Silence And Shadows

Chapter 2

The practice of indenturing servants remained consistent during the 17th and into the 18th centuries, with many transported under government auspices and others shipped by independent entrepreneurs. There were two categories of people involved, those sailing voluntarily and others going against their will. Volunteers were chiefly impoverished youths who hoped for a better life after the completion of a temporary contract. A supply which, as Raphael and the Bartholomews learn, dried up after reneging on such contracts became widespread.

Involuntary servants included convicts – often avoiding death sentences – individuals judged undesirable, such as prostitutes and vagrants, and those seen as dangerous such as religious, political, or military rebels. Many Royalist prisoners were conveniently transported by Cromwell during the interregnum. In addition to licensed contractors, ‘spirits,’ often illegally employed by apparently legitimate recruiting companies, were responsible for ‘spiriting away’ (k********g) people into servitude, many of whom were then ‘barbadosed’ or sent to the West Indies.

Producing sugar was especially demanding in terms of the amount of labour, capital and expertise required for success. Planting, weeding, and harvesting the cane and protecting it from rats and other pests was much more physically demanding work than producing cotton or tobacco crops.

The elite in Barbados chose a form of sugar production that yielded the greatest level of profit establishing large sugarcane plantations cultivated by slave labour. Many small family farms were bought up and amalgamated into these plantations. The Royal African Company and other slave traders were bringing increasing numbers of African men, women, and children to toil in the fields, mills, and houses. In the early 1640s there were probably 37,000 whites and 6,000 blacks; by 1684 there were about 20,000 whites and 46,000 blacks; and in 1834, when s*****y was abolished, there were some 15,000 whites and 88,000 blacks.

In European markets, sugar was a scarce and therefore valuable commodity, and Barbadian sugar planters, particularly in the 17th century, reaped huge profits out of the early lead that the island established in sugar production. Increasing wealth brought consolidation of political power for a planter elite, and Barbadian society became a plantocracy, with white planters controlling the economy and government institutions.

From the time James Scott, Duke of Monmouth arrived at court in 1662 aged 13, there were rumours about the existence of a black leather box containing the marriage certificate between his parents Charles Stuart and Lucy Walter. At first Charles II was certainly ambivalent about legitimising his son, though always denying such a marriage had taken place. Many soon viewed Protestant Monmouth as a possible successor to Charles, and his political opportunities increased when the King’s brother and acknowledged heir, James, Duke of York, converted to Roman Catholicism around 1668.

Though, as an illegitimate son, Monmouth was ineligible to succeed to the English or Scottish thrones unless he could prove the rumours that his parents had married secretly. Monmouth came to maintain that his parents were married and that he possessed evidence of it, though he never produced it. King Charles II, finally testified in writing to his Council that he had never been married to anyone except the Queen, Catherine of Braganza.

Historical background. The Stuart Restoration.

Following the English Civil War and the execution of Charles I in 1649, military rule under puritan Oliver Cromwell, lasted until 1659 when Richard Cromwell ceded power to parliament and Charles Stuart was invited to return. He ascended the throne in 1660 on a wave of support for the monarchy. His return represented a shift in the cultural and social landscape of England. London became the fashionable, social hub of the country and the playground of the nobility. Theatres were re-opened with women on the stage for the first time, public taverns and coffee houses flourished.

Charles II turned the previously staid English court at Whitehall into a hedonistic palace of pleasure, publicly acknowledging at least fourteen mistresses who were given enormous wealth, apartments at the palace, and political influence. Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond, and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth were amongst the most notable.

Charles also had countless liaisons with other women, including actresses and prostitutes.

With the mistresses came thirteen officially recognised illegitimate children. The King elevated them to the highest ranks of the nobility and provided them with apartments at the palace and estates in the countryside. They also received the most prestigious Offices of State and were granted pensions and annuities from the crown. That Queen Catherine had no children meant that Charles’s brother James, Duke of York, remained heir to the throne.

The King had a wide variety of scientific interests, which led to the founding of The Royal Society and the Royal Observatory. And, in many ways, his style of rule laid the foundations of what is now recognised as the modern monarchical system.

Some time sequences have been adjusted for narrative purposes, and some linguistic choices are intentionally modern. Any historical errors or inconstancies are entirely mine as are liberties taken with Italian translation.

Dodie Bishop, Upottery, May 2022