Adam Steel

1. Adam Steel (1779-1827) was, in 1816, proprietor of Harmony Hall, 61 enslaved, 2 stock; and Jericho, 2 enslaved; both properties in St Thomas in the Vale.

2. Benjamin McMahon worked for Adam Steel in the early 1820s when Steel was owner of "an extensive jobbing gang" and overseer of Byndloss estate. McMahon accused Steel of "plunder on a very extensive scale" at Byndloss, "... and in this way he built his bouse on Harmony Hall... there was no villainy that he was not capable of acting. Females at the age of ten and eleven fell victims to his brutal lust, and if ever he heard of any of the negro men at all interfering with any of the women he had once cast his eye upon, the cruel butchery that followed was sufficient to strike terror into their hearts." McMahon describes in detail an excruciating punishment of "a young brown slave girl, named Sarah, about 14 or 15 years of age..."

3. Adam Steel, white, aged 48, was buried at Harmony Hall, St Thomas in the Vale, on 4 Oct 1827.

We are grateful to Cheryl Hazell and Steven Carter for their assistance in compiling this entry.

1. Jamaica Family Search, 1817 Jamaica Almanac, St Thomas in the Vale.

2. Benjamin McMahon, A Description of Jamaica Planters, viz Attorneys, Overseers and Book-keepers, With Several Interesting Anecdotes (1839) pp. 49-56.

3. "Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880," FamilySearch: Thomas in the Vale, Burials 1826-1836, Vol. 1, image 157/170, page 329.