| Description | The Gale and Morant family papers mainly comprise correspondence, accounts and legal papers (1731-1939) relating to the management of sugar plantations and livestock pens in Jamaica. The estates included York Plantation, Gale's Valley Plantations, Mount Hindmost Estate, St Jago Pen and Paisley Pen. The majority of the papers concern the business affairs of William Gale (d 1784) who married Elizabeth Morant (d 1759). Many of these papers relate to enslavement, which include lists of enslaved people; documents recording their births and deaths; accounts relating to income and expenditure, including payments for enslaved people, their provisions and healthcare; and correspondence that provides insight into the living and working conditions on the plantations, as well as notes of revolts, escapes and liberations.
Content Advice: This collection documents the oppression and enslavement of people of African and Caribbean descent and includes items that may be uncomfortable or upsetting to read. Papers within this collection contain offensive terms or terms that have changed meaning over time. In some cases these terms are included in our catalogue descriptions in order to provide information about the content and nature of the source. The inclusion of these terms does not reflect the views of the University of Exeter Special Collections and we apologise for any offence that may be caused.
See also: Gale and Morant family papers: additional papers, EUL MS 44 add.1
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| Admin History | The Gale family and the Morant family arrived in Jamaica separately in the seventeenth century, not long after the invasion of the island by English forces in 1655. Jamaica remained an English, and later British (from 1707), colony until 1962. Various marriages linked the two families, including that of William Gale (d 1784) and Elizabeth Morant (d 1759). Both sides of the family acquired sugar plantations that used the forced labour of enslaved people of African and Caribbean descent to produce sugar and rum. The family gained large estates and great wealth. In 1754, John Morant owned 4,631 acres in Clarendon and 3,582 acres in Vere. Five members of the Gale family owned more than 6,000 acres of the island.
In 1759, John Morant's great-grandson Edward (d 1791) moved to England from Jamaica. He bought the Brockenhurst estate in Hampshire in 1770, and his eldest son John Morant (d 1794) purchased the Manor of Ringwood from Henry 8th Lord Arundell in 1794. The plantations and land in Jamaica were handed down to subsequent generations of the family. Edward Gregory Morant (1772-1855) inherited his uncle William Gale's estates in Jamaica.
Following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, like many British enslavers, both sides of the family sought compensation for the loss of, what they considered to be, their property. Edward Gregory Morant Gale (1773-1855, son of William Gale and Elizabeth Morant) was an unsuccessful claimant for the 503 people enslaved across four estates in Jamaica. Compensation for some of the estates he claimed for went to John Morant VI (1787-1857, son of John Morant of Brockenhurst House and Elizabeth Richards), who received more than £20,000 for 1,115 people enslaved across seven estates in Jamaica. (Source: Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs)
When the Emancipation Act was passed in 1833, the enslaved people in Jamaica did not automatically gain freedom, as the British government believed that formerly enslaved people needed training on how to be free and independent. As a result, in Jamaica, formerly enslaved people had to continue working on the plantations under an imposed apprenticeship system for a set number of years without compensation. The apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838, but even then, many people had no option but to continue working for their old enslavers for low wages.
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