UCL

Mangrove Pond (and Giddy Hall)

Barbados | St Thomas

Estate Details

Associated People (6)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
1802 [SY] - 1832 [LA] → Owner
Richard Matthews Smitten
1792 [SY] - 1799 [EY] → Owner
John Forster Alleyne
1799 [SY] - 1802 [EY] → Owner
Gabriel Jemmott or Jemmett
1802 [SY] - → Owner
Thomas Hall Smitten
- 1792 [EY] → Owner
Somers Clarke
1832 [EA] - 1834 [LA] → Administratrix
Catherine [Katherine] Ann Smitten

Associated Claims (1)

Barbados 2186 (Mangrove Pond)
£3,213 18S 1D

Notes

See also Bennett / Giddy Hall records

The first signs of white planter settlement appear to have been in the 1630s when Peter Edney owned somewhere between 240 and 320 acres. By 1654 Edward Harris of Barbados sold 150 acres – half of Mangrove Pond – to Sgt Maj. Timothy Thornhill. In turn, in 1674 he sold the plantation (of 164 acres) to his son-in law John Sampson for £4,000 (sterling). By 1680 Sampson owned 327 acres comprising both Mangrove Pond and Bennetts (q.v.) plantations.
By 1743 the two plantations were in the hands of Harry Slingsby. Under a marriage settlement of Harry Slingsby to Ann Hothersall, daughter of Burch Hothersall, Slingsby’s two adjoining plantations in St. Thomas were (1) Mangrove Pond and (2) Giddy Hall (or Bennetts). The combined acreage was 400 acres and there were 137 enslaved people on the estates.

Sources

Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.

Estate Information (10)

What is this?

1743
 

In 1743 Harry Slingsby of St. James, now deceased, gave mortgage of £7,000 to George Maxwell of the firm of Lascelles & Maxwell, merchants of London, England. Mortgage secured on (1) plantation of 165 acres since bought by Henry Thornhill and (2) Mangrove Pond & Giddy Hall, 400 acres in St. Thomas.

Slingsby’s wife Ann, after his death, married Walter Bennett, who became owner of Mangrove Pond & Giddy Hall. Bennett borrowed £6,079 from Somers Clarke, secured by a mortgage on the 2 plantations to pay part of Slingsby’s debt to Maxwell. The Hon. John Forster Alleyne assumes debt to Clarke as part of purchase price of plantation paid by Alleyne.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1792
[Number of enslaved people] 109(Tot)  
[Name] Mangrove Pond & Giddy Hall  
[Size] 368  
 

Somers Clarke of London sold the two adjacent plantations named Mangrove Pond & Giddy Hall for £21,000 to John Forster Alleyne of St. James.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1799
 

About 1799 John Forster Alleyne sold both plantations - Mangrove Pond and Giddy Hall - to Gabriel Jemmett, merchant of St. Michael, Barbados.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1802
[Size] 169  
 

Gabriel Jemmett sold Mangrove Pond to Thomas Hall Smitten and Richard Matthew Smitten of St. James for £10,000.

 
Barbados Department of Archives. Hughes-Queree Index of Plantations.
1817
[Number of enslaved people] 207(Tot) 110(F) 97(M)  
 

Return of Richard M. Smitten, his own property.

 
T71/522 226-31
1823
[Number of enslaved people] 273(Tot)  
 

Return of Richard M. Smitten, his own property. Previously 203 enslaved. Purchased of A. R. Brandon: 69; Purchased of John F. Alleyne: 4; births: 14; deaths: 17.

 
T71/531 227-29
1826
[Number of enslaved people] 279(Tot)  
[Name] [No name given]  
 

Return of Richard M. Smitten, his own property. Previously 273 enslaved.

 
T71/538 102
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 276(Tot)  
[Name] [No name given]  
 

Return of Richard M. Smitten, his own property.

 
T71/542 74-5
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 215(Tot)  
 

Return of Catherine [Katherine] Ann Smitten, Administratrix, the property of the Estate of Richard Matthews Smitten, deceased

 
T71/551 85-7
1913
[Name] Mangrove Pond  
[Size] 234  
 

Listed in St Thomas, property of Lynch.

 
Barbados 1913 list from the Hughes-Quere indexes transcribed at https://creolelinks.com/1913-barbados-plantation-owners-names.html.