in the system of slavery, in his capacity as plantation manager, it provides us with some information about enslaved people’s lived experiences.

Furthermore, these letters also shed light on important political developments at the time. Specifically, when it comes to the rise of anti-slavery sentiment, abolition and the unstable political situation in European colonies. This is particularly the case for letters dating from the last two decades of the eighteenth century, such as this one from John Vanheelen to Joseph Foster Barham I:

In this letter, John Vanheelen clearly refers to the growing anti-slavery discourse in England and the movement critiquing the poor treatment of enslaved people. What seems contradictory, however, is that he uses this to justify the purchase of more enslaved people, and even goes as far as writing that there would be ‘feelings of Humanity’ in getting more enslaved workers for the sugar plantation. Furthermore, he also discusses the supposed effects the anti-slavery movement has, or could have, on the white people living in Jamaica, stating it causes ‘uneasiness’ and could endanger their lives. He thereby positions the anti-slavery movement as dangerous, whilst he at the same time fashions himself as charitable and humane. Here, Vanheelen clearly inscribes himself in the discourse used by many people involved in the system of slavery in which they position themselves as benevolent and taking good care of their enslaved workers.³ Letters such as these can therefore shed light onto the way in which individuals involved in the system of slavery position themselves and try to justify their actions.

Two of Charles Rowe’s letters, Charles Rowe to Joseph Foster Barham II, 6 December 1791 and Charles Rowe to Joseph Foster Barham II, 14 May 1792, refer to the uprising of enslaved people on St Domingue, which would be the start of the Haitian Revolution. In a letter of 6 December 1791, Rowe writes the following about St Domingue:

Again, we can see that the letter writer, as in the previous example from John Vanheelen’s letter, tries to position himself and other white people in Jamaica as victims of the anti-slavery movement. As St Domingue is Jamaica’s neighbouring island, the anti-slavery movement and the revolt there are suddenly very close, causing Rowe to realize that the situation in Jamaica could also change very quickly. As such, he tries to appeal to the emotions of politicians, such as the famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, by referring to the ‘[d]readful’ situation on St Domingue and implying that measures to improve the situation of enslaved people in British colonies such as Jamaica could lead to a disastrous situation. Furthermore, giving more rights to free people of colour, Charles Rowe argues, could also prove dangerous; it might further entice enslaved people to also want rights. He makes the point that he and the other white people in Jamaica feel unsafe and fear the violent effects of these political developments and the revolts it might provoke. Of course, this is not the only reason Rowe is apprehensive of these developments, there is also an economic factor to it. The anti-slavery movement and regulations of the slave trade put his livelihood at stake.

In short, while the 16 letters added to Electronic Enlightenment are problematic in nature, by being written by people running the system of slavery and referring to enslaved people and slavery in this capacity, they do allow us, together with the 9 new biographies for the letter writers and recipients, to gain insight into the history of slavery. We can learn something about the lived experiences of enslaved people on the Foster Barham estates and the treatment they received. Moreover, they shed light on the way in which individuals involved in the system of slavery position themselves and justify their actions, as well as refer to important historical events in the history of slavery and their effects on colonies such as Jamaica. This makes them a valuable source when studying the history of slavery if, and only if, we use a critical, or ‘slow’, approach.

1. For more information about the Foster Barhams and their approaches regarding the management of their Jamaican estates, see Richard Dunn, A Tale of Two Plantations: Slave Life and Labor in Jamaica and Virginia, Cambridge, MA and London, England, Harvard University Press, 2014.
2. Cailtin Rosenthal, ‘Lessons From the “Data Exhaust” of Plantation Slavery‘, Harvard Data Science Review, vol. 3, n˚2, 2021, p. 2–9.
3. This is further exemplified in John Vanheelen’s letter of 30 April 1788 (not included in this mini-edition), in which he argues that the enslaved people on plantations ‘[a]re much better provided & cared for than the common labouring Man in Great Brittain.’ John Vanheelen to Joseph Foster Barham I, 30 April 1788, Y.S., St Elizabeth, Jamaica. Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, Ms. Clar. Dep. C. 357/1, bundle 1, folder 4.

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