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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Codrington Plantation
Description
An account of the resource
Upon his death in 1710, Christopher Codrington bequeathed to the SPG two plantations in Barbados 'to maintain a convenient number of professors and scholars'. There is some indication that he wished part of this bequest to be used to educate and catechise free and enslaved Africans. This did not happen in reality. When Codrington College eventually opened in 1745, it established itself as a grammar school for white boys only. The Society continued to operate the plantations and, along with the college, to benefit financially from the labour of enslaved Africans. There is no recorded evidence that the acceptance of the ownership of the Codrington plantation was debated within the Society, and certainly not on moral grounds, but the documents included in this collection set out some of the administrative and legal complexities in securing the deeds. <br /><br />William Fleetwood’s annual sermon for the Society in 1711, shortly after the Codrington bequest, signalled an acceptance of slavery, while at the same time suggesting that enslaved people were used ‘cruelly’ by some masters, and that under the Society’s ownership, they would learn to become ‘as Godly and Religious’ as the masters themselves. This was a complex and contradictory view, encapsulated by Travis Glasson’s assertion that the Society’s ownership of the plantations ‘was couched in a strongly reformist language and infused with hope that Codrington would be the foundation of wider missionary success’. <br /><br />From 1711 onwards, the SPG’s mission aims must be understood to be closely entangled with its ownership of the Codrington plantation. The Society desired to make profits in order to finance and expand its mission operations, and in its view, to resource its good work in spreading the word of God, but this resource came directly from the labour of those enslaved on its own plantations. the SPG’s use of slave labour continued for 100 years, and the legacies of this continue to this day. University College London’s ‘Legacies of British Slavery’ project shows that as of 1836 the SPG owned 410 enslaved people and received compensation of £8500 after abolition. The success and expansion of SPG (later called USPG) as a global mission organisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries needs to be contextualised alongside its origins as a slave-owning organisation.<br /><p><strong><span>Bibliography: </span></strong></p>
<p>'Barbados 4215 (Codrington)', Legacies of British Slave-ownership database, <a href="http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/6568">http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/6568</a> [accessed 2nd December 2020].</p>
<p>Travis Glasson,<em> Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World, </em>(Oxford, 2011) <span>pp.99-100.</span></p>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
AH/T003197/1: <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT003197%2F1">Pastoral Care, Literary Cure and Religious Dissent: Zones of Freedom in the British Atlantic (c. 1630-1720)</a>
Letter
Epistolary metadata adapted from EMLO for the USPG exhibition.
Sender
Sender of a letter
John Chamberlayne (Secretary)
Recipient
Recipient of a letter
Robert Lowther
Origin
Origin of a letter
Petty France, London, UK
Destination
Destination of a letter
Portsmouth, UK
Diplomatic Transcription
Diplomatic transcription of letter from manuscript.
<p>Petty France Westm[inster]<br />6th March 1710<br /> <br />Honord Sir.<br />I am very sorry to hear that Your Excellency is still Wind-bound at one of the most disagreable places in England, and yet it had been very unlucky to our Society if you had not been stopt there till now, and now I can say ‘tis our Interest & Inclination too, that your Excellency shou’d be at your Government as soon as possible, for I think the Society has now done all that in them lies to get the possession of Gen[eral] Codrington’s plantations in Barbados, having last night dispatcht away to you the only Instrument remaining, viz. the Exemplification of their Charter, of which a Duplicate is also sent by another hand to out attorneys, there shou’d indeed have been done one thing more, and that was to procure from the Queen some Instructions to Your Excellency to take our Gov[ernou]r of Barbados</p>
<p>Concerns into your particular protection & to Countenance and favour the Society in all just & Necessary prosecutions of the Recovery of the said Plantations; & accordingly the Society addresst her Maj[es]ty so to do; but contrary to our expectations she has been pleased to refer their petition to the Attorney or Sollicitor Gen[era]l thro’ whose hands it cannot pass without trouble and expence & (what is more grievous) so much time, that I fear your Excellency will be gone, before it can be dispatcht; whereas we were in hopes that the Queen wou’d have Directed my Lord Dartmouth, or the Lords Commissioners of Trade to have signifyed to You the desire of the Society, and her own pleasure concerning it. Sr I have but one thing more to trouble you with, and that is to Crave Your advice and assistance about the Society’s Share of the Island of </p>
<p>[page break]</p>
<p>Barbuda, concerning which there has as yet been nothing done by them, thro’ the hurry and Multiplicity of other business; and yet some Care ought certainly to be taken of all that stock of Negroes, Cattle &c upon the said Island; I begg therefore that You will be pleased to Communicate Your Thoughts upon that Affair to<br /> <br />Honor’d Sir<br /> <br />Your Excellency’s<br /> <br />Most faithfull humb Serv[an]t<br /> <br />J C</p>
<p>6th March 1710/11<br />Copy of my Letter<br />to Gov[ernou]r Lowther.</p>
EMLO Catalogue
Link to EMLO Catalogue
<a href="http://emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/w/1004415">Letter Record</a>
Letter Type
MS Manifestation
MS Letter
Content Warning
Content warning for viewers.
<a href="http://emlo-portal.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/uspg/#warning">Details Here</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Chamberlayne (Secretary) to Governor Robert Lowther regarding Codrington Estate
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
6 Mar. 1710/11
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lambeth SPG 17 253
Description
An account of the resource
John Chambelayne (Secretary) askes Governor Robert Lowther for his co-operation in obtaining possession of Codrington estate.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
AH/T003197/1: <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT003197%2F1">Pastoral Care, Literary Cure and Religious Dissent: Zones of Freedom in the British Atlantic (c. 1630-1720)</a>