This type of document is called an indenture. Two copies of the document were written on the same piece of parchment and cut apart with a wavy line. They were divided like this so that it would be possible to put the two back together again. This helped to ensure that the document was genuine.

This indenture records the sale of 14 enslaved people to Jacob Graham from Mary Heward and her husband, John. It is most likely that Mary had been the slaveholder and that she “owned” the enslaved people before her marriage to John.

Jacob Graham (born 1726) moved to Jamaica from Cumberland (present Cumbria) in 1746. It seems likely that he spent some time working for other people on the island while saving money and buying up pieces of land. By the time of his death in 1816, he owned several plantations producing coffee and sugar, including Lapland, which is mentioned in this indenture. At the time of his death, his plantations contained 157 enslaved people.

As chattel property under Jamaican Law, enslaved women had no legal right to give or deny sexual consent. Jacob Graham had at least seven children by two enslaved women on his plantations. He had these children baptised and manumitted (legally made free). However, Statira, the mother of four of his children was still enslaved at the time of his death and he left her in his will to one of his older children.

The indenture mentions that Mary Heward’s name was Mary Graham before her marriage. Mary Heward was Jacob Graham and Statira’s daughter. Legally, Mary was born an enslaved person, as her mother was before her.

Although Jacob Graham left property and money to his Jamaican children, he left the major part of estate to his nephew, John Graham Clarke (see Provenance below).

The indenture lists the enslaved people being sold by name. The names appear here.

In the British colonies, slaveholders often gave the enslaved names with a classical origin.  A note has been made of them:

Plato (Greek philosopher)

Beck with her children; Clarissa (popular eighteenth-century novel) and Monima (Macedonian Greek woman died 72BC, known for intelligence and beauty)

Jennet

Nancy

Eliza with her children; Friendship, Pomona (Roman goddess of trees and nuts) and Porcia (wife of Brutus)

Parkinson

Jacob

Monima

Pastora (name of “coy shepherdess” in eighteenth-century opera)

However, these are unlikely to have been the names these people gave to each other; they would have been chosen by the owners or the overseers of the plantations. Their birth names may well have been different; there are no names of African origin here (see section on Slave Registers).

As well as the women listed, the deed states that “…the present and future issue offspring and Encrease of the Females…” also belong to Jacob Graham.

In 1807 the African slave trade was abolished by Britain. However, many of its colonies had developed as economies based on enslaved labour. The buying and selling of enslaved people within those colonies was not outlawed.

To try and ensure that people were no longer being taken from Africa, the British authorities began to keep registers of the enslaved people in their colonies. The registers are now kept at the National Archives and can be searched using Ancestry.

The first slave registers for Jamaica are dated 1817 – two years after the indenture. The enslaved people of the Lapland Plantation are listed in the register. As Jacob Graham had died in 1816, the executors of his will* are named in the record.

Several of the enslaved people listed in the deed can also be found recorded in the slave register. The slave registers made a record of the name of the enslaved person, their age (usually approximate), their “colour” and whether they had been born in Africa or on the island. If they had been born in Jamaica they were characterised as “creole”.

From the register (1817) we have the following additional information:

Pluto – age 40, born in Africa

Parkinson – age 13, born in Jamaica

Jacob – age 11, born in Jamaica

Pastora – age 67, born in Africa or age 9, born in Jamaica

Jennet – age 14, born in Jamaica

Eliza – age 40, born in Africa

Eliza’s children from the deed; Friendship, Pomona and Porcia are not listed, but other children are  – Jupiter, one month old; Jurve(?), 7.

Clarissa Graham – age 17, born in Jamaica

Monima – age 9, born in Jamaica

Both of these two girls are noted to be the daughters of Beck, but Beck herself doesn’t seem to be present. It is interesting to note that Clarissa has the surname Graham on this list – suggesting that her father may have been a Graham. Enslaved people in the registers were not often ascribed family names.

The slave registers were updated every three years. However, the owners or overseers of the plantations didn’t always list all of the enslaved people, but declared who had been lost (died, runaway, manumitted or sold) and who gained (born or bought). In 1826, Parkinson was recorded as having died at the age of 22, from a “bowel complaint”. 

*The people given responsibility for carrying out the wish of the person that wrote a will.

A newspaper article shows that one of Jacob’s plantations was attacked by Maroons in 1795. (See transcript.)

The British took control of Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. Some of the Africans who had been enslaved by the Spanish took this opportunity to run away into the dense Jamaican jungle and set up communities. They came to be known as Maroons. Further runaways from British plantations added to their numbers. During the late 1600s and early 1700s the Maroons were in conflict with the British. Between 1728 and 1739 (The First Maroon War) and 1795-6 (The Second Maroon War) they were at war. The Maroons used guerrilla tactics against the British, whose troops had greater numbers and more technologically advanced weapons.

According to the Bank of England Inflation calculator £850 in 1815 would buy the equivalent of at least £77,000 worth of goods and services in 2020.

The provenance of the document is the history of where it came from and who owned it. The provenance of a document is important to archivists as it helps us to determine authenticity, identify links with other documents and describe documents in the catalogues we produce.

Although this document relates to people who lived in Cumbria and Jamaica, it is now held at Northumberland Archives. It is not unusual for a county archive to hold records that relate to other parts of the country or to other parts of the world. Families, businesses and other organisations often held land, or had other financial interests in other places. Rather than transfer every single item that relates to a place outside of that area, country record offices usually keep whole collections together.

This deed is part of the collection of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. It is likely that the Society, or one of its members, collected this deed, because of its links to Newcastle. Jacob Graham was the uncle of John Graham Clarke and left the largest part of his property, including Lapland, to John in his will. John Graham Clarke was a merchant based in Newcastle, where he owned breweries, glassworks, sugar house and held shares in banking. His boats sailed from Newcastle to trade with the West Indies. In 1816 the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce voted him their president.

John Graham Clarke owned (or had some financial stake in) around 13 plantations on Jamaica by the time of his death. Many 100s of enslaved people worked on his lands. In Newcastle Graham Clarke donated money to Newcastle Infirmary and Assembly Rooms. His granddaughter was the poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, who campaigned for abolition.

An article from the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette on 19^th November 1795 reads: “The Maroons in Jamaica are not yet subdued: in September last they set fire to the dwelling and negro-houses of Messrs George Gordon, John Mand, and Stephens and Bernard; and the large coffee plantations of Mr Jacob Graham and Mr Trough. Mr Skinner, of Savanna-le-Mer, was murdered by some of these villains that lay in ambush; and Mr Tomlinson and Capt Leigh of the regulars, have fallen in action.”