List of slaves and stock on the Pennant estates, Jamaica, 31 December 1812 [image 1 of 2]

Description

This is a list of the slaves and stock on the Pennant estates in Jamaica, dated 31 December 1812. The Pennant family, who originated from Flintshire, had been involved in the profitable sugar-making industry and associated slave trade of the West Indies from the mid-seventeenth century. Edward Pennant (1672-1736) extended the estates further and became Chief Justice of Jamaica. His sons, Samuel (1709-50), John (d. 1781) and Henry Pennant (1713-82) returned to Britain where John became a successful merchant in Liverpool, the chief British port for the sugar trade.

It was during this period that the Pennant brothers began acquiring property in Britain and reuniting the divided Penrhyn estate. In 1765 Richard Pennant (1739-1808), son of John, married Anne Susannah Warburton, heiress to one portion of the Penrhyn estate. Following the death of his father, Richard Pennant was able to apply the profits from the family's West Indian sugar plantations to develop the Penrhyn estates in Caernarfonshire. Richard turned his attention to the slate quarries in the region and set about improving transport links from the quarries to the newly-established port of Port Penrhyn. During this period, he also continued to vigorously defend the slave trade which had provided his family with such great wealth. He died in 1808, leaving his property to his cousin, George Hay Dawkins (1764-1840), who inherited the estate following the death of Lady Penrhyn in 1816. Under the leadership of Dawkins-Pennant, the Penrhyn estate would grow to become one of the most powerful landowners and the leading slate-producing concern in north Wales.