John Frederick Browne

John Frederick Browne, a free person of colour, received compensation for slaves who had belonged to his second wife before their marriage. From his first marriage he had a daughter Anna Maria Browne. He married second, Sarah Jane Reap on 26 June 1835, witnessed by Joseph Herbert and Joh Alexander Iles, also both free men of colour. The couple had at least one son, Robert Wellington, baptized 1837, and lived in Charlestown.

1. Sarah Jane Reap inherited three enslaved people, formerly the property of Miss Sarah Chivers, free woman of colour. In Sarah Chivers registered ownership of three females: Amelia, aged 12 years; Cymene, aged 18 and Leah, aged 30 who was ‘absconded and supposed to be in St Kitts’. Miss Chivers’s register return was signed by Charles Reap, who is believed to have been a merchant and almost certainly related to the mariner Robert Reap senior (q.v.).

2. Sarah Chivers died in 1820; Charles Reap the following year. In 1822 Sarah Chivers’s sister and executrix Mary Carum declared that, as the guardian of her sister’s infant children, she had in her possession two females (Amelia and Cymene), not counting Leah who was still absent. Three years later Mary Carum recorded the death of Cymene but did not complete any more slave register returns. This means the path of ownership is not clear but Sarah Chivers’s slaves eventually became the property Sarah Jane Reap who, presumably, was a relative of Charles Reap. In 1828 Sarah Jane Reap completed her first register and recorded the births of two black girls (Mary, aged two years, and Leonora, aged six weeks), without also listing their mother – presumably Amelia. In 1831 and 1834 Miss Reap noted the arrival of Joseph, aged 13 months and William, aged one year and seven months, and the deaths of the infant Mary and the woman Leah. Either Leah had died while in hiding and had returned and then died. Amelia gave birth to a boy, Ebenezer, after Miss Reap had submitted her claim for compensation, which was amended accordingly.

3. When Sarah married John Frederick Browne, he became the lawful owner of her slaves and entitled to claim the compensation payment. In 1831 John Frederick Browne was a constable in Nevis. Certainly, at the time of his son's baptism on 2 April 1837, he was working as a merchant’s clerk. In September 1836 he was among the men who signed a letter congratulating the newly appointed Governor ‘on behalf of the coloured inhabitants of the island of Nevis generally’. His good standing in the community was reflected in his election to the Nevis Assembly on 4 November 1841, where he was one of three members who represented the parish of St John Figtree. He died some time before September 1844 when, at suit of Walter Maynard and James Davoren, the Provost Marshal had judgment against ‘John Frederick Browne now dec’d’.

Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court Registry, Nevis (ECSCRN), Book of Wills 1837-1864 f.77; Nevis Historical and Conservation Society (NHCS), St Paul’s Marriages 1826-1842; NHCS, St Paul’s Baptisms 1835-1873 No 55.

1. UK National Archives (UKNA) T 71/364 Slave Register Nevis 1817 f. 266; Bristol University Library Special Collections (BULSC), Pinney Papers (PP), AB 57 (1802/3); Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Box MSS. W. Ind. S. 24 (b) (1 May 1829 and 17 January 1821).

2. UKNA, T 71/367 Slave Register Nevis 1828 f.154.

3. UKNA, T 71/1039 Slave Compensation Commission: Claims and Certificates. Nevis Claim No 203 and T 71/1387 Amended Awards: Nevis 1837-1841; UKNA, CO 187/5 Blue Book Nevis 1831; UKNA, CO 28/134 Despatches from Evan Murray John McGregor, Governor of Barbados 1 April 1840 to 31 August 1840 ff.237-39 14, 22/9/1846; UKNA, CO 186/16: 4 Nov 1841; CSCRN, CR 1838-1847 f.541.

We are extremely grateful to Christine Eickelmann for sharing with us her detailed archival research and on which this entry is based.