Farquharson's diary

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Diary of Charles Farquharson
World document heritage UNESCO World Document Heritage emblem
State (s): BahamasBahamas Bahamas
Period: 1831-1832
Storage: Bahamas Archives, Nassau
Register link: Farquharson's Journal
Admission: 2009 ( session 9 )

Farquharson's Diary ( Journal of Transactions on Charles Farquharson's Plantation on Watlings Island ) has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Bahamas since 2009 . These are daily records from Charles Farquharson, the owner of a cotton plantation, from January 1, 1831 to December 31, 1832.

Text transmission

In 1903, Ormond McDonald came across the book and recognized its historical value. He carefully transcribed the text; In 1957 this copy was published under the title “A Relic of Slavery. Farquharson's Diary 1831/32 "( A Relic of Slavery. Farquharson's Journal for 1831-1832 ) published in Nassau . The original diary was in the possession of Aline O'Brien, who left the Bahamas and lived in England until her death in 1976. She handed the book over to the Public Records Office, today's Bahamas Archives, while she was still alive, where it was restored and rebound in goatskin. A comparison of the original with McDonald's transcription shows that the latter added explanatory notes and corrected spelling mistakes in his original.

Historical meaning

There are a few comparable records: most notably the Radnor Plantation Journal from a coffee plantation in Jamaica; but Farquharson's diary is the only one that documents everyday life on a cotton plantation. It is evaluated by historians and anthropologists in order to study the life of slaves, the work processes on a plantation and the options for action of a plantation owner.

Charles Farquharson biography

Ruins of the manor house (1989)

Charles Farquharson, the author, was born in Scotland in 1760 ( Clan Farquharson ) and had only elementary schooling. Unlike many plantation owners of Scottish descent, he did not move from the United States to the Bahamas as a loyalist , but came directly from Scotland. In 1803 he acquired 200 acres on Watlings Island (now San Salvador ), a property that he expanded to 1,500 acres by his death in 1835. His first wife either left him or she died. In the 1820s he married Kitty Dixon, a freelance mulatto. In the will, he did not refer to her as his wife, but as his "faithful companion." Four of his children (probably from his first marriage) died in 1824 when the schooner Eleanor was shipwrecked near Ragged Island . When Farquharson died, two children from his marriage to Kitty Dixon were still alive.

Farquharson had become relatively isolated socially because he lived on his plantation instead of moving to Nassau and having the plantation run by an overseer. However, on Prospect Hill he surrounded himself with the status symbols of a plantation owner: mahogany furniture , silverware, glassware, books. As the only "white" on Watlings Island in the 1820s and 1830s, he also held the office of Justice of the Peace. Probably due to his age, Farquharson rarely left his plantation, in contrast to his slaves, who were loaned out to other plantations as workers, maintained social contacts with the local slaves and carried out messenger services.

Cotton plantation

The island's cotton farming was in crisis and the diary documents the economic decline on the Prospect Hill plantation . In addition to cotton, the main product, beans, peas, sweet potatoes , yams , oranges, pumpkins and more were also grown here. Cows, sheep and turkeys, several horses and a mule are also mentioned in the diary. The fact that the plantation was largely self-sufficient had a positive effect on the nutrition and health of the slaves. Farquharson sold the products of his plantation in Nassau on a modest scale, mainly buying flour and cloth for slave clothing, as well as other imported goods.

Everyday slave life

In 1822 Farquharson owned 35 slaves, 37% of whom were born in Africa and 49% were under the age of 20. In 1834 the number of slaves had risen to 52, mainly because of their children. Child mortality was relatively low. Four slave families were named for 1834, and 16 slave children did not live in their family of origin, but apparently in a group of girls and boys. (See as the source of this data: British Caribbean slave registry ) Farquharson supported stable family relationships among his slaves; so he sent one of his slaves to the Dixon Plantation so that she could live there with the slave, whom Farquharson assumed she was already expecting a child.

The slaves worked Monday through Saturday all year round; They got four days off over Christmas. Farquharson referred to his slaves in the diary mostly as "the people" or "the crew" ( the hands ), as if one were on a ship. But “mutiny” could not be tolerated. Such an incident is recorded in the diary. During one of Farquharson's rare trips to Nassau, his son James clashed with the slave Alick, who had a privileged position as a driver and enjoyed some privileges; the two fought each other with sticks. Other slaves came in and threatened James, and there was chaos. (Since James was a colored man himself, he may not have the authority to enforce his instructions in Farquharson's absence.) Some slaves were therefore taken to the workhouse in Nassau for punishment and tried; However, the court recognized attenuating circumstances, as it blamed James and his testimony (as a colored man) only partially trusted. Except for Alick, the accused slaves got away with a workhouse sentence and beatings and then returned to Prospect Hill . Farquharson, on the other hand, left the slave Alick permanently working hard in Nassau, with the aim of selling him from there: “Alexander left in the workhouse [in Nassau] and Mary Ann and her little child sent there too, so that they could be with Alexander sold as one of his wives, with the governor's permission. ”The phrase“ one of his wives ”is instructive; it shows that polygyny was practiced on the plantation .

archeology

Ruin of a kitchen building on the Prospect Hill plantation (1989)

Another dimension is added by the archaeological study of the ruins of Prospect Hill ( DePaul University , 2009 and 2010). The area of ​​the plantation was a pure cultural landscape in Farquharson's time, whereas today it is overgrown by bushes from which the ruins of the buildings and numerous walls protrude.

An impressive two-story ruin can now be seen from the mansion, but it only occupies a floor space of 30 × 15 feet.

In 1834 there were 15 housing units for slaves on the Prospect Hill Plantation . The slave quarters consisted of rough stone, plastered inside. Eight of them were built fairly uniformly (22 × 14 feet), the others smaller. They all had a chimney, probably less for a kitchen and more for heating in winter and to keep mosquitoes away by burning leaves.

The manor house, two kitchen buildings, barn, stables and cemetery were close to each other, and well removed from it (about 270 meters), apparently to emphasize the social distance, the slave accommodation. The fact that the bushes were cut back in the area around the manor house and kitchens in order to present the ruins as a sight to tourists led to a paradoxical archaeological finding: during the investigations by DePaul University, broken porcelain and glass were found in the slave dwellings, imported goods, like one would suspect it in the use of the Farquharsons, but hardly a nail in the manor house. This was apparently due to the fact that the ruins of the slave dwellings were hidden away and in the thicket, so that the findings remained undisturbed.

literature

  • Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People , Volume 1: From Aboriginal Times to the End of Slavery , Athens 1992. (The authoritative analysis of the diary.)
  • John D. Burton: Farquharson's Journal Revisited: A Material Culture Analysis of Plantation Life . In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas , Gerace Research Center, San Salvador Bahamas 2011. ( PDF )
  • Jane Eva Baxter: Archaeological Sites as Irreplacable Resources: The Case of Looting at Prospect Hill Plantation . In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas , Gerace Research Center, San Salvador Bahamas 2011. ( PDF )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c John D. Burton: Farquharson's Journal Revisited , 2011, p. 241.
  2. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 335.
  3. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 337.
  4. ^ A b c d John D. Burton: Farquharson's Journal Revisited , 2011, p. 242.
  5. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 340.
  6. ^ BW Higman: Slave Populations of the British Caribbean , 1807-1834, Kingston 1995, p. 181.
  7. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 343.
  8. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 357.
  9. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, pp. 354 f.
  10. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, pp. 355 f.
  11. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 356.
  12. ↑ Quoted from: Whittington Bernard Johnson: Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784-1834: The Nonviolent Transformation from a Slave to a Free Society , Fayetteville 2000, p. 110.
  13. ^ Whittington Bernard Johnson: Race Relations in the Bahamas, 1784-1834: he Nonviolent Transformation from a Slave to a Free Society , Fayetteville 2000, p. 111.
  14. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 342.
  15. ↑ Michael Craton, Gail Saunders: Islanders in the Stream , Athens 1992, p. 341.
  16. ↑ Jane Eva Baxter: Archaeological Sites as Irreplacable Resources: The Case of Looting at Prospect Hill Plantation , 2011, p. 233.
  17. ↑ Jane Eva Baxter: Archaeological Sites as Irreplacable Resources: The Case of Looting at Prospect Hill Plantation , 2011, p. 232.