1 
 
The Leinster Bay Estate 
A historical and archaeologically survey about the estate, its enslaved 
people and their run for freedom 
 
 
 
Prepared for the Virgin Islands National Park 
 and the University of Copenhagen 
 
 
 
(The casement of the Leinster Bay guardhouse.) 
 
 
 
 
By Nanna Wienecke and Louise Rasmussen 
 
2015 
 
 
 
2 
 
 
Contents 
 
Preface.......................................................................................................................... 4 
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6 
Method ..................................................................................................................... 8 
The history of the estate ............................................................................................. 11 
Water Lemon Estate ............................................................................................... 11 
Smith Bay ............................................................................................................... 19 
Leinster Bay Estate ................................................................................................. 23 
The buildings and artifacts .......................................................................................... 29 
Ruins of older structures at Leinster Hill ................................................................. 30 
The factory site ....................................................................................................... 33 
Slave villages and living conditions .......................................................................... 34 
The guardhouse ...................................................................................................... 37 
The enslaved population ............................................................................................. 42 
The rights of the enslaved ....................................................................................... 42 
The agency of the enslaved ..................................................................................... 46 
Reasons for enduring enslavement .......................................................................... 48 
Marronage .................................................................................................................. 51 
Cases of marronage at the Leinster Bay Estate ........................................................ 54 
The 1818 case ..................................................................................................... 54 
The 1840 case ..................................................................................................... 59 
Concluding remarks .................................................................................................... 68 
Archival sources ......................................................................................................... 69 
Literature .................................................................................................................... 71 
Appendix list .............................................................................................................. 73 
Appendix nr. 1: ....................................................................................................... 73 
Table of the estate owners and estate size from 1728 to 1862 ............................. 73 
Table of comparison: the enslaved at the Leinster Bay Estate and the total 
enslaved population of St. John, based on data from the land lists and tax records.
 ........................................................................................................................... 74 
Appendix nr. 2: List of artifacts found at the Leinster Hill ruins .............................. 75 
3 
 
Appendix nr. 3: The factory site of the Leinster Bay Estate ..................................... 76 
Appendix nr. 4: Table of artifacts found at the Leinster Bay Estate ......................... 77 
Appendix nr. 5: Percentage graph of enslaved at the Leinster Bay Estate ................ 84 
Appendix nr. 6: List of arrestees and deponents in the 1818 case ............................ 85 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 
 
Preface  
This report is the result of five months of research, in a combined internship 
between the US National Park Service’s International Internship Program, the 
Virgin Islands National Park, St. John and the Saxo Institute at Copenhagen 
University. The first two months were spent in the Danish National Archive in 
Copenhagen, followed by a month of archaeological fieldwork with the National 
Park Service on St. John, US Virgin Islands, under the guidance and supervision 
of Ken Wild, NPS Cultural Resource Manager / Archaeologist. Following our 
return to Denmark we spent two months working with both the archeological 
data we had obtained on St. John and in the archive in order to finish our 
research for this report. 
Before proceeding with our findings, we would like to express our 
gratitude to all the people and organizations who contributed both in making 
this internship possible, as well as providing valuable information, which enabled 
us to write this report.  First of all we would like to thank the Friends of the 
Virgin Islands National Park, who funded our trip to St. John and our stay there. 
Without the Friends organization and all the people donating both time and 
money towards preservation of St. John history, we would not have reached as 
full an understanding of the island. Particularly of Leinster Bay which were 
necessary to complete this report and obtaining the ability to shed light on the 
historical events, which took place here. A special thanks to Linda Bennett, US 
Government Office of the Interior, for helping us with all the necessary forms 
and information for our visas, to Karen Jarvis for getting us there and to Ken 
Wild most of all for his efforts to give us the opportunity to learn and 
experience as much as possible of Leinster Bay Estate, and giving us a valuable 
insight into the archeological preservation and studies of the ruins, along with 
the efforts and functions of the National Park Service. A thank you to NPS’s de 
facto curator Chela Thomas for her patience and help teaching us how to 
analyze and catalogue artifacts from surface collections. And to Joe Bomberger 
and Grant Gittus, the two archeology interns, who assisted us in our field 
surveys of Leinster bay Estate, the GPS mapping, identifying ruins and the 
company in addition to providing good company on the adventures.  
Another special thanks to the St. Thomas University volunteer group, the 
REI volunteer group and the walkup volunteers for their hard work and good 
5 
 
spirits while clearing the ruins, their efforts made our work a lot easier. A thanks 
to Chuck Pishko for taking the time to look through his records and supply us 
with all the documents he had on the Leinster Bay Estate, to Erik Gøbel at the 
Danish State Archive for valuable advice on archival research, and to the 
Trimble Team and Cyark for their willingness to share information and giving us 
an insight into their fascinating work on scanning the ruin sites of Annaberg and 
Leinster Bay, which will be valuable in preserving the sites.  Thanks to Anne-
Kristine Larsen, one of the previous interns, who took the time to meet with us 
and answer our questions and provided us with unique insights. Also thanks to 
student adviser Benedicte Fonnesbech-Wulff and exam secretary Henrik Lerdam 
who helped us with advice and practical problems in relation to evaluation and 
exams. Last but not least thank you to our mentor/research counselor Gunvor 
Simonsen for her guidance on how to do a research study like this and for all her 
help and support with the report.     
 
        Louise Rasmussen and Nanna Wienecke, 2015.     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
6 
 
Introduction 
The research area for this report is the Leinster Bay Estate in the period 1718-
1848. This estate was located on the north shore of the island of St. John, with 
Tortola in eyesight. The proximity of Tortola became increasingly significant 
after the British abolishment of slavery in 1834, which will be discussed later. 
Today the ruins are found after a 20 minutes hike down a trail starting at the 
Annaberg Estate. The factory complex and enslaved housing has been well 
hidden during the years by the vegetation, and no signs lead into the complex, 
thus preventing archeological study until this project was conducted.  
Although there have been done a lot of research on the Danish West 
Indies and its estates and inhabitants, none has been done so far with the 
Leinster Bay Estate as area of interest.    
The significance of the Estate, in term of the island history, is due to its 
size, meaning both physical in terms of land and in terms of inhabitants. The 
estate was considered as one of the bigger ones, with an area of 325 acres when 
it was on its utmost. Regarding the inhabitants or the enslaved population, it 
peaked in 1805 with a total of 228 enslaved persons living on this estate, those 
consisted both of; young, adults, old, men and women. This amount was 
substantial at the time, covering almost 9 percent of the entire population of 
enslaved on the island.  
Another feature of the estate was a special building constructed on the 
estate land. This structure has been used as an extension of the governmental 
power, as it was a guardhouse. It was the living quarter of up to 17 soldiers. The 
purpose of the location was to keep an eye on the enslaved population. Placing 
guardhouses to protect ones property was common practice on the islands, 
although the central location on the estate was not. There was for example one 
placed on Whistling Key with the same purpose as the one located on Leinster 
Bay, though this was not on estate land.1 The special thing about this building 
was the proximity, which was fairly close to the enslaved population living and 
working nearby. 
With all these factors in mind, the focus of the research became: a 
mapping of the social and economic context, with particular focus on the 
guardhouse and the runaways of the Leinster Bay Estate. 
                                                          
1 Whistling Key is a tiny island of the north coast, not far from Leinster Bay. 
7 
 
This focus point was not chosen solemnly because of the facts stated 
above, but it was a combination of these, personal preferences, and the 
challenge posed by choosing the enslaved as main subjects that made the case. 
In most cases the enslaved could neither read nor write, which is the reason that 
there no material produced only by their hands, no personal accounts. There is 
however one place where the enslaved are rather overrepresented: the police 
records, often when an enslaved did something wrong or ran away and the 
authorities was involved it would have been registered in these protocols and 
journals.  
While working with this subject one must consider the terminology used 
in relation to the unfree population, whether to use the terms used in the 
original material such as slave and negro, or the terms unfree and enslaved. By 
using the term enslaved you clearly state that it is a condition the person is 
forced into and not a part of the person’s identity. By using the term negro, you 
use a term that was used with a negative connotation, that linked status to skin 
color and a row of ideas about the negative implications of dark skin and 
therefore writes yourself into this negative discourse. Only in the cases where we 
have quoted sources, which uses the phrases slaves or Negro/Negroes will the 
words occur.  
Regarding the translations; if nothing else is stated they have been done by 
ourselves, but the references will be to the Danish material. 
The area of investigation has had several names during the time period: 
Water Lemon Bay, Smiths Bay and Leinster Bay with the latter having a different 
spelling, the early spelling was Linster Bay. For the sake of consistency, the area 
will be named Leinster Bay when dealing with the overall picture, this has been 
chosen because it is the current name of the area, except for directs quotes from 
source material and when dealing with the Estate before it got its current name. 
Another consistency regards the guardhouse, it has been called a battery, station 
and a bastion in the archival material, but the term guardhouse was chosen to 
encompass them all.   
The terms used in the report are: busals, macaroon, maroon/marronage 
and capable. One of the purposes of these distinctions was for tax collection; the 
different categories signified an amount of taxes that should be paid, which 
varied due to work abilities. The busal was considered a newly arrived and not 
8 
 
yet instructed enslaved person; this state could last until a year. The macaroon 
on the other hand was a person that could not work either due to old age or 
illness. The capable person was one who could work till full extent.  
Marronage was a term used for the act of running away, and either hiding 
in the bush with the intent of coming back or leaving the estate or island and not 
coming back and escaping enslavement altogether, respectively petite marronage 
and grande marronage. The maroon was the person who did the act, marron and 
runaway is used as equal terms. 
  
Method 
The basis of this report comes from a wide range of different source material, 
which includes archival sources, illustrative depictions, and surface collections 
among others.  
One should keep in mind that working with archival sources from this 
time period does contain some difficulties. The text has been written in gothic 
Danish lettering and at that time, there was no consistent spelling either. 
Furthermore, the material bear marks from the wear during the years and from 
infestation that has left holes that interfere with the meaning.  
The start of this research project consisted of establishing the owners of 
the Leinster Bay Estate(s), this was done through the tax records from 1755 to 
1850 and the land lists from 1728 to 1739, tracing the list of owners backwards. 
Not all tax records named the estates, some only named the owner, but by 
comparing names and sizes of the estates in the cases where Leinster Bay Estate 
was not listed by name, we were able to piece together a reliable list of the 
owners. The tax records additionally provided the amount of enslaved people on 
the estates, type of crops, and number of free people. From 1739 till 1755 there 
are no records available about the owners of the island.  
After establishing the ownership of the estate, by using the tax records, a 
much wider search was conducted. The broader search was used to find the 
minor cases involving the Leinster Bay Estate. The focus of this search was 
among others: the police records and in- and outgoing messages to the local 
government. This approach was used on the basis of the research subjects being 
the estate’s enslaved population.  
9 
 
Another source used was the illustrative depictions of Leinster Bay. These 
consisted of two different contemporary accounts and one modern. The 
contemporary being Lieutenant Peter Lotharius Oxholm’s map from 1780 of St. 
John and the other the sketches made by a Henry Morton in 1843/1844 of 
Leinster Bay Estate and guardhouse and the modern depiction being the map 
made by Wraae & Veisegaard in their NPS intern report from 2009. 
The modern map from 2009 lists the owners along the north shore before 
the gap between 1739 and 1755. By placing this map against the current 
knowledge of where the Leinster Bay Estate was, it is possible to produce an 
owner list before the gap. The Oxholm map provided another type of useful 
information on the estate. It gives one of the best accounts of what the island 
looked like in the late eighteenth century.  
(The modern map by Wrae & Weisegaard2) 
 
In 1778 Oxholm was given orders to survey all three Danish West Indian 
islands to gather detailed information about defense against possible attacks by 
other nations or privateers. Oxholm was to document and evaluate the islands’ 
fortifications. The result of his work was the detailed map of St. John, finished 
in 1780. Oxholm marked larger properties on the island, but did not mark 
                                                          
2 The plot 5 was Leinster Bay Estate; the plot 6 and 7 later got incorporated to the Leinster Bay 
Estate. 
10 
 
property boundaries, as this would have been a near impossible task, requiring 
too much time and clearing of bush and had no impact on defensive strategies. 
Because of that, there consist no general idea of where one estate ends and 
others begin on his map.3 Nevertheless the Oxholm map provides an overview 
over the entire island, where the Morton Sketches provide a more artistic 
account of how the estate looked at the time from the seaside, for instance is the 
hillside marked as living quarter of the enslaved. 
The Oxholm map was used in the field work. One of the markings on his 
map in the Leinster Bay Estate area had never been identified during the 
National Park Service’s management of the Park and therefore some of the 
fieldwork consisted of trying to locate this place. With the help of the GPS-
system and Garmin, we set out to investigate the area Oxholm had marked. This 
survey did not lead to any structures and we therefore decided to continue our 
search further east of the place Oxholm had mapped, as there was a possibility 
his marking could have been slightly inaccurate. This would also have been a 
remote place back in 1780, and he might not have visited the place himself, but 
marked it according to information provided by others. That would explain 
some slight inaccuracies. We took our search to the top of another hill crest, 
today named Leinster Hill as it was a likely place for an early 1800 century 
planter to have built a house, overlooking the area/island along the north shore 
to both sides. The change of survey area gave results as a ruin site was found. 
Another part of the fieldwork was the identification of all the ruins at 
Leinster Bay, mainly the enslaved housing, and the surface collections. All the 
surface collections were done in the areas around the newly identified ruins, with 
the purpose of dating the time of inhabitance because surface collections can 
provide additional information about the timeframe of when the buildings were 
used and the residential pattern. This can be beneficial in a circumstance where 
an archival source do not state construction date of buildings or in the case 
where the sources are not available.4 
 
 
 
 
                                                          
3 Eleanor Gibney, David Knight, Bruce Schoonover and Robin Swank , St. John: Life In Five 
Quarters, 2010, p. 117. 
4 The probates could not be accessed because of their fragile state.   
11 
 
The history of the estate  
This chapter will attempt to establish the social and economic history of the 
estate, mapping the expansions that took place, the changes of ownership and 
the overall composition of the enslaved population in relation to the changes 
that occurred. External factors that influenced the daily life on the estate will be 
included as well, to give an overview of what events had consequences for the 
enslaved population at the Leinster Bay Estate.  
     In order to understand the significance of the Leinster Bay Estate and the 
reasons behind the many attempts at escape involving the enslaved population 
of this place, it is important first of all to clarify the changes the estate 
underwent during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. From being an 
uncultivated plot of land, obtained by one of the early settlers on the island, who 
could afford only a few un-free workers, the estate expanded, accumulated a vast 
number of enslaved workers, to become one of St. John’s largest sugar 
producing plantations. This expansion had consequences; not only did it entail a 
huge investment for the owner, but it also affected the living conditions of the 
enslaved workers. Where the owners sought to protect their investment and 
maximize their profit, the enslaved workers sought instead to improve their 
general living conditions, by any means they could. In some cases their growing 
numbers proved to be an advantage to them, in other cases it meant extensive 
attempts to try and suppress and control them by the overseers and owners of 
the estate. The expansion of the production and growing numbers of enslaved 
workers on the estate, as well as the consequences that followed, is the focus of 
this chapter. 
 
Water Lemon Estate 
Jan Loison was the first owner of the plot of land that was in the eighteenth 
century referred to as Water Lemon Bay, later to become the Leinster Bay 
Estate. It was situated in an area of the island called the Maho Bay Quarter. It 
cannot be established for certain when Loison arrived to St. John and obtained 
his land letter, which gave him the right to own and cultivate land, as no land 
lists, recording the ownership and sizes of the various plots of land, were made 
until 1728. This lack of recording was partially due to the fact that planters were 
exempt from paying property tax for the first 7 years after settling on the island, 
12 
 
and partially because the West Indian and Guinea Company did not manage to 
complete the measuring and recording of all plots of land on the island until 
1728.5 
      However, from the land list of 1728 it appear that the plot purchased by 
Loison was by then in the possession of his widow, Mariana, but that the land 
letter for the plot itself was obtained already in 1721. So it can be surmised that 
Jan Loison arrived on St. John around 1721. He was an inhabitant of the island 
in 1722, for certain, where he was recorded as one of the 39 white planters to 
have taken up land on the island. He was also recorded to be a French refugee, 
which establishes his nationality and possibly his religious beliefs.6 
     This last bit of information is not surprising, since the Danish West Indies 
were considered a safe haven for those religiously persecuted. After the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 many Huguenots fled the French 
islands to St. Thomas.7 It is likely that Jan Loison was one of these religious 
outcasts. Out of 39 planters on St. John in 1720-1721 only 9 were Danes, 5 
French Huguenots and the rest mostly Dutchmen. They came to obtain land on 
the island because of hopeless debts, unprofitable plantations on St. Thomas or 
to expand their landownership and invest money in new plantations. There were 
great opportunities for large production here, as the plot-size on St. John was 
nearly 50 per cent larger than the ones on St. Thomas,8 
     When Loison obtained his plot of land, he would have done as all other 
planters did, when taking up a piece of land for cultivation on the island. He had 
first to put his enslaved workers to clear the ground from vegetation, to make 
room for growing food provisions. How many enslaved workers Loison brought 
with him to St. John was no where recorded, neither was his intended purpose 
for purchasing Water Lemon Estate. Therefore it remains unclear what crop he 
planted, whether sugar cane or cotton, or what buildings he had built on the 
property. Sugar cultivation was the crop the Danish West India and Guinea 
Company intended all new land owners on St. John to engage in, but as this was 
                                                          
5 Kay Larsen, Document relating to the early settlement of St. John, Danish West Indies 1718-1730, V.I.N. 
Park Library, Cruz Bay, St. John,  1989. p.13.  
6 Larsen, Document, 1989. p.8.  
7 David W. Knight, Understanding Annaberg. A Brief History of Estate Annaberg on St. John, U.S. 
Virgin Islands. With A Closer Look at the Annaberg Factory Complex and How Sugar Was Made, Little 
Northside Press, 2002. p.3. 
8 Waldemar Westergaard, Danish West Indies under Company Rule 1671-1754, New York: 
Macmillan,1917. p. 129. 
13 
 
a type of production both very costly and difficult to start up, many new planters 
with few resources took up cotton cultivation instead as this was better suited 
for new settlers’ purses, as it required less capital.9 
      Jan Loison died before his Water Lemon property could have begun to yield 
much of a profit. His wife, Mariana, inherited the estate after his death, though 
no official letter of transfer of the property to her ownership exists. This is likely 
also due to the lack of recording during the first decades of the colonization of 
St. John. That Jan Loison died some time before the summer of 1727 can be 
established for certain, given a note made in the evangelic church’s record of 
1727. Here was notated that a Lieutenant named Pieter Fröeling and his wife, a 
Madame Mariana Thomas, widow after Jan Loison, were wed on August 5 and 
for the service they paid 10 Rix dollars to the Company coffer. That she was in 
all honesty a widow was confirmed by a witness in the absence of a probate 
record. That the groom was a Lieutenant of the Island St. John was confirmed 
according to the protocol.10  
      In the first land list, of 1728, Mariana Loison was listed as the owner of plot 
nr. 79, in the Maho Bay Quarter, which was the Water Lemon plot her late 
husband obtained, while her new husband, Pieter Fröeling, was listed as the 
owner of another plot, nr. 70, in the Coral Bay Quarter. By marriage he became 
the owner of both plots of land.11 
     This Lieutenant Pieter Fröeling appears to have been a man well on his way 
to making a position for himself. He was the first owner of the Water Lemon 
Estate to have some significance in developing the estate. His name occur in 
more records from these early years of colonization of the island, perhaps due to 
the fact that he was a Danish officer, and therefore often corresponded with the 
St. Thomas government. From this correspondence it appears that he was 
promoted from Sergeant to Lieutenant in 1724, and at the same time appointed 
commanding officer of Fort Frederiksværn and the Water Battery in Coral Bay, 
leading a small garrison of 10 soldiers and 1 junior officer.12 
                                                          
9 Jens Vibæk: “Dansk Vestindien 1755-1848 – Vestindiens Storhedstid”. Vol.2. In: Vore gamle 
tropekolonier. Johannes Brønsted (ed.) Fremad, Denmark, 1966. p.125. 
10 RA, Kol: Evangel, 1691-1795. Skt. Th. & Jan. https://www4.sa.dk/content/dk/ao-
forside/find_kirkeboger?# Kirkebøger, Opslag 56, 1727-08-05, p.113. 
11 RA, VGK, 750. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan, 1728. 
12 RA, VGK, 516. Guvernementet for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Ordrebøger, 1724-11-29, ordre 
nr.34.  
14 
 
      He obtained his land letter for the plot in the Coral Bay Quarter in 1725, the 
year after his appointment as commanding officer of the fort. When he became 
the owner of Mariana Loison’s Water Lemon Estate across the island from 
Coral Bay in 1727, upon their union, he became a busy man. With two plots of 
land to manage and cultivate along with his duties as the commanding officer at 
the Fort, Fröeling was fully occupied. According to the land lists he and his wife 
lived with a daughter at the Water Lemon Estate, along with 9 enslaved workers 
in 1728. The crop was listed as sugar. An overseer was recorded as working on 
the plantation, which was common practice. On his plantation in Coral Bay 
Fröeling grew a little cotton, with only 2 enslaved listed as his workforce. This 
was a modest property, whereas the Water Lemon property was a unit of great 
size, situated in one of the quarters of the island, where the soil was considered 
best for sugar cultivation.13  
     Fröeling appears to have had ambitions to become a profitable planter, but 
with its modest workforce, his Water Lemon was quite a small undertaking in 
1728, despite its size. A plantation and its growth were to be measured in the 
number of inhabitants occupying the unit, not merely by the size of the actual 
land. So the Water Lemon Estate’s potential to become a large production 
depended on Fröeling’s ability to purchase more enslaved workers to expand his 
sugar cultivation.14  
      While his plantation in Coral Bay seem to have been stagnating, with never 
more than 2 enslaved workers recorded living there at any time, Fröeling did his 
best to expand the production at his the Water Lemon Estate. In 1729 he 
bought two busal workers from the Company. The year after, another enslaved 
worker was listed at his Water Lemon property, giving him a total workforce of 
12.15 In 1731, 19 enslaved workers were recorded as belonging to this property. 
Fröeling appears to have been expanding his production as fast as he could, but 
as most of the enslaved listed on the property were children under the age of 15, 
he clearly did not have the capital to buy full grown men, who would have 
provided more labor strength. Enslaved children would have been a lesser 
                                                          
13 RA, VGK, 750. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan, 1728. 
14 Georg, F. Tyson, A History of Land Use on St. John 1718-1950, (Preliminary 
Report). Prepared for the Virgin Islands National Park Service, 1984. p.18.  
15 RA, VGK, 750. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan, 1729. 
15 
 
investment, as they both cost less to purchase and were taxed less because of 
their reduced work-value.16 
     The total number of plantations on St. John grew rapidly during the first 
years of the colonization of the island, and the number of enslaved workers 
increased simultaneously; from 39 plots in 1720-21, to 87 plantations in 1728, 
listing a total sum of 677 enslaved workers. The number then expanded to 109 
plantations in 1733 with 1087 enslaved workers listed. The number of white 
inhabitants did not grow as fast as the enslaved workforce, as the number of 
enslaved workers imported from Africa by far exceeded the number of white 
Europeans who chose to take up residence on the island. Many planters were in 
addition wealthy enough to own several properties and therefore preferred to 
stay on St. Thomas, and employ a manager on their St. John plantation.17     
     This was from the beginning a concern to the St. Thomas government, who 
had issued an ordinance on March 24, 1718, when colonization of St. John was 
first undertaken, ordering all planters to ensure at least one white man was 
present on each plantation in order to control and ensure order among the 
enslaved workforce.18 
   The land lists show that Pieter Fröeling obliged this command and engaged an 
overseer for his Water Lemon Estate, which appears to have also overseen his 
Coral Bay Estate, traveling back and forth across the island between the two 
places. A command Fröeling did not follow, that had more severe consequence, 
was the Governor’s command that he, as the commanding officer of the island’s 
soldiers, should arrange a maroon hunt for all the run-away enslaved.19 
      Prior to 1733 run-aways had become a serious problem on St. John, not only 
because it diminished the plantations’ workforce, but also because it caused 
unrest and worry amongst the white inhabitants of the island, who were well 
aware that they were outnumbered 1 to 5 by the enslaved population. Attempts 
were made to prevent the enslaved population from realizing the danger they 
posed to the white population, should they decide to combine their numbers to 
resist their enslavement. The rule of having one white person present on each 
estate was one measure to try and prevent rebellion. Governor Gardelin’s slave 
                                                          
16 RA, VGK, 750. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan, 1731.  
17 Westergaard, Danish West Indies, 1917. p. 165-166. 
18 Westergaard, Danish West Indies, 1917. p. 129. 
19 J. O. Bro-Jørgensen: “Dansk Vestindien indtil 1755 – kolonisation og kompagnistyre.” Vol.1. 
In: Vore gamle tropekolonier. Johannes Brøndsted (ed.). Fremad, Denmark, 1966. p.229.  
16 
 
code published in 1733 was another. This reflected the fear of the white 
population of their enslaved workforce. Much of this code dealt with slaves 
running away from their white owners. The code established the punishment for 
this offence according to the duration of the enslaved person’s marronage, 
ranging from torture and a death sentence as the harshest punishment, to a 
sentence of 150 lashes of the whip and the amputation of ears or limbs as one of 
the more lenient punishments. The overall intent of Gardelin’s code was to 
intimidate the enslaved population to serve their white masters respectfully and 
keep them from attempting marronage or any other forms of disobedience. 
Most important was that the code established what was considered the enslaved 
population’s obligations to their masters, without giving one single right for 
them in return.20 
      The slave code has later been blamed as the final straw that caused the 
rebellion in 1733 to break out. Two hurricanes followed by drought and a plague 
of insects had ruined the food supply grown on the estates, causing the enslaved 
population to starve since their white owners in most cases did not supply them 
with food-allowances in place of the ruined crop. Many had chosen to run away 
and hide in the forested hills on the island, where they had some chance of 
harvesting food for themselves while remaining hidden, rather than to stay on 
their owner’s estate and starve, while forced to work long hours.21 Gardelin’s 
code was an attempt to control the enslaved population by intimidating them 
with treats of harsh punishments, but was seen as provocation that pushed the 
conspirators behind the rebellion to take action.22 
      The slave rebellion broke out on November 23, 1733. Pieter Fröeling had 
the good fortune not to be present at Fort Frederiksværn in Coral Bay, as all the 
soldiers here except one was killed by the rebels. Instead Fröeling was at home 
on his Water Lemon Estate. From here he learned of the rebellion and managed 
to escape with his wife and child in a canoe to Tortola. Two days later he made 
his way to St. Thomas, where he was arrested and accused of neglecting his duty 
by not being present at his post at the Fort when the rebellion started and for 
not making any attempts to stay and try to fight the rebels.23 He spent 3 months 
                                                          
20 Neville T. Hall, “Slave Laws in the Danish Virgin Islands in the Later Eighteenth Century”, in: 
Annales of the New York Acadamy of Science, Vol. 292, New York, 1977. p. 174-175. 
21 Bro-Jørgensen, Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p. 226-229.  
22 J. E. Petersen, Slaveoprøret på St. Jan 1733, 1988. p. 67. 
23 RA, VGK, 516. Guvernementet for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Ordrebøger, 1733-11-30.  
17 
 
in prison, but due to illness and lack of witnesses to his neglect of duty he was 
released.24 In April 1734 he was send back to St. John as the leading officer of a 
small group of soldiers, who were to assist the French troops, which were by 
then engaged by the Danish authorities to fight the rebels.25 
      When the last of the rebellion was overcome and control of the island had 
been fully restored to the Danish authorities a list of all the enslaved partaking in 
the rebellion was made. On this list figured no less than four enslaved persons 
belonging to Pieter Fröeling.26 As he had only two enslaved workers listed on his 
Coral Bay plantation in 1733, prior to the rebellion, at least two of these 
supposed rebels must have come from his Water Lemon Estate. There is good 
reason to believe that these two where the busals Fröeling had purchased in 
1729, as it was later discovered, that the enslaved functioning as the leaders of 
the rebellion were mostly newly arrived enslaved from Africa.27 As most of the 
remaining enslaved people on Water Lemon Estate were children, at the time of 
the rebellion, this would likely have prevented them from partaking actively in 
the rebellion. 
     What happened to these enslaved children during or after the rebellion 
remains uncertain. A consequence of the rebellion was that no Land List was 
made in 1734, and the planters appear to have been exempted from taxes the 
following year, in 1735, due to the financial hardship they suffered from the 
damages done by the rebels, as well as the lack of enslaved workers to repair and 
continue production.28  
     Pieter Fröeling’s name next occurs in the land list of 1736, where he was still 
listed as the owner of Water Lemon Estate as well as the Estate in the Coral Bay 
Quarter, and he was still recorded with the title of Lieutenant. His enslaved 
workforce in 1736 was greatly reduced, though, to 2 capables and 1 macaroon at 
his Water Lemon property. For his Coral Bay property there was listed no 
enslaved workers for that tax year. The following year, 1737, Fröeling’s Coral 
Bay property was recorded as taken over by the Commander Sheriff, and an 
auction was held here for the sale of 7 enslaved workers belonging to the estate, 
sold to various buyers. Possibly these 7 enslaved were the total workforce of 
                                                          
24 RA, VGK, 99. Direktionen. Breve og dokumenter, 1733-07- 23. 
25 RA, VGK, 516. Guvernementet for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Ordrebøger, 1734-04- 24.  
26 RA, VGK, 99. Direktionen. Breve og dokumenter, 1734-02-20. 
27 Petersen, Slaveoprøret på St. Jan 1733, 1988. p. 64,71.  
28 Petersen, Slaveoprøret på St. Jan 1733, 1988. p. 77.  
18 
 
Fröeling’s two properties. He was no longer listed as Lieutenant, so he had 
either been dismissed from service or had resigned. In the Land List of 1738 it 
was recorded that Pieter Fröeling had sold his Water Lemon property to a Pieter 
Duurloo on November 30, 1739, who was to take over ownership of the estate 
in 1740. The crop grown on the property was by then changed from sugar to 
cotton.29 
     There the records of Pieter Fröeling ends; which leaves reason to assume that 
his time as a planter on St. John came to an end due to debt, since his enslaved 
workers were sold at an auction and his smaller property in Coral Bay taken over 
by a new official. The small number of enslaved workers and the change to 
cotton production prior to this reveal that Fröeling’s finances were suffering 
after the rebellion, since he apparently gave up all attempts at continuing the 
expansion of his estate and sugar production. This corresponds with another 
archival source, an assessment of the conditions of the estates on St. John after 
the rebellion. Here it was noted that Pieter Fröeling’s Water Lemon property 
had suffered severe damage. His boiling house, a dwelling house, and his mill 
had all been burned down.30 This would have put an end to all sugar production 
on the estate for the time being, which explains the change to cotton 
production. Where Pieter Fröeling and his family went after selling the Water 
Lemon Estate remains unclear. 
    However, when tracing Fröeling’s history as owner of the estate, one cannot 
help but to be stricken by the irony of the fact that Fröeling and his wife, being 
white landowners during the era of slavery in the Danish West Indies, managed 
to save their lives by escaping by boat to the British island of Tortola. This was 
the same route of escape many enslaved worker of the later Leinster Bay Estate 
turned to a century later, but for very different reasons. What were significant 
about Fröeling’s time as owner of the Water Lemon Estate were not his 
achievements as a planter, which seems to have been that of a typical early 
settler. Rather it was the attempts of his enslaved workers to resist their 
enslavement by whatever means geography and circumstances offered them.  
Marronage and rebellion proved not to be the end of their enslavement in 1733, 
but this did not mean that the enslaved inhabitants of the estate ceased their 
                                                          
29 RA, VGK, 751-753. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan,1739. 
30 RA, VGK, 1.29.1. Samlepakke 1. Conditions of the estates, 1734.  
19 
 
attempts to gain freedom and resist the suppressing treatment of their white 
owners. 
 
Smith Bay  
From 1739 onwards there are no records of the Water Lemon Estate until 1755, 
when the Danish Crown took over government of the West Indian Islands from 
the West India and Guinea Company. When the Water Lemon Estate was next 
listed it was in the tax records of 1755. Here the estate appears to have grown. 
From its original size in 1728 measured to a width of 1500 feet, the estate was 
now measured to a width of 3650 feet.31 At some point during the missing 
records of tax years the estate had been expanded, possibly adding the plot right 
next to it to its total size. As the Water Lemon Estate grew from a width of 1500 
feet to a width of 3650 feet sometime during the gap in tax records, it is 
reasonable to assume, that a plot with the width of 2150 feet was added to the 
property. Such a plot did exist, prior to the gap in the tax records. It belonged to 
Cornelius Stallard’s heirs and was situated next to the Water Lemon Estate, 
which can be seen on the map of plots (page 9). As this area was by 1769, 
according to an assessment done by a later owner, Thomas Smith, part of the 
Water Lemon property, it can be concluded that this was the land added to the 
estate somewhere between 1739 and 1755.32 From 1755 until 1764 various men 
owned the estate for brief periods of time, keeping the number of enslaved 
workers at a modest level, despite this added land.33 
     The next owner of the Water Lemon Estate whose ownership left traces of 
importance was Thomas Smith. Very little is known about his life other than 
that he was a St. Thomas planter. What makes Thomas Smith’s ownership 
important was that he immediately after purchasing the Water Lemon property 
in 1765 set out to expand the number of enslaved workers. The previous owner, 
Jens Rasmussen, had 28 enslaved inhabitants listed for the property in 1764, 
hereof 15 capable workers34. In 1765, the year Thomas Smith bought the estate, 
                                                          
31 The early Land Lists’ and later tax records’ way of measuring the estate by 3 sides presents 
some difficulties when attempting to establish the exact size of the estate. However, the 
expansion becomes clear when studying the following assessment of the property done in 1769.  
32RA, VGK, 751-753. Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan. Landlister for St. Jan,1739. 
33 RA, RRVR, 83.1. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1755.  
34 RA, RRVR, 83.2. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1764. 
20 
 
he had 39 enslaved listed, hereof 23 capable workers.35 Three years later, in 1768, 
he had expanded this to 30 capable workers.36 
     Clearly, Thomas Smith had both the intention and the means to expand the 
production on the estate. The crop had since 1755 been listed once again as 
sugar, and this was also the crop which Thomas Smith chose to concentrate on. 
From an assessment Smith requested to be done of the property in 1769, July 
15, some idea of the size and value of the property at the time can be 
established. The estate at that time was still named as Water Lemon Bay and 
consisted of two full sugar plantations, as seen from the expansion of the 
property in the tax records. These plantations were situated between the estate 
of James Hoorn in the East and the Sirs Schmalz and Baron of Schimmelmann 
in the West, in the Maho Bay district, with the sea on the north side. 50 acres 
was at that time cultivated with sugar, 50 acres used for provisions, stock and 
supply. The buildings at that time consisted of a boiling house, 40 feet long and 
24 feet wide, containing 3 copper sugar kettles and all the tools necessary to 
cook the sugar, a horse drawn sugar mill, a still for 120 gallons, a trade house 
distillery with liquor barrels, a warehouse/storehouse 28 feet long and 14 feet 
wide, 12 cabins for the enslaved workers, and a residence 40 feet long and 20 
feet wide.37 
      Whether all of these buildings existed prior to Thomas Smith’s purchase of 
the property, the records do not show, but it is reasonable to assume that Smith 
would have requested the assessment because he had new buildings made for 
the property, which would have added to its value since his purchase. While it 
remains unclear what he had built to add to the property value, it is certain that 
he continued to expand the number of enslaved workers on the estate. In 1773 
he furthermore expanded his property by purchasing the small neighboring 
estate, then owned by the widow of James Hoorn38. With this property came 
only 5 enslaved workers, but as Smith continued to purchase enslaved workers 
for the three, now conglomerated, properties he had a total workforce of over a 
100 un-free people at his death in 1781 to work his 325 acres of land.39  
                                                          
35 RA, RRVR, 83.2. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1765. 
36 RA, RRVR, 83.2. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1768. 
37 Information from papers made available by Chuck Pishko, translated by D. Steenberger Jr. 
38 RA, RRVR, 83.3. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1773. 
39 RA, RRVR, 83.3. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1781. 
 
21 
 
      This made his estate well above average sized for St. John, and of equal 
proportions with estates on St. Croix. In 1758 the Danish official Reimert 
Haagensen had estimated that a standard sugar plantation of about 148 acres 
would need 48 grown workers to carry out the production. With 325 acres of 
land, whereof only a small portion cultivated for sugarcane, the rest used for 
provision and grass, a workforce of a 100 seems to have been reasonable.40 
      Smith’s death in 1781, however, had consequences for the enslaved 
population, as the number of un-free workers was greatly reduced the years 
following his death, when the property came into the ownership of his heirs. 
From over a 100 un-free workers in 1781 the number was by 1784 reduced to 
62. Possibly, many of the enslaved were sold to pay off debt, as they represented 
a great part of the property’s overall value. This of course would have meant an 
extra workload for the remaining enslaved, if the same acreage of land was to be 
cultivated.41 
       What is also disconcerting is that where the tax record of 1783 lists 24 half 
grown enslaved on the property, the record of 1784 lists none in this category. It 
seems unlikely that all 24 of the half grown enslaved would have reach maturity 
a year later, which gives reason to believe that many of them were amongst the 
enslaved sold from the plantation. The number of full grown enslaved was 
reduced from 86 in 1783 to 59 in 1784. As it was common practice to allow 
enslaved mothers to keep their children with them until these had reached a 
certain age, it seems possible that the enslaved sold from the plantation in 1783 
were women and small children, leaving mostly grown men as the workforce. 
The very small number of children under 1 year of age in the records from 1783 
to 1792 supports this hypothesis, as very few un-free women on the estate 
would have resulted in very few childbirths. However, this cannot be established 
for certain, given the limited information from the tax record. The reduction in 
the enslaved population on the estate can have been due to death, but the scale 
of the reduction in numbers speaks against this.42 
     Whatever the reason for the reduction in enslaved workers on the estate, this 
seemed to have been reversed slowly the following years as the number grew to 
about a 100 un-free workers. This could possibly be related to the ban on slave 
                                                          
40 Ove Hornby, Kolonierne i Vestindien, Politikens Forlag, København, 1980. p. 130.  
41 RA, RRVR, 83.3. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1784.  
42 RA, RRVR, 83.3.-83.4-83.9. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1783-
1792.  
22 
 
trade, which was passed in March 1792 and was to come into effect in 1803 after 
a 10 year transitional period.43 This would have had an effect on the lives of the 
enslaved population at the Water Lemon Estate as the transitional period 
allowed the planters time to buy new enslaved workers, to ensure they had 
sufficient labor strength, which could reproduce itself when the trade ban came 
into effect. 44  
      For the enslaved population to be able to naturally increase their numbers 
after 1803, the ratio of women to men had to be equalized to establish better 
condition for natural reproduction. Previously, grown men had been preferred 
as workforce as they were physically stronger and could be put to harder work, 
but the Danish colonial administration encouraged the import of enslaved 
women from Africa by exempting these from import tariffs and the planters 
from paying tax on enslaved women from 1795. Instead, the tax on the enslaved 
men was raised to the double amount.45 
      The effect this had on the Water Lemon Estate can be seen immediately; 
from the year 1793 the tax records started listing capable enslaved men and 
women separately. This provides a much clearer insight into the social 
composition of the enslaved population of the estate. It also shows that the issue 
of an unequal gender composition was not that pronounced on the estate, as 
there were 44 enslaved women and girls to 47 men and boys. If the large 
number of enslaved sold from the estate in 1783, as mentioned, were in fact 
women and children, then the workforce had since then been reinforced with 
more enslaved women, to balance out the gender composition. 46 
     In 1795, Thomas Smith’s heirs sold the estate and the task of maintaining a 
stabile workforce fell to the next owner. The estate was never officially renamed 
during the Smiths’ years of ownership, but it was listed one year in the tax 
records as Smith Bay. Later the place was by some also referred to by this name, 
which testifies to the impression the Smith family left on the estate during their 
many years of ownership.47 
 
                                                          
43 The Danish ban on slave trade did not in reality come into effect though until 1808, as the 
planters pushed for it post-ponance.  
44 Karen Fog Olwig, Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on St. John: Three Centuries of Afro-Caribbean 
Life, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1985. p.28-29. 
45 Vibæk,Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p. 179-180. 
46 RA, RRVR, 83.4-83.9. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1793. 
47 RA, RRVR, 83.4-83.9. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1795. 
23 
 
Leinster Bay Estate 
There exists a great deal of information about the next owner of the estate, 
James E. Murphy, who was one of the most significant planters on St. John 
around the turn of the nineteenth century.  He bought the Water Lemon Estate 
in 1795 and the year after he purchased all shares in the neighboring estate, 
Annaberg, which, at that time, had grown from the original 1718 plot to 
encompass the plantations Mary’s Point and Betty’s Hope also. Murphy 
renamed the Water Lemon Estate Leinster Bay, after his Irish ancestral 
province. He then began building a new sugar factory on the estate, immediately 
after taking over the property, and when Annaberg was purchased, he erected a 
new type of windmill here, after P. L. Oxholm’s design. He also built a 
prominent great house on top of the hill overlooking Water Lemon Bay. In 1803 
and 1807 he expanded his property again, by buying respectively the Munsbury 
plantation and the Brown Bay Estate. All combined, he was by then in 
possession of 530 acres of land on St. John, and had the largest production of 
sugar on the island with 662 enslaved workers, the largest workforce on the 
island at the time of his death in 1808.48 
     Of course the huge investment in land and buildings would have meant little 
without enslaved workers to tend the sugar fields, mill and boiling house. With 
the end of the slave trade looming in the horizon, Murphy imported a vast 
number of busals to his Leinster Bay Estate. In 1799 alone, the place had an 
addition to its workforce of 40 busal men and 38 busal women.49 It appears that 
Murphy attempted to balance the gender composition of his enslaved 
workforce, but in 1802 when the transatlantic slave trade was supposed to end 
for the Danish West Indies, there had developed a considerable disproportion 
between enslaved men to women on the Leinster Bay Estate, with only 61 
women to 96 men.50 
     This would have had consequences, not only for the natural reproduction 
rate amongst the enslaved workers of the estate, which the owner was from 
1803 to rely on to maintain his workforce, but also for the enslaved people’s 
general living conditions. The treatment of the enslaved workers was taken up to 
consideration by the colonial administration, in order to find ways to ensure a 
                                                          
48 Knight, Understanding Annaberg, 2002. p.12.  
49 RA, RRVR, 83.10-83.15. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1799. 
50 RA, RRVR, 83.10-83.15. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1802. 
24 
 
higher birth rate, and working conditions for pregnant women and new mothers 
were improved a little. If this applied also to the Leinster Bay Estate, remains 
uncertain. Births and deaths on the estate were not recorded in the years from 
1803 to 1817, so there is no way of knowing what the natural reproduction rate 
looked like on the estate. For St. John in general, the mortality rate among the 
enslaved population exceeded the fertility rate between 1793 and 1802, with no 
numbers recorded again until 1834 to 1844. Here, surprisingly, the rate of 
natural increase was positive, at 0.4 percent annually.51 
     There would therefore have been good cause to improve the living 
conditions for the enslaved population after the slave trade ended. Many ad hoc 
ordinances regarding the enslaves rights and conditions had been made since 
Gardelin’s 1733 slave code, but one of the more important ordinances, that 
appears to actually have been carried out, was first proclaimed in 1817. This 
ordinance made the owners responsible for giving their enslaved workers a set 
amount of food allowances weekly, to ensure their health. Whatever bettering of 
the enslaved people’s lives or allowances of food and clothing given them before 
then, had beem dependent on the will to do so by the estate owner and the 
overseers.52  
     James E. Murphy was not just another absentee planter, but preferred to 
residence on his impressive Leinster Bay property where he had concentrated his 
production. This had some influence on the daily lives of his enslaved workers. 
Where there had previously been little reason to keep house servants, as the 
Smith family appeared to have taken residence on St. Thomas, from 1802, where 
the Great House at Leinster Bay presumably was finished, the number of 
enslaved people on the estate engaged in house and skilled work increased to 
about 30 persons and was kept at that level until James E. Murphy’s death in 
1808.53 
     The type of work these people were put to would probably have meant at 
bettering of their general work load as house work was considered less strenuous 
than work in the sugar field and factory, with less risk of injures. Training in any 
                                                          
51 Svend E. Green-Pedersen, “Slave demography in the Danish West Indian and the Abolition 
of the Danish slave Trade.”  Eds. David Eltis og James Walvins. The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave 
Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa and the Americas.  Madison, University of Wisconsin 
Press, 1981. p. 245.  
52 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 30. 
53 RA, RRVR, 83.16. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1803-1808.  
25 
 
type of skilled work would have raised the value of the enslaved workers, and in 
addition given them a craft that offered the opportunity of earning money on 
their own time, if their owner allowed them to work outside the estate on their 
days off.54 
   Because all the estates owned by Murphy was situated closely together this 
would have had some influence on the social lives of the enslaved population as 
well. The skilled workers would likely have been put to work on other 
plantations than Leinster Bay, allowing them some measure of free mobility and 
social interaction. With a lower number of women than men on Leinster Bay 
Estate, the enslaved would likely have been allowed to seek husbands and wives 
on Murphy’s neighboring estates. In 1806 a commission investigating the results 
of the transition period, listed the numbers of enslaved couples on each estate. 
This showed that there were 11 married- and 10 unmarried couples at Leinster 
Bay Estate, with 11 males known to be married to women on other estates. The 
number of females at Annaberg known to be married to men on other estates 
was, not surprisingly, 11. 55     
     However, if the lives of the enslaved people on the estate in general were 
improved during Murphy’s ownership can be questioned. With multiple estates 
and several hundred enslaved workers to manage there would also have been 
more control of the enslaved population, to ensure order and efficiency. The tax 
records show that there was at all times two, sometimes three, overseers living 
on the Leinster Bay Estate.56  
     The sugar empire James E. Murphy conglomerated did not last. After his 
death in 1808 the properties were again divided, the Munsbury plantation sold 
and the Brown Bay Estate given back to its former owner due to unresolved 
debt. His heirs, Mary Murphy Sheen and Edward C. Murphy, were left with the 
still sizable Annaberg and Leinster Bay Estates.57 
      When Edward C. Murphy died, his widow Catharina inherited the Leinster 
Bay Estate. She remarried the prominent Norwegian official H.H. Berg who 
became the owner of the property in 1818. When Edward C. Murphy’s sister, 
Mary Murphy Sheen died in 1827, Catharina inherited Annaberg as well, and the 
                                                          
54 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p.36. 
55 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p.58-59.  
56 RA, RRVR, 83.10-83.15.-83.16. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1797-
1808.  
57 Knight, Understanding Annaberg, 2002. p.14. 
26 
 
two properties were once more conglomerated under Berg’s ownership. He 
remained owner of the two estates until 1862, well after the emancipation.58 
     After Edward C. Murphy’s death the number of enslaved people on Leinster 
Bay Estate seems to have declined again, from 205 in 1817 to only 109 in 1818. 
Again this could be due to settling of debt once the estate was assessed. Another 
explanation for this could be that an incident with an abusive overseer in 1818 
caused 47 enslaved people from the estate to refuse work and flee the estate, 
causing their absence from the tax records this year.59 When Berg took over 
ownership, through his wife Catharina, the number of enslaved workers rose 
again, keeping the Leinster Bay Estate as one of the largest operations on St. 
John with an enslaved population amounting to almost a tenth of the total 
enslaved population on the island until the emancipation.60 
    During Berg’s ownership of the estate, new ordinances initiated by the 
colonial government were enforced to better the enslaved population’s living 
condition. It is quite possible that Berg himself participated in making these 
ordinances, as he was part of the government council on St. Thomas as well as 
one of Governor General Peter von Scholten’s supporters. He was the Sheriff 
on St. Thomas as well as counselor of justice, so he would have had some 
influence on the decisions made by the colonial government. At the same time, 
though, Berg was also a planter owning two of St. John’s largest estates, so he 
had an interest in prolonging the institution of slavery as long as possible, which 
was the only way to turn a profit from these estates. This meant that he, like 
most other planters, spoke against Peter von Scholten’s suggestions from 1833 
regarding an eventual emancipation: “I regard it highly doubtful that the Colonies could 
exist without system of slavery, and I am convinced that there is yet absolutely no need for such 
a change,...”61 Such was Berg’s response to von Scholten’s suggestions.  
     Though Berg had no interest in emancipating his enslaved workers, the 
ordinances giving them new rights and allowances do appear to have been 
enforced on his estates. A Mr. Wallace, the estate manager on Leinster Bay and 
Annaberg, wrote in a letter from 1841, that the new ordinances giving the 
enslaved a small payment each week, along with an additional half day off were 
                                                          
58 Knight, Understanding Annaberg, 2002. p.15-16. 
59 Olwig, Cultural adaptation, 1985. p. 35.  
60 RA, RRVR, 83.21-83.25. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1817-1818. 
61 RA, GTK, 429. Generaltoldkammerets Kontor. Forestillinger fra kommissionen, bog 1, p.119-123.   
27 
 
being followed. Mr. Wallace, however, did not see the benefit of these new 
allowances; on the contrary, he warned that cost of enforcing them simply put 
too much strain on the economies of the estates: 
“The additional expenditures of a five stivers in the week and of a large 
quantity of cornmeal than formerly, the measure having been altered is a heavy 
burden on the Estate, and with bad crops and poor prices it will be impossible 
to continue.”62  
So some measures of bettering the living conditions for the enslaved at Leinster 
Bay as well as Annaberg were taken. The purpose of these ordinances appears to 
have been to encourage the enslaved to work more and harder, which, in Mr. 
Wallace opinion, had not happened, quite the opposite.63 More work, however, 
was needed from the enslaved. The profit from sugar production was fast 
dwindling by the 1840s, the soil became exhausted and the new rights allotted 
the enslaved were an added expense. So while Berg did have the ordinances of 
allowances enforced at his St. John estates, he in return demanded as much labor 
as possible from his enslaved workers, putting them under hard physical strain. 
This had consequences: Berg’s years of ownership was characterized by conflicts 
between free and enslaved on both his estates. More detailed sources exist from 
this period, in the police court records, so from 1818 and onwards one gets a 
better insight in the lives of the enslaved people at Leinster Bay. The increasing 
number of conflicts was the results of the enslaved populations’ continuous 
resistance to their enslavement, which never ceased, only changed according to 
what means of resistance were available to them. The increasing focus on the 
conditions of the enslaved, harshly criticized by spokesmen for the abolition of 
slavery, had an effect on both owners and enslaved.64 The owners relied on their 
enslaved workforce and were well aware that stability and healthy workers would 
offer the best results, whereas the enslaved people became increasingly aware of 
their own value and rights as human beings. This led to an increase in cases 
brought before the island court in Cruz Bay by enslaved who claimed to have 
                                                          
62 RA, STSJG, 35.3.2. St. Jan Landfoged. Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til 
Guvernementet/præsidentskab på St. Thomas, 1841-07-05. 
63 RA, STSJG, 35.3.2 St. Jan Landfoged. Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til 
Guvernementet/præsidentskab på St. Thomas, 1841-07-05. 
64 William Chapman, ” Slave Villages in the Danish West Indies: Changes of the Late Eighteenth 
and Early Nineteenth Centuries”, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 4. 1991. p. 117. 
28 
 
been mistreated and in return had stood up to their abusers. The chapter about 
the enslaved people, in this report, will look further into these conflicts.  
    In general, the Leinster Bay Estate appears to have been a typical sugar 
producing estate, following a pattern of development that was influenced by 
circumstances, economy and governmental laws. It grew to a greater size than 
most St. John estates, which meant that the enslaved population also increased. 
This became problematic, as the vast number of enslaved at the estate became 
harder to control in the nineteenth century, due to their growing sense of worth. 
What made the Leinster Bay Estate especially vulnerable to the enslaved 
population’s resistance to their enslavement was its location. Close to Tortola, 
only separated by a short stretch of sea, this came significant in the 1830s when 
British emancipation became a reality.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
29 
 
The buildings and artifacts 
The buildings and artifacts left on the estate show that this was at one time, one 
of the greater estates on St. John. What is left today is a factory site with various 
buildings, several housing quarters for the enslaved population, a grand 
greathouse, a smaller structure on another hilltop and a graveyard. However the 
most unusual feature to an estate complex can be found here: a guardhouse. 
 
 (Image showing the research area, original map from 1982 and provided from 
the NPS) 
 
This chapter seeks to explore the different groupings of ruins to map the 
date of construction and use. For that purpose the various sites have been 
divided into 3 groups: Leinster hill site, Factory site and Guardhouse site. The 
Leinster Hill site consist of some much-deteriorated ruins, whose use is difficult 
to determine, the factory site consists of the enslaved populations housing and 
the factory site, with the main area of interest being the enslaved inhabitant’s 
quarter. The guardhouse site include the guardhouse that is facing the bay, a 
kitchen building, and some enslaved housing further down the hill. The enslaved 
peoples housing probably belonged to the grand greathouse further up the hill. 
The graveyard and grand greathouse will not be discussed in this chapter 
because no artifacts were collected in those two areas, the constructor is known 
and the areas has no direct relation to the enslaved population of the estate. 
30 
 
The guardhouse and the enslaved population housing will be the main 
focus, because it was in these areas the surface collections was conducted, but 
also because these areas were directly related to the enslaved population. 
Furthermore, it relates to everyday life and in choices that were made and 
sometimes obstructed in these areas, due to the control the military exercised.   
Considering the artifacts found at the surveys, they have a general 
manufacturing date around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The oldest 
artifact found may have been from 1490, but that type of artifact has been 
produced up until 1900.  The youngest piece found had a manufacturing date 
from 1820-1900.  This in general aligns with the use of the compound in the 
period of time where the estate was operating as a plantation, with a workforce 
consisting of enslaved. 
 
Ruins of older structures at Leinster Hill 
During the onsite internship two factors indicated that the Leinster Bay Estate 
ruins were not the earliest structures to have been built at the estate. The 
relatively well preserved state of the Leinster Bay ruins, along with the 
unidentified markings on the Oxholm map from 1780, suggested the possibility 
of two earlier constructed buildings in the area that belonged to the Water 
Lemon Estate from 1773.65                                                                                     
66 
(Section of the Oxholm map from 1780, showing the Water Lemon area) 
The previously unidentified buildings on Oxholm´s map from 1780 are marked 
with the white arrow on the map above. The ruins located during the survey 
                                                          
65 RA, RRVR, 83.3. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1773. 
66 Map from the National Park Service resources, map-folder.  
31 
 
were situated further to the right /southeast of this point. The modern aerial 
map below show where the ruins are situated in relation to Oxholm’s markings. 
(Modern aerial map of the Leinster Bay Estate area, St. John, North shore)67 
     As a survey of the area led to the location of these structures, it has been 
attempted to establish their origin. Based on the limited information of the 
archival sources and an onsite surface collection of artifacts, no certain 
identification of the site can be made. Compared to the map of plots done by 
Wraae and Veisegaard in 2009 (page 9), the structures could have belonged to 
the Eason Estate, the earliest mentioned owner of the area until 1739, and have 
had no relation whatsoever to Water Lemon Estate or its owners before 1773, 
when part of the area was purchased by Thomas Smith from James Hoorn’s 
widow68.       
     Given the location of the ruin site, it appears a likely place for an early 1800 
century planter to have built a house, overlooking the area along the north shore 
to both sides. A house located here would have been remote from the most 
travelled roads of the island, but at the same time at a position to have plenty of 
warning, should anyone unwelcome approach the house. Some of the first 
owners of the area, possibly Eason, could very likely have built a home here, 
possibly after the 1733 rebellion, at a time where a remote location was deemed 
safer than an easily accessible one. All that remains today of the buildings 
                                                          
67 Moderen aerial map of the Leinster Hill ruins made by Grant Gittus, NPS intern, 2015.  
68 RA, RRVR, 83.3. Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan. Matrikler for St. Jan, 1773. 
32 
 
constructed here are a wall of an old, large structure, possibly an early type of 
greathouse, and a smaller wall structure, possibly from a cookhouse or slave 
house. 
     The archival sources do not reveal why this place was abandoned. If the 
buildings on the hill top were in fact owned by one of the Water Lemon Estate 
owners before Oxholm made his map in 1780, it seems reasonable to imagine 
that the living quarters of owner, overseers and enslaved workers were at some 
point transferred to the site of the Water Lemon Factory, later Leinster Bay 
Factory. The very modest number of structures and artifacts found on the hill 
indicates that the place was not inhabited by a large number of people, nor was 
it likely to have been inhabited throughout the colonial period. As the sugar 
production on the Water Lemon Estate increased in 1765, with a growing 
number of enslaved workers, this remote site on the hill would not have been 
convenient for production, when Smith took over the area in 1773. He would 
have preferred the current factory site for his production, where the harvested 
sugar canes could easily be transported to the mill and the raw sugar from here 
transported by road or boat to its place of shipment.  
     In a surface collection, several pieces of pipe stems were found at the hill top 
ruins, all dateable within a timeframe from 1680 to 1750, and one from 1750 to 
1800. Some pieces of porcelain and an olive jar base was also found here, all 
with a dating-range too broad to give any accurate indication of when these 
pieces were used here, but all could be from the beginning of the colonization of 
the island. The dating of the pipe stems are the best indicators to support the 
hypothesis that the structures on the hill were made by some of the earlier 
owners of the area, which could only have been the first owner, Eason, or James 
Hoorn after him.69 
      The surface collection at the site yielded very little diagnostic materials. This 
is probably due to the fact that there was no financial prosperity until after 1750, 
population numbers were small on these sites before 1750, and the early estate 
owners would likely have had limited access to commodities.70 
                                                          
69 List of the estate owners and table of number of enslaved at the estate compared to St. John’s 
total enslaved population in appendix nr. 1. 
70 Kenneth Jr. Wild, A problematic approach to ceramic dating of historic plantations on St. John, U.S. 
Virgin Islands, unpublished thesis (submitted to the Department of Anthropology at Florida State 
University of Arts and Sciences). 1988. 
33 
 
      Given that the area, where the hill top ruins are located, was first 
conglomerated with the Water Lemon Estate in 1773 and the fact that Smith’s 
assessment of his property from 1769 do not mention these structures, it is 
certain that they were not part of the Water Lemon Estate before 1773. As 
mentioned, the remote locate of these structures would have given Smith little 
reason to continue to make use of them, after they became part of his property. 
His expansion of his enslaved workforce indicates an intensification of the sugar 
production in this time period, which would have been inconvenient if the 
production buildings and enslaved workers’ houses were placed far from the 
factory. So it is reasonable to assume that the hill top buildings were simply 
abandoned when they came into Smith’s ownership. As for a possible 
construction date for these buildings, sometime before 1750 seems most likely, 
if taking the dating of the majority of pipe stems into account.71 
 
The factory site 
This site has been used over a long period of time, possibly from Jens 
Rasmussen in 1755 up until the twentieth century. Buildings were added over 
the years, during the different owners. The factory with horse mill and boiling 
house existed in 1769 according to Smith’s assessment of the property. The 
water tower was possibly built by Murphy when the estate was conglomerated 
with the Annaberg Estate, as it does not figure on Smith’s list of buildings. That 
Murphy built a new factory to replace the old is also certain. From an 
assessment done after Edward C. Murphy’s death in 1818, July 20, there is some 
information of what the estate consisted of at that time:  
“150 acres of cane, 25 acres of provision, 150 acres of pasture and woodland  
A Boiling House, a Still House, a (…) House and Cellar under one Roof  
Cattle Mill complete  
Stills with (wells) and Cisterns 
Mo(lasses) House 
(Oven) room, a (…) House a one Store under one Roof 
Mule Pen  
A Dwelling House at the Hill  
A Kitchen, Negro Rooms etc. 
                                                          
71 List of artifacts found at the Leinster Hill ruin site in appendix nr. 2. 
34 
 
A Manager House.  
A draw Mill with Wheel.  
A Smith’s Shop and Lumber House.  
72 Negro Houses”72  
 
From this list of buildings it becomes clear that the Leinster Bay Estate had by 
1818 in truth become a factory, with all the necessary equipment to maintain a 
large production of not only sugar, but also rum, as the listing of a still house 
indicates. All these buildings amounted to an enormous value, an investment 
that relied solely on the unpaid labor of the enslaved to yield a profit.73  
 
Slave villages and living conditions 
As can be surmised from the above assessment list, the Leinster Bay Estate was 
a sizable production site in 1818. It listed no less than 72 houses for its enslaved 
workers, which for the 109 enslaved workers listed as belonging to the estate at 
the time would have meant at least one house per family. This seemed to have 
been the standard housing situation on St. John according to appraisals done in 
the 1830s and 1840s, where the average number of enslaved persons per house 
was from 1.9 to 3.0.74  
      Several ruins that have possibly been used for housing for the enslaved at 
the Leinster Bay Estate can still be found in three different locations on the ruin 
site of the estate today. The assumption of their former use as quarters for the 
enslaved is based on four factors: their modest size, the artifacts gathered during 
the surface collections, the deterioration of the structures, and their situation in 
convenient nearness to the estate factory, where the inhabitants of the houses 
would have worked. The reason why so little remained of the structures is 
possibly due to the fact that less durable material were used for their 
construction, than for the production buildings and residences for the free, 
white inhabitants of the estate.   
     The construction and placing of the enslaved people’s houses were decided 
upon by their owners and overseers, though the work of building these houses 
                                                          
72 RA, STSJG, 35.38.1. St. Jans Landfoged.  Registrerings og vurderings protokoller, sessions og 
testamenteprotokol. No.128, 1818-07-20. 
73 Plan for the Leinster Bay factory can be seen in appendix 3.  
74 Olwig, Cultural Adaption,  1985. p.69.  
35 
 
would have been left for the enslaved themselves. From the onsite survey it also 
appears that their house were placed in line, ordered after European 
construction standards. According to an architectural study of colonial building 
methods this seemed to have always been the practice: “A typical sugar estate (…) 
had as many as fifty to sixty houses, all arranged in rows. Those on `the English plantations´ 
were especially `neat and trim´.” 75 This construction standard would have made the 
enslaved people’s housing very uniform, and was possibly another way for the 
owner to enforce some kind of control of the enslaved. Certainly, they were not 
allowed to construct their houses where they pleased, but were likely allotted 
specific areas where they could most easily be supervised. 
      Architectural changes occurred in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth 
century building methods, which had some effects on the enslaved population’s 
living conditions. Up until the late eighteenth century cottages for the enslaved 
people were wattle-and-daub structures, impermanent and consisting typically of 
a single room. Inspiration from new European architectural ideas and building 
techniques led to the introduction of a more permanent building type, with 
masonry foundation and walls, and in some cases several rooms.76 Masonry was 
used much earlier for the white population’s residences, along with storage and 
production buildings, to ensure sturdy, cool and spacious buildings, while the 
enslaved population had to make do with cottages with dirt floor, build from 
less expensive materials, with less time given to the construction.  
     As the earlier type of buildings used for the enslaved population was of less 
durable material and design, the knowledge of what these structures looked like 
is based on written sources describing their features. The German Moravian 
missionary traveler C.G.A. Oldendorph wrote an account, in 1777, of the typical 
look of slave villages, from his visits to the Danish West Indian islands in 1767-
1769. From his description a typical building was 
“…constructed with four corner stakes driven into the ground. These were 
forked on the ends to receive "horizontal boards," on which rested pole rafters 
"which came together in a crest" to form the roof. Further vertical stakes were 
driven between the posts and "branches woven among these." The whole was 
plastered with mud and cow dung and covered with a further coat of lime 
plaster. Floors were unfinished earth, and roofs were covered usually with 
                                                          
75 Chapman, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 1991. p. 110. 
76 Chapman, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 1991.p. 108. 
36 
 
sugarcane leaves. There were in most cases several small windows and a single 
door.”77  
As slavery became increasingly criticized in the 1780s and 1790s, resulting in the 
Danish abolition of the slave trade in 1803, the need to ensure the enslaved 
population’s natural increase turned the focus to the connection between 
housing conditions and health problems. Following this the Danish West Indies 
experienced a profitable period in sugar production from 1801-1817. These 
factors combined appear to have resulted in changes in building methods for the 
houses of the enslaved. This can be concluded based on the fact that most new 
types of slave houses are dated to have been built between the end of the 
eighteenth and early nineteenth century.78 A general pattern in the locations of 
these new buildings was that often they were placed beside a road to the estate, 
well away from the great houses and close to the sugar factory. Also, they were 
often placed on a steep slope or rocky land, which was deemed too poor for 
sugarcane fields. The enslaved people’s houses were almost always situated west 
of or downwind from the principal estate residence and were usually about 15 
feet long.79  
     These characteristics match some of the smaller ruins found at the Leinster 
Bay Factory site. Situated east of the sugar factory and west of the Great House, 
on a steep and rocky hillside, these structures appear to have been the living 
quarters for the enslaved workers of the estate. Little remains of these buildings 
but the cornerstones and some low walls, but their size and location gives reason 
to believe that they were used to house the un-free population of the estate. The 
structures appear to have been of modest size, with no more than one or two 
rooms in each, and as their location was on steep ground, they are not likely to 
have been used for production buildings or storage. A surface collection of the 
area between the structures and the sugar factory yielded numerable glass, 
ceramic and porcelain shards, ranging in date and use for the majority of pieces 
from the 1750s to the mid nineteenth century.80 The variety of the artifacts 
support the likelihood of the area being used for living quarters for the enslaved 
                                                          
77 Chapman, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 1991. p. 110-111. 
78 Chapman, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 1991. p. 117-118. 
79 Chapman, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 1991. p. 113. 
80 List of artifacts found at the Leinster Bay guardhouse and factory Site in appendix nr. 4.  
37 
 
workers, as the enslaved workers were supplied with ceramic bowls made of 
cheap materials. Such ceramics were generally out of style or hand-me-downs.81  
      There existed other separately located slave villages on the estate. It could 
possibly have been due to the fact that as the enslaved population expanded 
from the late eighteenth century, so did the numbers of drivers. These would 
have lived very near or within the enslaved village to oversee and prevent 
escapes. The village for the enslaved could then be expanded or relocated 
further away from the owner’s house. This corresponds well with the ruins 
found of other houses nearer the main house, which may have been used for 
house servants.  
      These other possible housing site for the enslaved population of the estate 
was found on the western side of the factory, as well as structures for the same 
possible use next to the ruins of the Leinster Bay guardhouse.   
 
The guardhouse  
The need of the guardhouse fell in the time of the estate’s expansion. As land 
owned and sugar production increased so did the need for an increased 
workforce. The growth of the estate and the corresponding growth in the 
enslaved numbers meet with a few challenges. One of these was exercising 
control over the large group of unfree concentrated on a relatively small area. 
Thus increasing the need for local control and surveillance. This were done by 
construting a guardhouse. The accounts of marronage from the entire island 
have been plentiful and from the Leinster Bay Estate there are two significant 
accounts. One from 1818 and one from 1840, these are dated before the first 
known account of the guardhouse, which was from 1843. The construction date 
of the guardhouse has so far not been determined. 
                                                          
81 Kenneth S. Wild,  Elizabeth A. Horvath, Douglas T. Potter, and Andrea C. Repp, 1987-89 
Archeological  
Investigations Conducted Along the North Shore Road, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Tallahassee: 
National Park  
Service, Southeast Archeological Center, 1991. p.12. 
38 
 
(The guardhouse site, as seen spring 2015.82) 
 
Considering the purpose of the guardhouse there are several accounts 
mentioning it, one of the earliest was Henry Morton’s. He was a reverend 
visiting the islands in 1843-1844; he arrived at the plantation with 16 soldiers 
intended as a replacement for the battery located on the estate. Morton writes 
the following in his diary about the guardhouse:  
“At this post, a guard of sixteen men under the command of an Officer is 
stationed, for the purpose of protecting the property of the Planters from the 
danger which results from the nearness of the British Island of Tortola.”83  
This danger against the property from Tortola Morton mentioned was the 
abolition of slavery on the island. The planters and government was concerned 
about the enslaved population running away. Another account mentions the 
same kind of danger, the writer writes on behalf on the burgher counsel in 1843: 
“However, it is known that the guard-shift on the before mentioned day saw 
the necessity when seven slaves passed the guardhouse in broad daylight. 
Everybody acknowledges that the guards will be sufficient to deal with the 
                                                          
82 The nonprofit organization Cyark have made 3 D scannings in the area around Leinster Bay 
Estate, but at the deadline of this report the data have not yet been processed.  
83 Henry Morton, Danish West Indian Sketchbook and Diary 1843-1844, Dansk Vestindisk Selskab & 
St. Croix Landmark Society, 1975, p. 168. 
39 
 
protection of the western- and northern coast, as soon as it joins with the 
Leisterbay garrison.”84 
Because the protection of the coastline is mentioned together with the fact that 
7 enslaved people went right by the guardhouse in a boat, when they should be 
working. Implies that protection refers to the protection of the property. This 
means that the account shows how people are concerned about the protection 
of their property (being the enslaved) and it shows the intended purpose of the 
guardhouses, keeping the enslaved from running away, but were unable to do so 
due to lack of manpower. In British Tortola the abolition of slavery occurred in 
1834 followed by an apprenticeship of 4 years, after this period the enslaved 
people were considered free, and escapees from the Danish islands would also 
be regarded free upon arrival, furthermore the enslaved people did know about 
this circumstance.85 It was therefore that danger the guardhouse was supposed 
to protect against and that protection constituted the purpose of the 
guardhouse. 
Another account, that shows how exactly the soldiers acted on Leinster 
Bay when news of escaped enslaved reached them, is an entry in the journals for 
the police guard. As the start, the soldiers sought Thatch Island (a tiny island 
right next to the Leinster bay) and later that day one soldier went to Tortola to 
seek information of the escapees.86 The choice of going to Tortola shows the 
determination to get the enslaved back, and how they saw Tortola as a more 
obvious choice than e.g. petit marronage on St. John. 
The guardhouse was probably placed in this specific area because of the 
amount of enslaved workers that was present.  In 1846, Leinster Bay Estate had 
a total population of 172 enslaved where the entire population of the island was 
1790. Which means that 9,6 % of the enslaved population lived and worked on 
the Leinster Bay Estate. The rest was divided on 22 estates of various sizes, 
which leaves an average percentage of 4,1 for the rest or around 73 enslaved per 
estate. As seen in appendix 5, the percentage for the Leinster Bay Estate did not 
go under the 8 % mark after 1827, except for one occasion in 1842 due to a 
transfer between estates. It was a considerably amount of enslaved workers that 
                                                          
84 RA, STSJG, 35.3.2. St. Jans Landfoged, Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til 
Guvernementet/præsidentskab på st. Thomas, 1843-11-28. 
85 Neville Hall, B. W. Higman (ed.), Slave Society in the Danish West Indies, The University of the 
West Indies Press, 1994, p. 135. 
86 RA, STSJG, 35.27.2, St. Jans Landfoged, Journal for St. Jans Politivagt, 1845-03-17. 
40 
 
were located on the estate prior to any knowledge of the guardhouse. Taking 
this into consideration it seems plausible that the need for the guardhouse, 
solemnly based on the amount of enslaved existed from 1827 and forward and 
although we cannot with certainty determine when it was constructed, the 
increased numbers of enslaved is probably part of the explanation for the 
necessity of military presence.   
The physical ruins left on the guardhouse site testifies to the site being a 
guardhouse.  One of the indications was the structure of the ruins that remained; 
those included the main building and a kitchen house situated apart from the 
main building. The location of a kitchen placed separately; correspond with a 
typical pattern of smaller fortifications. As shown on the situation plan below, 
the main building consisted of two rooms, both divided into two smaller rooms. 
The rooms are leveled differently, and you get the impression of two-storied 
structure. In the smaller room there was constructed an arch facing the bay. This 
architectural feature is typical for a cannon hole/casement, which indicates that 
the ruin was intended as fortification.87  
 
(Simple visual representation of the ruins left at the guardhouse site.) 
 
The artifacts found at the site indicated a rather long period of residence. 
Furthermore, a total of 11 collections divided between 4 GPS points around the 
                                                          
87 According to Ken Wild. 
41 
 
main building were collected, though some of those findings were insignificant 
pieces. These pieces could only be dated with a generic timeframe, which means 
a long period that often dates up until present time. When disregarding these 
pieces, the time period of the artifacts have the datable years 1762-1890, with 
only one piece dating up till 1890.88 This means that the area could have been 
inhabited both before and after, according the evidence regarding the function 
of the guardhouse site.  
If all these factors get considered when dating of the guardhouse, the 
construction date could possibly be before the uncovered archival sources. The 
amount of enslaved were steady since the 1828 and throughout the period and 
the artifacts found dates both before and after the 1840s, and the event of 
British emancipation and cease of apprenticeship in 1838. That makes the 
construction date and use possible before the 1840s, but if the case of 1840 is 
considered the date must be after this incident, as will be discussed in further 
detail later. In the 1840 case there was no mention of a guardhouse or any 
soldiers stationed nearby the estate, nor was there any soldiers interviewed after 
the escape. If there was a guardhouse and it was manned, with the purpose of 
hindering marronage, the soldiers would have been close to where the incident 
happened, and would have been possible witnesses, but because they had also 
failed in obstructing marronage. This makes the use of the guardhouse after 
1840, as a center for hindering marronage, even more plausible, although the 
possibility of grand marronage had existed for 2 years prior to the 1840 case. 
The use as a center to control the enslaved activity were limited to the 1840s, but 
it is uncertain if there had been any kind of other governmental security in the 
area prior to this time period.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                          
88 These datable years, are the manufacturing dates, and do not tell anything about the use of the 
product. 
42 
 
The enslaved population 
While many enslaved chose to try to make it to Tortola after the British 
emancipation, a greater part of the enslaved population at the Leinster Bay 
Estate chose to stay. Therefore it is equally important to try to clarify the 
conditions of those who chose to remain faced. Whether they chose staying or 
fleeing, what appear common for all of them was that they did not simply accept 
their enslavement passively. The enslaved population at Leinster Bay seems to 
have expressed an agency over their own lives at any opportunity, to better their 
conditions and rights, and when no opportunity presented itself to do so, they 
resisted their white oppressors by protests, complaints and by enduring the 
punishments this often led to. The consequences were ambiguous; added 
control with the enslaved population at Leinster Bay along with small bettering 
of their living conditions to try and give them reasons to accept their un-free 
lives peacefully and prevent them from running away.  
     This proved to become harder and harder during the nineteenth century for 
various reasons. The enforcement of the slave trade ban meant that no new 
enslaved workers could be imported to replace the old, disabled or death. Only 
natural reproduction could supply new workers, which made the colonial 
government take an interest in the enslaved population’s condition to try and 
ensure population growth instead of decline. This meant new rights for the 
enslaved. The enslaved were aware of these rights and made use of them, 
demanding to have a say in their own daily life. The increasing creolization of 
the enslaved workers meant that relied less and less on the goodwill of their 
owner, and more and more on their resourcefulness, social network and 
industry.  
 
The rights of the enslaved  
 After the slave trade ban the enslaved population became aware of their own 
worth, and just how much their owner depended on them, as their natural 
reproduction was the only way to maintain his workforce. Without them, his 
estate and all his investments would be of little worth. This new awareness 
caused the enslaved population to push for better conditions and rights, while 
the owners tried to avoid any initiative that would mean additional expenses. 
The reforms the colonial government enforced were not simply a result of 
43 
 
concerns over the financial difficulties a decline in the enslaved workforce would 
result in, but also a reflection of the increasing difficulties of controlling the 
enslaved, which was attempted solved by introducing small changes and 
compromises.89 
     During the British occupation of the Danish West Indies, under the 
Napoleonic Wars in 1801-1802 and 1807-1815, the financial situation for the 
sugar industry had been good, with high sugar prices and good harvests, which 
gave the planters an opportunity to repay huge rates on their loans to the state.90 
After 1815 the situation changed and a financial stalemate for the sugar industry 
on St. Croix and St. John began that lasted until emancipation in 1848. Sugar 
prices in Copenhagen dwindled from 1817 as well, making the sugar production 
business less and less profitable.91  
     The result was that the colonial authorities took a bigger interest in 
controlling how the individual plantations were run and in the upkeep enslaved 
population in particular, as the workforce was the basis of the sugar production. 
This opened up the possibility of the enslaved to seek out the local authorities if 
they felt mistreated. Prior to this, they had had few options, if their overseer had 
been abusive to them or neglected their needs. This became clear during an 
incident in 1818 at Leinster Bay, where the alleged mistreatment of an enslaved 
worker caused 47 enslaved fieldworkers to protest. As the enslaved fieldworkers 
did not have the option of seeking out the authorities then, they intended 
instead to seek out the overseer at the Coral Bay Estate, to beg his help: ”…as 
this was the normal practice of the negroes at Leinster Bay when they had been mistreated, to 
go to John Dam, to tell him what had transpired…”92  For some reason the enslaved 
changed their minds and chose to run off the estate instead, perhaps fearing that 
the matter was to grave for the mentioned John Dam to offer them any 
protection. What help he had been able to offer them in other situations, the 
source do not mention, but it appears that the enslaved did not consider seeking 
out the sheriff in Cruz Bay at this time, which resulted in the absence of 47 
capable workers for an extended period of time.  
                                                          
89 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 33.  
90 Jens Vibæk: “Dansk Vestindien 1755-1848 – Vestindiens Storhedstid”. Vol.2. In: Vore gamle 
tropekolonier. Johannes Brønsted (ed.) Fremad, Denmark, 1966. p. 236-238. 
91 Vibæk, Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p. 300-313. 
92 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller, 1818, p.10. 
44 
 
      Cases like the above and a declining enslaved population on St. John after 
1808 led to regulations of the enslaved people’s right, of which there had existed 
very few previously. In 1817 the right of allowances provided by their owner was 
established, though this was not enforced on St. John until 1821. In 1830 
enslaved were allowed to function as reliable witness in court, if they were 
baptized, which was another acknowledgment of the enslaved people’s rights to 
be considered human beings and to speak out for themselves.93 This new 
practice reveals itself in the police court records, where the enslaved persons 
giving evidence all mentioned which church he or she belonged to, as well as 
asserting if he or she was baptized; a formality clarifying whether the witness was 
to be considered reliable or not in giving evidence in the case.  
      The issue of religion and baptism had some interesting aspects. It was not 
solely a matter of extending a religious belief to the enslaved workers, but rather 
yet another way to extend the control and exploitation of this population group. 
Before the law from 1830 allowed the baptized enslaved to give evidence in 
court no enslaved person’s testimony had been considered evidence and the 
enslaved themselves had not been allowed to bring charges before the court.94  
      Another matter involving religion was the free time granted the enslaved. 
From the beginning of the colonization of St. John the enslaved were allowed a 
day off on Sundays, even though very few of them were Christianized at the 
time. The reason for this was that the white population was not allowed to work 
that day given their religious belief and practices. With no white person to 
supervise and control the enslaved workforce, there could not be done any work 
on Sundays anyway. The enslaved were expected to work their provision 
grounds during this time off, so the day was not freely to their exposal, as they 
relied mostly on their own efforts to provide food for themselves.95   
     Later, missionaries were allowed to preach on some plantations, if the owner 
allowed this. When more of the enslaved population converted to Christianity 
and were baptized the enslaved house servants were allowed to attend church, 
but not the entire enslaved population, as there was a fear of large groups of 
enslaved gathering in one place. 96 
                                                          
93 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 30. 
94 Hall, Annales of the New York Acadamy of Science, 1977. p. 178. 
95 Vibæk, Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p. 144.  
96 Vibæk, Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p. 148. 
45 
 
     When it became more common for all the enslaved to be allowed to attend 
church on Sundays, it likely had to do with the effect the white population 
perceived this had on the enslaved. To belong to a congregation offered 
fellowship, inclusion and consolation to the enslaved, a spiritual and social 
refugee from their hard lives which appeared to have eased tensions that might 
else have led to physically expression of resistance to their enslavement. So 
installing Christian values in the enslaved became another, less obvious, way of 
controlling them.97  
      Even though baptism did not come free of obligations it did give the 
enslaved some benefits. Attending church offered a small measurement of 
personal freedom, as it opened up the possibility of mobility beyond the estate’s 
boundaries. It also meant a chance to interact with enslaved churchgoers from 
neighboring plantations.98  
      In the matter of the marooning group of enslaved from Annaberg and 
Leinster Bay Estate in 1840, the actions of the implicated prior to their escape 
was investigated. The issue of attending church was brought up; as the overseer 
gave evidence that the enslaved workers on the two estates were always allowed 
to attend church on Sundays, but that they had to ask permissions to do so in 
advance. The reason for this was that even though Sunday officially was their 
day off, they still had to cut grass at the plantation for the livestock and had to 
make arrangement with another worker to perform this task while the 
churchgoer attended church. This reveals two things: one, that Sundays were not 
entirely free to dispose of as the enslaved themselves pleased, and two: that 
some attempts to control the enslaved population’s whereabouts on their day off 
were made.99 
     Another example, from 1841, reveals that the estate manager, Mr. Wallace, 
had at some point tried to offer the enslaved at Leinster Bay extra time off as a 
reward: 
“Formerly when the Negroes had a Saturday at times given to them as a 
reward for good labour during the week they were thankful for it and they 
employd such free time with diligent labour in their grounds, now they only find 
fault that they have not got more time allotted to them, and they are more lazy 
                                                          
97 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 25. 
98 Arnold R Highfield: “Patterns of Accommodation and Resistance: The Moravian Witness to 
Slavery in the Danish West lndies.” In: Journal of Caribbean History, Vol. 28 (2), 1994.  p. 147-148.  
99 RA, STSJG, 712:35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller, 1840-05-30, p. 156. 
46 
 
working for themselves than formerly. It is with them as with schoolboys the 
more holydays you give them, the less do they like returning to school.”100 
This reveals that the enslaved at the estate kept on pushing for additional 
freedom, not satisfied with simply being rewarded for hard work, but demanding 
time off as a right.  
    In general ameliorative measures were enforced ad hoc from the 1820s and 
onwards, when it became apparent that the enslaved population was not 
naturally increasing as much as the colonial administration had hoped. These 
measures were taken as a response to social stability, high levels of production 
and a show of commitment from the enslaved workers, not as a means to 
achieve these things. When such conditions existed additional rights to the 
enslaved could be granted, for example the right to purchase freedom, trade, get 
married, own property, witness in court or be allowed greater cultural autonomy 
in religious practices. Most important was laws passed to give the enslaved sense 
of human worth, which in some case also meant punishing whites for 
mistreatment of the enslaved. Also allowing the enslaved greater mobility on and 
outside the estate which they belonged to, meant a chance for the enslaved to 
interact and express their independence.101 
 
The agency of the enslaved  
Sundays were important for other than religious reasons. This was the day were 
the enslaved on the estate had the free time to tend to their provision grounds. 
The amount of acres used for provisions on each estate was listed in the tax 
records for every tax year. This system of cultivating food for use on the estate 
was a common practice in the West Indies, releasing the estate owner from 
buying food to feed his enslaved workers. The practice on St. John, though, was 
rather more extensive than on other islands, as the island was more undulated 
than for example St. Croix, and a rather small part of the island’s total areal was 
suitable for sugarcane production. As the steepest and rockiest ground could not 
                                                          
100 RA, STSJG, 712:35.3.2. St. Jan Landfoged. Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til 
Guvernementet/præsidentskab på St. Thomas, 1841-07-05. 
101 Franklin W. Knight (ed.), General History of the Caribbean. Volume 3. The slave societies of the 
Caribbean, Unesco Publishing, London, 1997. p.210. 
47 
 
be cultivated intensively for sugar, much of this ground was left for the enslaved 
population to produce their own subsistence in foodstuff. 102  
      This had been the practice from the very start of the island’s colonization. 
Being self-sufficient was a necessity as few ships arrived with food supplies. The 
enslaved were to provide for themselves by tending these provision grounds and 
were only sometimes given allowances of food by their owners, usually salted 
meat or fish, in time of need caused by draught or hurricanes.103 Until 1821, 
when the law of allowances for the enslaved were invoked on St. John, the 
planters and overseers in general were left to decide for themselves what and 
how much they allotted the enslaved and when.104  
     Enslaved on big estates had more land available than enslaved on small 
estates, and were therefore relatively better off with the system of managing 
their own provisions. They would have had the perimeter of the estate ground 
for this purpose, the land deemed unusable for sugar production and situated in 
remote areas. This meant less supervision and control and often enslaved from 
the neighbor estate would also have provision grounds in the same area, at the 
perimeter of their estate, which meant the opportunity for social interaction 
without the knowledge and interference of the overseer.105  
     The extensive system of provision grounds practiced on St. John seem to 
have led to a larger extend of autonomy and free time among the enslaved 
population then on the other islands. During his visit to the island in 1767-1768, 
the Moravian missionary Oldendorp noted of this practice that:  
“The Negro enjoys on his own plantation a form of freedom: He works as he 
pleases; and he owns everything that he acquires from it, this is quite 
encouraging and leads to greater industriousness.”106  
As Oldendorp observes, the enslaved owned everything he produced from the 
provision grounds, which gave the enslaved the chance of making a surplus that 
could be bartered or sold, adding another small measure of independence from 
the estate owner to his or her life.107 
                                                          
102 Olwig, Cultural Adaption,  1985. p. 53-54. 
103 Westergaard, Danish West Indies, 1917. p. 158. 
104 Hall,  Annales of the New York Acadamy of Science, 1977. p. 176-177. 
105 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 45-52. 
106 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 44. 
107 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p.52-53.  
48 
 
      When the ordinance of allowance became practice on St. John in 1821 it was 
to ensure that the enslaved had enough food to keep them in good health and 
help the population growth. However, not all planters were interested in 
following the ordinance because of the added expense. This seems also to have 
been the case at the Leinster Bay and Annaberg Estates, where several of the 
enslaved in 1835 brought their complaints before the court in Cruz Bay over 
their overseers Mr. Smith and Mr. Edwards, who supposedly were keeping some 
of the enslaved people’s allowances from them. The enslaved woman Venus had 
gone as far as calling the overseers “damn thieves – Robbers – damn blood of whores”108 
when she suspected them of not giving the enslaved their full allowances. The 
judge did not find the complaints valid, but he did not punish any of the 
implicated either. Instead he made a note to the owner of the two estates, H.H. 
Berg, that there had been a great deal of cases involving his enslaved and 
overseers and that the management of the estates should be taken up to 
evaluation.109         
 
Reasons for enduring enslavement 
In all colonies control of the enslaved population strengthened or lessened in 
response to economic development and demographic development, which 
shaped the owners attitudes towards the enslaved. The more creolized a society 
became, the more difficulties the white owners experienced in controlling the 
enslaved, which in many cases forced compromises between the two population 
groups in order to ensure stability. Reforms therefore became a way to prolong 
the institution of slavery, because they also appeased the critics of slavery.110  
     Creolization, on the other hand, also meant that the enslaved developed a 
sense of belonging to the place where they lived. After the slave trade ended, the 
influx of Africans stopped, and the ties to African families, culture and tradition 
lessened. Family relations among the enslaved on Leinster Bay expanded, with 
many marriages with the enslaved on Annaberg Estate. Most of the enslaved 
inhabitants at Leinster Bay in 1841 were born on St. John, likely on the estate 
itself, as can be seen in the table below. 111  
                                                          
108 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller, 1835-01-29, p.46.  
109 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller, 1835-01-29, p.47.   
110 Knight (ed.), General History of the Caribbean.  1997. p.213. 
111 RA, RK, 6. Tabelkommissionen. Folketælling, 1841.   
49 
 
 
 
 
Therefore attachment to their home, provision land and kin were all factors that 
prevented many enslaved on the estate from escaping to Tortola, as fleeing 
would have meant giving up all of these things, with only the promise of 
freedom in return. Many of the enslaved who did flee were men, who had no 
families of their own.112 Most women over the age of 20 in the population count 
from 1841 had between one and 6 children, some of them grown and likely to 
have had children of their own, which would have given them close family ties 
on the estate, and therefore reason to stay.113 
       One of the enslaved women who did escape in 1840 did so at a high price 
to the family member she left behind. Her mother, Marotte about 70 years of 
age, who lived at Annaberg Estate, was left with no children to take care of her 
in her old age. The escaping daughter, Ketura, chose to escape with her husband 
Charles.114  
     The enslaved Benjamin, from Leinster Bay Estate, chose to stand up for 
himself and his rights to be treated with dignity, rather than to attempt escape. 
His case was from 1834, before the British emancipation, so escaping to Tortola 
would not have been a likely alternative at the time, but neither did Benjamin 
chose to simply run of the estate and hide, when his disobedience brought 
trouble down on him. He was brought before the court because he had refused 
to obey the Leinster Bay overseer Sutherland’s orders when working in the sugar 
                                                          
112 Olwig, Cultural Adaption,1985. p. 79-80.  
113 RA, RK, 6. Tabelkommissionen. Folketælling, 1841.   
114 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.155. 
0 
10 
20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
St. John 
St. Thomas 
St. Croix 
Tortola 
St. Barts 
Africa 
St. Nevis 
Place of origin in percentage for the enslaved 
population at Leinster Bay, 1841 
50 
 
field. Sutherland dealt him a couple of strokes with a small whip for this, to 
which Benjamin responded by raising the cutlass in his hand in a threatening 
manner, saying: “that he (Sutherland) should keep in mind, that he was not on Mr. Hill’s 
plantation – where he beat the Negroes like this even though they did their work.”115 
Benjamin also claimed that he would sacrifice his life to defend his rights and 
that: “he would not keep his mouth for any blanc or black.” 116 His resistance caused 
another enslaved worker, Georg, to side with him. They were both sentenced to 
be whipped between 40 and 50 lashes and to spend 14 nights in prison.117 This 
rather severe sentence shows that punishment was still the authorities’ and 
overseers’ ultimate response to try and control the enslaved population.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                          
115 , STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1834-05-22, p. 43. 
116 , STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1834-05-22, p. 43. 
117 , STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1834-05-22, p.44. 
51 
 
Marronage 
In this chapter the marronage of Leinster Bay Estate will be described together 
with how the ordinances anno 1841 were perceived at Leinster Bay Estate 
regarding their purpose to prevent marronage and improve the enslaved’s living 
conditions.  
There are two accounts of marronage involving the Leinster Bay Estate’s 
enslaved population, these were: the early in 1818 where 47 enslaved people ran 
away and the later incident in 1840 where 11 enslaved people committed 
marronage. These two cases had different characteristics. In the one from 1818, 
the enslaved people stayed in the bush and therefore on the island and later 
resumed their work. In the case of 1840 the enslaved people fled the island to 
Tortola, and never came back, regardless of how much the police force tried.118 
As showed below in the cases, they not only had different characteristics and 
different outcomes, but the two cases were also examples of petit marronage 
and grand marronage.  This kind of bipartition was a common trait of the 
marronage in general and on St. John. The main difference was, as shown in the 
two cases of Leinster Bay Estate, the act of escaping the island, and therefore 
escaping enslavement.  
In the 1818 case a reason for the marronage was stated; the enslaved ran 
because of the threat of excessive punishment for a minor violation, after seeing 
a fellow unfree receiving a beating:  
“The prisoner denied that the gang had any prior plan of escaping. He claims 
that the threats of the overseer led them to do so. This was on the night that 
Peter Sailor were beaten with a […]. Allegedly, the overseer stated that any 
complaints over Peter`s treatment would result in a beating.”119  
As showed in the case the enslaved ran, but stated that they had no intention of 
doing so beforehand. 47 people were a lot to just spontaneously run away, which 
implies that they might have coordinated the marronage beforehand. By using 
the spontaneous explanation they could avoid a harder punishment, as it would 
have been seen as a revolt if it were planned. In this case the marronage was 
used as a protective action, but also as a means to confront the issue about their 
conditions as will be shown later. This reason was common and were one of the 
                                                          
118 The characteristics and cases will be discussed further down.  
119 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p. 10½.   
52 
 
many reasons for marronage, the enslaved were in general motivated by: harsh 
and excessive mistreatment of the enslaved, lack of food, exaggerated work 
hours and poor living condition and the sheer exploitation of the enslaved. In 
examples of successful grand marronage, the reasons are sometimes more 
elusive, as will be shown in the 1840 case. 
As earlier stated the emancipation and the cease of apprenticeship on the 
British islands in 1838 brought a new opportunity for the enslaved population of 
St. John, Tortola began to represent a safe haven free from enslavement. This 
gave the enslaved people a reason to run away from the island, instead of hiding 
and hoping for an improvement of their conditions. It is important to note, that 
grand marronage also occurred before 1838, but it was in a much lesser degree.  
The government was well aware of the marooning towards Tortola, and 
sought to dam up the trend, by constructing guardhouses and exercising naval 
control. At the Leinster Bay guardhouse the crew was divided into two shifts, 
one for the land and one for the sea. The procedures for both shifts were 
described on equal terms, which give the impression that both shifts were 
equally important. 120 This aligns with the idea of naval control, which had more 
than one format. The bigger format was the use of frigates and the other was the 
use of smaller boats appertaining to the guardhouses.121 For the Leinster Bay 
guardhouse the latter was the case. The Leinster Bay guardhouse was not only a 
guardhouse, but also a center of the naval control and played a role in hindering 
the grand marronage.  
Another mean to keep the enslaved from committing marronage was the 
use of codes and regulative, especially the 1834 ordinance, but also the granting 
of property rights in 1840, both were done by Peter von Scholten. The 
underlying reasons for the codes and regulative, and whether they worked or 
not, becomes clearer if the material on Leinster Bay Estate is considered. The 
following is from a response from the overseer of Leinster Bay Estate in 1841 to 
an open letter addressed to the owners and overseers after a new regulation was 
implemented, it is important to note that this statement represent the overseer’s 
own opinion:   
“I own it to conscience and truth to say that the new regulatory, giving the 
negroes half a day in the week, and a five stivers, has not benne attended with 
                                                          
120 RA, STSJG, 35.27.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Journal for St. Jans Politivagt, 1844-12-13 p. 3-4. 
121 Hall, Slave society, 1994, p. 135. 
53 
 
any good effect, on the contrary, they are more unwilling to work than formerly, 
and they are not less inclined to desert to Tortola than formerly, if the guard 
placed to prevent desertion did not awe them.”122 
As stated in the quote, the new privileges given to the enslaved had not 
prevented marronage towards Tortola, and made them more lazy and “unwilling 
to work”. It is not stated if the guard was privately contracted or if it was a guard 
from the nearby guardhouse. The overseer did not state any of the other reasons 
for the bettering of their conditions, such as higher birth rate.123 He only focused 
on whether or not it worked on marronage and how big the burdens were on 
the estate with the new ordinances. These ordinances were, among others, used 
with the incentive of appeasement of the enslaved so they would not commit 
marronage.124 Whether the ordinances worked as intended on large scale is 
uncertain, but the opinion at the Leinster Bay Estate was that they did not 
appease the enslaved in a way that kept them from marronage and more orderly 
behavior in general.  
In the 1840s just above 100 known persons fled the island and in the same 
period the garrison at Leinster Bay guardhouse held a small amount of soldiers. 
Which in 1844 only consisted of 10 persons, in spring 1845 14 and later in 1845 
of 17.125 This can be attributed to the government who, for some part did not 
recognize marronage as an overwhelming danger. The people, who advocated 
for this belief, stated that the enslaved people’s ties to the land were they grew 
up, was too strong to abandon. 126 Furthermore, it is stated that it also was a 
matter of family ties. 127 Regardless of these beliefs the known amount that fled 
during the 1840s was just above 100 persons; this relatively low number can be 
attributed to either the kinship ties, the ties to the land, the presence of police 
force, or to all of them.   
 
                                                          
122 RA, STSJG, 25.3.2, St. Jans Landfoged, Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til 
Guvernementet/præsidentskab på st. Thomas, 1841-07-05.Original in English. 
123 Olwig, Cultural adaption, 1985, p. 33. 
124 H. Lawaetz,  Peter v. Scholten, Gyldendal, 1940, p. 149-150. 
125 RA, STSJG, 35.27.1, ST. Jans Landfoged, Journal for St. Jans politivagt, 1844-12-13, and Morton, 
Sketchbook, 1975, p. 168. 
126 Olwig, Cultural adaption, 1985, p. 41. 
127 Olwig, Cultural adaption, 1985, p. 79. 
54 
 
Cases of marronage at the Leinster Bay Estate  
The two cases from 1818 and 1840 have, as previously stated different 
characteristics; not only are they different, as they deal with different types of 
marronage, but because of the interviewing process as well. The 1818 case 
contains interrogations of the suspected instigators and interviews of persons 
that witnessed the attempt, whereas the 1840 case do not have any maroons to 
interview.  The aim of this chapter will be to describe the two cases of 
marronage that involved the enslaved inhabitant of Leinster Bay Estate and put 
them in context.  
 
The 1818 case 
On the 22 of September 1818, the investigation began, concerning a marronage 
attempt on the 16 of July that same year. It began with interviewing the free 
deponents and proceeded with the interrogation of the alleged instigators and 
two unfree deponents. The instigators consisted of 12 persons partly of the 47 
that ran away as well as two others. One who was visiting from another estate 
and another who claimed to not participate.128 The incident occurred when the 
overseer (Peter Brady) mistreated an enslaved named Peter Sailor, and the gang 
complained about it.129 This complaint was returned with the threat of whipping 
the next day. This scared the enslaved and they decided that they had had 
enough of the overseer’s behavior, and needed to do something about it. It 
resulted in them running away and attempted to get another overseer to help 
them. They did not reach that person, and so they stayed on a hill and defended 
themselves with weapons (work instruments) and stone throwing. They later 
resumed their work, but fled again and were apprehended and imprisoned. The 
case deals with several subjects: why the 47 committed marronage, the 
recognition from the police of the value of the slaves, whether the enslaved were 
mistreated or not at the estate. 
The reader should be aware that when dealing with these types of 
testaments that there exists an underlying intention, which often makes the 
validation of it difficult, as it may not be consistent with the truth. This can be 
seen in this case with the 47 runaways. In the following interviews two maroons 
                                                          
128 See appendix 6 for a list of the arrestees and witnesses.  
129 The main workforce. 
55 
 
testified that they ran without a reason but only did it since others did it. This 
can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid speaking poorly about the overseer 
and the estate in an effort to avoid punishment. Taking this into account one 
might question the validity of their accounts since they would try to state no 
reason at all. By this logic one could state that all of the statements might be 
from false witness, but as 47 individuals were involved in the marronage it is 
plausible to assume that they had had a reason to which they could all concur. 
Whether this was to make trouble, an attempt for bettering of their conditions, 
as a protective matter or a bit of them all should not be assessed in this report. 
The key point that should be discussed is how their accounts correlate with each 
other, and what the focus were of the investigation.     
This case is an example of petite marronage, which is defined by the 
intention behind the running away. None of the free deponents stated any 
reasons as to why the enslaved choose to run, except for the overseer, whose 
only explanation of the event was that the unfree were evil and that he had not 
overstepped his authority. This means that the only testament to this came from 
the interrogation of the unfree instigators and the interview of two unfree 
deponents. Eight of the 12 and the 2 unfree witnesses stated that they did so, 
because they feared the overseer and his punishments, and felt mistreated. Two 
stated that they did not participate in the marronage, and therefore could not 
know anything, and the last two stated that they did so because the gang did it. 
This quote is from the questioning of the first of alleged instigators and one of 
the 8, John Oslev: 
” The overseer’s treatment of the Negroes were severe and they were often 
beaten. Thus, they feared mistreatment and that is the reason they left. This 
took place at the night of Peter’s punishment when they voiced concern over his 
treatment and were threatened with cart whipping on the following day.”130 
John Oslev stated that they all feared the overseer and his punishments. 
Furthermore, they felt that he misused his position and enforced to harsh 
beatings for minor offenses. Oslev further stated: 
                                                          
130 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p.8.  
56 
 
“The entire group was threatened and they decided to elope in that moment. 
They did so hoping to avoid punishment and to await an opportunity to 
complain about the overseer.”131 
By submitting a complaint about the overseer they were hoping for an 
improvement of their conditions. This means that the purpose of marronage in 
this case was to avoid excessive mistreatment during punishment, a bettering of 
their conditions and an attempt at creating awareness of their mistreatment; 
which aligns with this being a case of petite marronage.  
Regarding the complaints about mistreatment, the police acknowledged it 
by re-interviewing the overseer about his treatment of the enslaved at the estate, 
despite already having testified to not having mistreated the enslaved:  
“Peter Brady took the stand once more and explained that no Negro on the 
plantation were mistreated or punished to the extent of his knowledge.”132  
As is shown, Brady either knew nothing about the mistreatment, he did not 
think it was mistreatment or he did not admit that his treatment was excessive. 
Furthermore, every deponent and prisoner was asked about the treatment of the 
enslaved at the estate. Indeed the police actually took the statement of the 
enslaved seriously, and interviewed the deponents again, with the intent of 
clarifying if it was a case of mistreatment. Although the unfree had no legally 
rights.  
The treatment of the enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate played a central role 
during the entire investigation, as it was a topic in all the interviews and 
interrogations of the persons who could have had any knowledge of such. As 
earlier stated were 8 of the arrestees unanimous about the mistreatment, but 
when asked if they had received a beating at any time, they could not recall any 
such. John Oslev stated the following on the question:   
“The detained had not been beaten or cart whipped. However, several […] 
were, but never to such a degree where they could not work or became ill.” 133  
This answer was common amongst the alleged instigators and except for one 
occasion where there was used as an example of a severe beating when asked. 
Regarding the deponents, the advocates for no mistreatment were the overseer, 
the second in command at the estate, Felix Dagherty from the local military in 
                                                          
131 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p. 8 ½. 
132 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p. 7 ½.   
133 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p. 9 ½.  
57 
 
the area, and overseer Joseph Speakman from Abrahamsfancy, the other 
witnesses could not make a judgement. The one unfree deponent stated the 
same as the prisoners. Felix Dagherty, a sergeant in the military specified the 
following:“There is nothing stated besides that overseer Brady acts in a fine manner towards 
the Negroes of Linsterbay and treats them well.”134 This statement resembles the one 
Speakman gave, which means that they concurred on the matter, and it also 
bears a resemblance to the statements given from the two overseers at Leinster 
Bay, except that Dagherty and Speakman had based their knowledge on hearsay. 
This implies that the only persons, who had seen the overseer’s treatment, were 
the enslaved and the assistant overseer at the estate. The focus on the matter of 
mistreatment or no mistreatment leaves the impression that the police wanted to 
determine if the enslaved had any justification for marronage or if it was just a 
pretext for not working. Regardless of which were the case, the overseer would 
not have been punished, because the enslaved’s testimony would not have 
carried any weight before 1830.135  
In the matter of the accusation of mistreatment, the investigation refers to 
two incidents that could shed light on the matter. The first incident was the one 
that lead the gang to marronage; the one about Peter Sailor, the other was about 
an unfree named Zuomina who were punished. In both cases the witnesses and 
the arrestees had different opinions on what happened and how many strokes 
the enslaved received.  
In the case of Peter the events that must be established were the number 
of beatings he received and if it could be classified as mistreatment. The only 
deponents that were present from beginning until the end were Brady and 
Hacket, the two overseers, and two unfree. The overseers stated that Hacket 
administered a beating to Peter sailor consisting of 20 strokes after his offence, 
after which Peter said an insult to Brady. Brady ordered the arrest of Peter, and 
Peter ran for the beach and tried to escape into the water. After Peter’s 
apprehension, he received 35 whiplashes the following day. They did not state 
any other beatings and were not detailed about what happened after Peter’s 
apprehension. Of the unfree witnesses the one stated further beatings. After the 
apprehension Peter Stiller told the following: “The overseer started beating him [Peter] 
                                                          
134 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, p. 5 ½. 
135 Olwig, Cultural Adaption, 1985. p. 30. 
58 
 
in his head with a […], but also in his neck with the butt of the pistol”136 This aligns with 
John Oslev’s statement about what happened after Peter’s apprehension. Peter 
Stiller and John Oslev was the only ones present at the arrest, which meant that 
the police could not regard their statements with as much weight as they were 
unfree. The police did not interview the overseers again on the matter of Peter, 
but at the time of the investigation Peter was ill and therefore could not be 
interviewed. The information in the journal states that he had hernia, but not if 
it were related to his beating in any way. The overseers testament to the event, 
consisted of two well-considered beatings, were the testament from the unfree 
shows a more loosely use of beatings, which were the case the police did not 
arbitrate. 
Regarding the beating of the second person, there were two persons who 
mentioned him in their interviews. Those were overseer Brady and John Dam. 
John Dam played a central role in making the 47 come back, and in his interview 
he told the following about Zuomina:  
“When he arrived Saturday, the marooned Negroes made him aware that 
bomba Zuomina had been cartwhipped and because of that, he wore no pants. 
However when Zuomina were examined he had no wounds.”137 
The important thing about this quote is the time frame and in which state John 
Dam finds Zuomina. The Saturday in mention was the day before the 
apprehension of the 12 instigators. Therefore, the beating might have taken 
place as early as the day after the incident with Peter Sailor, which means the 17 
of July. That leaves a month for the wounds to heal, before John Dam sees them 
on the Saturday before the beginning of the interviews the 22 of September. 
Furthermore, John Dam noted that the enslaved at the estate felt mistreated. 
Brady states about this incident that Zuomina received a beating, but not severe 
enough that his work ability was impaired. Again it was a matter of word against 
word, and the police did not proceed with any further investigation on the 
matter of Zuomina. These two cases showed that the enslaved felt mistreated, 
because they reacted on their treatment and felt the urge to tell someone higher 
ranking than their overseers. It also showed that the police followed up on the 
accusations of mistreatment, but could not proceed because of lack of free 
witnesses that supported the unfree’s accounts.  
                                                          
136 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, P. 15 ½.  
137 RA, STSJG, 35.17.1, St. Jans Landfoged, Politiretsprotokoller, P 6 ½.  
59 
 
Only 11 of the 47 people who did the marronage were accused as 
instigators. This was common practice in cases that involved a fair amount of 
the enslaved inhabitants of an estate or area.138 It was done with the intent of 
avoid punishing too many people, that possible could lead to another marronage 
or even worse an uprising, and to avoid punishing important workforce. As in 
this case where one of the 47 was a blacksmith, and even though he admitted to 
have forged an iron spike, for a work instrument, he used as a weapon during 
the marronage, he avoided punishment. The singling out of the instigators was 
in this case the job of the overseer Brady, this way he could choose the ones he 
thought were the instigators or least significant and omit the ones important for 
the estate such as the smith. 
The case of 1818 was complex; involving 2 incidents of what the enslaved 
involved said were mistreatment and the case itself about marronage. Whether 
or not the enslaved of Leinster Bay Estate were mistreated in 1818 by Danish 
West Indian standards is uncertain, because no testament to the impact of 
Peter’s beating were recorded, and the one from Zuomina had no greater 
consequence, as he was able to work. Most of the alleged instigators testified to 
not have received any beating during their life at the estate. What was certain 
was the discontent of the enslaved, which lead to the case of petite marronage of 
47 people.  
   
The 1840 case 
- 
The case of the 11 escaped enslaved from the Leinster Bay and 
Annaberg estates in May, 1840.139 
The night between Saturday 23 and Sunday 24, 11 enslaved from Annaberg and 
Leinster Bay Estate managed successfully to escape from St. John to Tortola. 
They used a small barge, without drawing any attention to their plans prior to 
the escape or during the act itself.  
     The case was of great importance, not only because the 11 enslaved managed 
to escape and gain their freedom, but also because it was the first major escape 
from St. John to Tortola involving a large group of people, following the British 
emancipation,. Several enslaved had escaped to Tortola individually since the 
                                                          
138 Olwig, Cultural Apadtion, 1985, p. 35. 
139 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.154-156.  
 
60 
 
British end of apprenticeship in 1838, but the number of people involved in this 
case was alarming to the local administration as well as the overseers of Leinster 
Bay and Annaberg Estate. As were the seeming lack of motive behind the 
escape, when the case was investigated, because this seemed to indicate that 
despite the recent years of reforms bettering the living conditions of the 
enslaved, they still desired freedom.  
     The police court record do not reveal the names of all the 11 escapees, nor 
which of the two estate they belonged to, but from the different testimonies and 
accounts the identities of some of them can be established. From the Leinster 
Bay Estate, the married couple Charles and Ketura escaped. Both lived at 
Leinster Bay, though she belonged to and worked at Annaberg, while he was a 
carpenter at Leinster Bay. They left behind his mother, the midwife Cathrine, 
and his uncle Renard, as well as her mother Marotte, belonging to the Annaberg 
Estate. David, who belonged to the Leinster Bay Estate, and who was a 
watchman at Leinster Bay the night in question, escaped too. The records reveal 
the names of three other of the escaped, but do not provide information of 
which estate they belonged to. Adam alias Cato, whose work or position was not 
mentioned, James, who was the head cow driver, and Abraham, who was serving 
at the assistant overseer Simmelkjær’s household. The record does not mention 
the age of any of the escaped, but given their various work duties, revealed by 
the testimonies, it is reasonable to assume that they were younger people, in 
physically good health and capable of hard work.  
      The accounts of the matter began, when the local police chief, acting also as 
judge, was called out to the Leinster Bay Estate on Monday, the 25th, to 
investigate the matter. Before doing so, he had implored a local missionary, Mr. 
Smithy, who was familiar with the enslaved at the estate, to travel to Tortola to 
attempt to persuade the escaped to return to St. John. Mr. Smithy agreed to do 
so, but asked to be given a full, signed pardon to take along to show the escaped. 
The police chief agreed that this would better the chances of Mr. Smithy’s 
mission to succeed and obtained the pardon for him.140   
      What appears to have been the main concern, from the accounts of the case, 
was to establish why the enslaved had chosen to escape, what reasons they had 
to do so and if anyone had known of their plans beforehand. Since all 11 had 
                                                          
140 RA, STSJG, 35.23.2. St. Jan Landfoged. Politijournaler, 1840-05-25, p.133. 
 
61 
 
managed to escape successfully, there was no one to punish for the crime. 
However, one person was placed under arrest at Leinster Bay, under suspicion 
of having either aided the escapees or neglected to catch them in the act, as he 
was on sentry duty that night. The man, George, explained that he had been on 
watch duty at the gate to the estate, and that an enslaved called David, one of 
runaways, had been on watch duty elsewhere. George claimed not to have seen 
or heard anything suspicious during the night, which he had spent most of 
asleep in the smithy.  
     The escape happened somewhere after 9 o’clock at night, when all was dark, 
which can be established given the testimony of the enslaved woman Cathrine. 
She was the mother of the escaped Charles, and she had last seen him that very 
Saturday night, when she passed his house at Leinster Bay somewhere between 8 
and 9 o’clock in the evening. He was at home then, and greeted her as she went 
by on her way to Annaberg Estate, where she was to carry out her duty as a 
midwife. She had not heard him speak of any discontentment prior to his 
escape, nor of the plan to run away.  
     That Cathrine spoke the truth about seeing Charles on Saturday night 
sometimes after 8 o’clock was confirmed by the overseer’s testimony. He, 
Thomas Davis, explained that he had left the house of the estate manager at 
Leinster Bay, Mr. Wallace, at about 8 o’clock that evening and found everything 
in good order as he made his way home to Annaberg.         
     The fact that the escape was carried out between Saturday and Sunday night, 
with one of the escapees on sentry duty, was important for three reasons: first, 
as the enslaved were given time of Saturday and Sunday, not much control 
would have been taken with their whereabouts, and no one would have missed 
them early Sunday morning, as they were not to partake in any work on the 
estate. Secondly, they managed to escape from the estate unnoticed because one 
of their own was on sentry duty, preventing their movements to be reported. 
Thirdly, this last precaution shows that they had planned the escape well in 
advance, making sure of who was on sentry duty that night. The  general 
consensus among the people called forth to testify was that no one had heard 
anything about the plan to escape before it was carried out, which also reveals 
that this was a well considered plan. 
62 
 
     Another enslaved worker, who had had watch duty on the night in question, 
Johem, gave testimony. He explained that he was sentry aboard the slope Kitty 
Berg, belonging to the estate. During his sentry duty he stayed at the house by 
the strait where the vessel was tied up. He had spent the night out there between 
Saturday and Sunday, but he had not seen anything regarding the escape. Like 
everyone else, he could not give any reasons for the escapees’ motives. He could 
have been speaking the truth, but his testimony, as well as those of the other 
enslaved, might also have been attempts to obscure what really happened. This 
could partially be done out of loyalty to the escaped, but it is just as likely that all 
the enslaved witnesses denied any knowledge of the escape to avoid blame and 
possible punishment.   
     One of the few witnesses, who spoke of any reasons behind the escape, was 
the mother of the escaped woman Ketura, the 70 year old Marotte. She could 
not give any reasons why her daughter had run away, except that Ketura, 14 days 
before, had been punished by overseer Davis for insubordination. Ketura had 
not, following that incident, revealed to her mother that she intended to escape. 
Marotte explained that she saw very little of her daughter since she had married 
Charles and moved to Leinster Bay. 
     Mr. Thomas Davis testified that he had been overseeing the estates for about 
3 months, and had not amongst the enslaved population experienced any sign of 
discontentment. By his opinion they had little reason to be. Regarding the 11 
escaped, only three had recently been punished for lesser matters; Cato alias 
Adam had been locked up for 24 hours some time ago, because he had let 
another enslaved he was supposed to guard run away. James, who was the head 
cow driver, had been locked up one night for some minor negligence. Ketura 
had been flogged 14 days ago with 4-5 lashes of the rope end and locked up 
because she came too late for work in the mill. Only her case was discussed 
further, as this had happened recently. Davis explained that Ketura’s husband 
Charles sought him out when he learned of his wife’s arrest, imploring Davis to 
release her. Davis claimed that he had at once been willing to do so, asking only 
in return that Charles had words with his wife:  
63 
 
“…explaining the wrongness of her behavior to her, and advice her to behave 
better in the future, as this was not the first time she had been insubordinate 
and he could no longer tolerate such conduct.”141  
Charles had agreed to do so, which led to Ketura’s release the same day. Davis, 
apparently, had wanted to resolve matters peacefully, given neither Ketura nor 
Charles reason to give further complaints. Davis added that he had not had the 
slightest idea of a conspiracy between the enslaved about escaping, or noticed 
any suspicious behavior.  
     The following day, the 26 of May, Mr. Smithy returned from Tortola, without 
any of the escaped. He gave the following account to the police chief: 
“The 11 refugees were sorely embittered at Mr. Wallace and Mr. Davis, and 
had unnanomesly declared, that as long as these two men remained at the 
plantations none of them would return, and they further gave as reason for 
their escape, that that they could not work enough for Mr. Wallace and Mr. 
Davis – that for the smallest matter they were locked up and punished.”142   
From his encounter with the 11 escaped it would seem that the general 
treatment by the overseers were the reason behind the escape, as well as the 
amount of work the enslaved were ordered to do. From all the conflicts in the 
police court records, this seems to have been the problem behind most 
complains and matters of disobedience initiated by the enslaved. As the 
overseers were the people who carried out punishments, gave orders and 
enforced rules in the daily life on the estate, they became the targets for the 
enslaved population’s discontentment. 
     For some reason, though, the judge did not appear to have been content with 
this explanation for the reason behind the escape. The        interrogations were 
continued at the Courthouse in Cruz Bay two days later. In between the judge 
had learned of a free colored woman living on the Leinster Bay Estate, who he 
had called in to witness in the hope that she could bring some enlightenment to 
the case. The reason why the judge was particularly interested in her testimony 
was that she apparently had said something to the missionary Schmity, about 
two of the escaped, which the police chief had found out about. The woman, 
Lydia, claimed that all she had said to Mr. Schmity was that Adam alias Cato had 
already run away once some months ago because he had deemed it safe to do so, 
                                                          
141 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.156. 
142 RA, STSJG, 35.23.2. St. Jan Landfoged. Politijournaler, 1840-05-25, p.134. 
64 
 
and that the enslaved Abraham, who served in under overseer Simmelkjær’s 
household, had been locked up, but released again by Mrs. Wallace request. She 
had never heard that either Mr. Wallace or Mr. Davis had treated any of the 
enslaved harshly or unjust.  
     The judge had by then received a full written account from Mr. Schmity, of 
his encounter on Tortola with the escaped. When the case was resumed in court 
on Saturday, the 30 of May, the police chief brought this up. According to Mr. 
Smithy, he had spoken to Charles and found him to be very agitated and upset 
over the matter of his wife Ketura’s punishment by overseer Davis. Therefore 
the judge called Davis back to witness again, in order to explain the matter of 
Ketura’s punishment more thoroughly, perhaps hoping to find some reason why 
she and her husband had run away. Davis explained that the incident had taken 
place 11 days previously. He had been overseeing the work in the windmill at 
Annaberg. Two enslaved women, Big Helena and Ketura, had not returned to 
work after lunch and he had therefore sent the mill foreman Robert Sheen to 
find them. Robert had found Big Helena and ordered her back to the mill, giving 
her a punch with his tamarind stick on the way. Ketura had turned up by herself 
and had been berated for her lateness by Davis. Ketura then started to complain 
and shout in a very insubordinate manner, that she had not gotten her full 
allowance of lunch. Big Helena had arrived then and sided with Ketura in her 
complaints, throwing a measuring calabash, she had in her hand, at Davis feet. 
When none of them, after numerous of requests to do so, would be quiet and 
resume their work, Davis had felt obliged to send for the robe end and let them 
receive 5-6 lashes each. He had then gone to his house, but had kept hearing the 
women shouting and complaining from the mill, while they worked. This led 
him to order them taken to the arrest.  
    The same night, when Davis had been at Leinster Bay, Ketura’s husband 
Charles had come to ask him to release his wife. Davis had agreed to do so. 
Both women were released the very same night. That was the whole of the 
matter and he had not heard anything further of it neither from the implicated 
nor from others on the plantation. Davis further clamed: 
65 
 
“No one else have had complaints or spoken of discontentment on the two 
plantations, where the Negroes, as he was sure it was known, were better feed, 
dressed and housed than most other places on the island.”143   
The overseer seemed to believe, given this last statement of his, that there was 
no reason why any enslaved at the two estates would want to escape and that 
they were treated as well as any enslaved person could hope for.  
     That the enslaved at the two estates were given their weekly allowances and 
that the other initiatives to better their general living conditions were followed 
does not seem to have been questioned. Rather the strenuous amount of labor 
they were to carry out in return, seem to have caused discontentment, and the 
cases of punishment when they objected to the workload. That no one could 
think of any other specific reason for the escape indicates that there was no 
severe incident behind it. This makes this case very different from the 1818 case, 
where the enslaved had a specific cause for complaints and reject the harsh 
treatment they felt they were exposed to. What seems to be the point of this 
incident, in 1840, was not that the enslaved had reason to escape, but rather that 
they had the opportunity to do so. As the free colored Lydia pointed out, Adam 
alias Cato had already run away once “because he had deemed it safe to do so.”144 Since 
he was able to succeed his second attempt of running away, the consequences of 
his first attempt cannot have been very severe, which may have given him the 
courage to try again. This changed later in the 1840s, likely because of this very 
case, as the Leinster Bay guardhouse was manned with an increasing number of 
soldiers, to prevent further escapes of this sort.  
      For the 11 escaped in this case, though, there appeared to have been very 
little stopping them from running away. The watchmen on the estate, who were 
enslaved workers, seemed to have been put out with the purpose of guarding the 
property rather than the people of the estate, and were apparently also, at the 
time, trusted by the overseers to keep things in good order. The barge, on which 
the 11 escaped, seemed to have been easily attainted. Of that overseer Davis 
remarked to the court that a slope from Tortola, on its way to St. Thomas had 
arrived at Leinster Bay on May the 28. It brought with it “the taken barge”, and on 
the barge “a piece of broken chain with lock, which was poor and aged, along with an old ore 
                                                          
143 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.156.  
144 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.155. 
66 
 
of a kind, which belonged to the plantations.”145 So the barged had apparently been 
very poorly secured and the ore had been stored in it as well, making it very easy 
for those trying to escape to take the vessel.  
      With British emancipation by then a reality, the enslaved at Leinster Bay and 
Annaberg had a safe haven to flee to, where they would be free upon arrival. 
What the judge and the overseer, Davis, do not seem to have realized was, that it 
was the purpose of the escape, that was important, not the reasons behind it. 
The 11 escaped simply wanted to be free, to have control over their own lives 
and to be paid for their work instead of being punished. The one place where 
they could achieve that was Tortola, as Danish emancipation would have seemed 
a very distant maybe even impossible prospect for the enslaved at St. John in 
1840. Charles, being a carpenter, would have had good prospects of finding 
work on Tortola to support himself and his wife. No children were mentioned, 
neither to have escaped with them nor been left behind.  
     Charles and Ketura did, however, leave behind other family members, both 
their mother and an uncle. This seemed to have affected Ketura’s mother 
Marotte the most, as Charles mother would still have had his uncle, who was 
possibly her brother, to support her. The relationship between Ketura and her 
mother appear to have been rather untypical, as Marotte herself admitted “that 
she saw very little of her daughter since she had married Charles and moved to Leinster 
Bay.”146 Furthermore it is worth noticing that Ketura had moved to Leinster Bay 
to live with her husband, he had not moved to live with her at Annaberg. This is 
peculiar, as historical and anthropological studies have shown that it was 
common amongst the enslaved on St. John to have households based on 
matrilateral ties.147 If a married couple were from the same estate the man would 
typically take the woman to live in his house, but if they were from two different 
estates, as was the case with Ketura and Charles, the man would built a house 
for them on her estate and visit her there.148 The couple in question did 
therefore not follow the general pattern, perhaps because Ketura did not have a 
very close relationship with her mother, Marotte. This would certainly explain 
why she was willing to leave her behind, when she escaped to Tortola.  
                                                          
145 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.156. 
146 RA, STSJG, 35.17.3. St. Jan Landfoged. Politiretsprotokoller. 1840-05-25, p.155. 
147 Olwig, Cultural Adaptation, 1985. p.56. 
148 Vibæk, Vore gamle tropekolonier, 1966. p.142. 
67 
 
      Some general things about the living conditions for the enslaved at Leinster 
Bay can be concluded from this case. The treatment of the enslaved in some 
regards had improved on the two estates since 1818, with overseers willing to 
respond to the requests of the enslaved, and who also gave them the allowance 
that the ordinance of 1817 prescribed and who did not punish them excessively. 
In return, they appear to have been forced to work harder than previously, 
which was the only solid reason given by the 11 refugees to Mr. Smithy for their 
escape. The enslaved on the estates were allowed their Sundays off and also 
seem to have been trusted enough to be allowed a certain measure of freedom 
of mobility on and between the estates, along with duties such as night 
watchmen. Last, but not least, that the enslaved seized the opportunity to escape 
when it presented itself, carrying out their plan with a quiet efficiency that 
indicate that they had timed and prepared their escape well. As a magistrate on 
St. Croix had noted almost a century prior to their escape, “the desire for freedom is 
an inseparable part of the human condition” 149 Following this case the local authorities 
apparently came to the same conclusion, as the consequences of the 11 people’s 
escape was a higher level of military presence at the Leinster Bay area, as an 
attempt to forcefully prevent other enslaved from fleeing to Tortola. The 
success of this approach was doubtful, but as no larger group of enslaved from 
the Leinster Bay or Annaberg escaped after 1840, the military presence at the 
guardhouse seems to have had some effect. Its ruins are today a monument to 
the hardship, endurance and efforts of the enslaved at the estate to gain their 
freedom in any way they could.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                          
149 Hall, Slave Society, 1994. p. 137. 
68 
 
Concluding remarks 
When mapping the social and economic context of the Leinster Bay Estate up 
until the beginning of the nineteenth century there is very little information 
about the actual everyday conditions of the enslaved population at the estate. 
Only the numbers from the tax records give a general, quantitative insight into 
the composition of the enslaved at the estate. First with the police court records 
and police journals, a more complex and thorough understanding about the lives 
of the enslaved revealed. 
In the same century, economic incentives impelled the development of 
initiatives to improve the enslaved populations rights and conditions, but the 
enslaved was as much a driving force, pushing for this development. The un-free 
population’s continuously resistance against their enslavement forced both the 
colonial authorities and the management of the Leinster Bay Estate to negotiate 
with them for more tolerable living conditions. The enslaved expressed this 
resistance by using the options that the circumstances gave them. Amongst these 
were petit marronage, which was one of the few options available to them up 
until the 1830s. From that point forward the right to bring their complaints 
before the court, involving the colonial government in the disputes, became an 
opportunity to extract small measures of concessions from their owners.  
When British emancipation became a reality the possibility of escape to 
Tortola caused a case of grand marronage at Leinster Bay. This clearly shows 
that the diplomatic ordinances initiated by Peter von Scholten to make the 
enslaved population endure their enslavement had not been sufficient to keep 
them on the estate. During the 1840s the colonial government sought to prevent 
incidents like this by placing military presence at vulnerable locations. The 
Leinster Bay Estate was one of these locations, due to its proximity to Tortola 
and because of the number of enslaved in the area at and around the estate. The 
Leinster Bay guardhouse was a military outpost with the purpose of hindering 
marronage; the physical evidence of the white authorities’ difficulties 
maintaining the institution of slavery, but at the same time it was also a 
testimony to the enslaved population’s attempts for freedom.  
 
 
 
 
69 
 
Archival sources  
 
Rigsarkivet 
 
(GTK) Generaltoldkammer- og Kommercekollegiet Indiske (ost- og 
vestindiske) Kontor (Chamber of Customs) 
371:429  
        Forestillinger fra komm. ang. negrenes stilling i Vestindien.   
                              1834-1843 
 
 
(RRVR) Reviderede Regnskaber, Vestindiske Regnskaber (Audited 
Accounts, West Indian Accounts) 
571:83.1                 Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1755-1760 
571:83.2                 Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1761-1768 
571:83.3                 Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1769-1785 
571:83.4-83.9         Matrikler for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1786-1796 
751:83.10-83.15      Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1797-1802 
751:83.16  
         Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan 1755-1915, 1803-1813 
571:83.17-83.20 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1814-1816 
571:83.21-83.25 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1817-1821 
571:83.26-83.31 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1822-1827 
571:83.32-83.36 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1828-1832 
571:83.37-83.39 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1833-1835 
571:83.37-83.39 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1836-1838 
571:83.43-83.45 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1839-1841 
571:83.46-83.48 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1842-1844 
571:83.49-83.51 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1845-1847 
571:83.52-83.54 
Matrikel for St. Thomas og St. Jan, 1755-1915, 1848-1850 
 
(RK) Rentekammeret, Danske Afdeling, Tabelkommissionen  
303: 6  
         Folketælling 1841, Vestindien, St. Jan  
 
(STSJG) St. Thomas og St. Jan guvernement mm., St. Jan Landfoged 
(St. Thomas and St. John government, St. John Sheriff) 
712:35.17.2   
Politiretsprotokoller, 1818-1904, 1825-1832 
712:35.23.1          Politijournaler, 1829-1892, 1829-1836 
70 
 
712: 35.17.1           Politiretsprotokoller, 1818-1825, 1818-1825 
712: 35.17.3             Politiretsprotokoller 1818-1904, 1832-1841 
712: 35.27.1             Journal for St. Jans politivagt, 1844-1847. 
712: 35.3.2 
          Kopier af/koncepter til udgående skrivelser til  
                                Guvernementet/præsidentskab på St. Thomas,  1837-1845 
712:35.38.1 
      Registrerings og vurderings protokoller, sessions og       
                                testamenteprotokol  1807-1836 
 
(VGK) Det vestindisk-guineiske kompagni, Bogholderen for Skt. Thomas 
og  Skt. Jan (The West India and Guinea Company, The bookkeeper for  
St. Thomas and St. John)  
 
446:1.29.1               Samlepakke I, 1733-1755, 1733-1745 
446:99                     Direktionen, Breve og dokumenter fra Vestindien. 
                               1674-1754, 1733-1734 
446:516                   Guvernementet for Skt. Thomas og Skt. Jan, 1724- 
                               1740,ordre-,brev- og plakatbøger for St. Thomas og St. Jan 
446:750                   Landslister for St. Jan, 1728-1739, 1728-1733 
446:751-753            Landslister for St. Jan, 1728-1739, 1734-1739 
 
 
Archival sources online 
RA, Kol: Evangel: Skt. Th & Jan, Diverse Menigheder, Kirkebøger, 
https://www4.sa.dk/content/dk/ao-forside/find_kirkeboger?# 
1691-1795 
          Kol: Evangel: Skt. Th & Jan,  Opslag 56 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
71 
 
Literature  
 
Bro-Jørgensen, J.O, “Dansk Vestindien indtil 1755 – kolonisation og 
kompagnistyre.” Vol.1. In: Vore gamle tropekolonier. Johannes Brøndsted (ed.). 
Fremad, Denmark, 1966. 
 
Chapman, William, “Slave villages in the Danish West Indies: Changes of the 
Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Bondmen and Freedmen in the 
Danish West Indies, edited by George Tyson. St. Thomas, USVI: Virgin Islands 
Humanities Council, 124-141, 1996 
 
Franklin W. Knight (ed.), General History of the Caribbean. Volume 3. The slave 
societies of the Caribbean, Unesco Publishing, London, 1997. 
 
Gibney, Eleanor, David Knight, Bruce Schoonover and Robin Swank, St. John: 
Life In Five Quarters, St. John Historical Society, 2010.  
 
Green-Pedersen, Svend E., “Slave demography in the Danish West Indian and 
the Abolition of the Danish slave Trade.”  Eds. David Eltis og James Walvins. 
The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa and the 
Americas. s.231-248. (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.) 
 
Hall, Neville T., “Slave Laws in the Danish Virgin Islands in the Later 
Eighteenth Century”, in: Annales of the New York Acadamy of Science, Vol. 292, 
New York, 1977. 
 
Hall, Neville, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies, edited by B:W. Higman. The 
University of the West Indies Press, 1994. 
 
Highfield, Arnold R., “Patterns of Accommodation and Resistance: The 
Moravian Witness to Slavery in the Danish West lndies.” In: Journal of Caribbean 
History, Vol. 28 (2) , 1994.    
 
Hornby, Ove, Kolonierne i Vestindien, Politikens Forlag, København, 1980. 
 
Knight, David W., Understanding Annaberg. A Brief History of Estate 
Annaberg on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. With A Closer Look at the Annaberg 
Factory Complex and How Sugar Was Made. Little Northside Press, 
2002. 
 
Kay Larsen, Document relating to the early settlement of St. John, Danish West Indies 
1718-1730, V.I.N. Park Library, Cruz Bay, St. John,  1989. 
 
Lawaetz, H, Peter v. Scholten, Gyldendal, 1940. 
 
Morton, Henry, Danish West Indian Sketchbook and Diary 1843-1844, Dansk 
Vestindisk Selskab & St. Croix Landmark Society, 1975, p. 168. 
 
 
72 
 
Olsen, Marie Veisegaard and Agnes Elbæk Wraae: The Brown Bay Area: The 
Plantations and its Inhabitants throughout Approximate 90 Years. Unpublished paper 
(Submitted to the Department of History at Copenhagen University), 2009 
 
Olwig, Karen Fog, Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on St. John: Three Centuries of 
Afro-Caribbean Life. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1985 
 
Petersen, J. E., Slaveoprøret på St. Jan 1733. Speciale, Århus Universitet, 1988.  
 
Tyson, Georg, F., A History of Land Use on St. John 1718-1950 (Preliminary 
Report). Prepared for the Virgin Islands Narional Park Service, 1984. 
 
Vibæk, Jens, “Dansk Vestindien 1755-1848 – Vestindiens Storhedstid”. 
Vol.2. In: Vore gamle tropekolonier. Johannes Brønsted (ed.) Fremad, Denmark, 
1966. 
 
Westergaard, Waldemar: The Danish West Indies under Company Rule 1671-1754. 
New York: Macmillan, 1917. 
 
Wild, Kenneth Jr., A problematic approach to ceramic dating of historic plantations on St. 
John, U.S. Virgin Islands, unpublished thesis (submitted to the Department of 
Anthropology at Florida State University of Arts and Sciences). 1988. 
 
Wild, Kenneth S., Elizabeth A. Horvath, Douglas T. Potter, Andrea C. Repp 
and: 
1987-89 Archeological Investigations Conducted Along the North Shore Road, St. 
John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Tallahassee: National Park Service, Southeast 
Archeological Center, 1991. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
73 
 
Appendix list 
 
Appendix nr. 1:  
Table of the estate owners and estate size from 1728 to 1862 
Year 
Owner 
Size* 
1728 
Mariana Loison, 
married to Pieter Fröhling 
Width 1500feet 
1729-1738 
Pieter Fröhling 
Width 1500feet 
1739- 
Pieter Duurloo 
Width 1500feet 
1740-1754 
No tax records. 
Owner(s) unknown 
Sometime during this period an 
additional plot of land with the width 
of 2150 feet was added to the estate, 
bringing the estates width to 3650 
feet.  
1755-1757 
Jens Rasmussen 
Width 3650feet 
1758-1759 
Jesper Wülf 
Width 3650feet 
1760-1764 
Jens Rasmussen 
Width 3650feet 
1765-1770 
Thomas Smith 
Width 3650feet 
1771-1772 
Joseph Harrigan 
Width 3650feet 
1773 
Thomas Smith 
Width 3650feet 
1774-1781 
Thomas Smith 
An additional small plot of land was 
purchased from the neighbor James 
Hoorn’s widow, 350wide, bringing 
the estate to a total width of 
4000feet. The equivalent of 325 
acres. 
1782-1794 
Thomas Smith’s heirs 
325 acres 
1795-1807 
James Murphy 
325 acres 
1808-1821 
Edward Murphy 
325 acres 
1822-1862 
H.H. Berg 
325 acres 
*The size of the estate was measured by the plot’s width in feet, in the Land 
Lists and Tax Records until 1803. Thereafter the estate size was measured in 
acres. There is no reliable way of converting the early measures of the estate size 
to acres, as the plots at that time were measured on three sides. This was 
possibly due to the shape of the plots, which by no mean would have been 
square, or perhaps because the shore-side length was not measured. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
74 
 
Table of comparison: the enslaved at the Leinster Bay Estate and the total 
enslaved population of St. John, based on data from the land lists and tax 
records.  
 
Year 
Leinster 
Bay 
St. 
John 
total 
Year 
Leinster 
Bay  
St. 
John 
total 
Year 
Leinster 
Bay 
St. 
John 
total 
1728 
9 
no 
data 
1784 
62 
2306 
1816 
184 
2317 
1733 
19 
1087 1785 
82 
2258 1817 
205 
2322 
1739 
No 
enslaved 
listed 
1414 
1786 
85 
2322 
1818 
109 
2402 
1755 
40 
2031 1787 
85 
2293 1819 
168 
2316 
1756 
43 
2041 1788 
86 
2289 1820 
175 
2310 
1757 
33 
1991 1789 
87 
2200 1821 
171 
2273 
1758 
41 
2077 1790 
89 
1994 1822 
177 
2269 
1759 
41 
1983 1791 
94 
1864 1823 
176 
2221 
1760 
29 
1991 1792 
100 
1917 1824 
177 
2237 
1761 
29 
2020 1793 
91 
2004 1825 
181 
2255 
1762 
29 
1969 1794 
92 
2008 1826 
178 
2259 
1763 
29 
1986 1795 
87 
2006 1827 
185 
2207 
1764 
28 
1974 1796 
99 
2109 1828 
179 
2108 
1765 
39 
2024 1797 
110 
2145 1829 
219 
2131 
1766 
40 
2164 1798 
106 
2247 1830 
224 
2021 
1767 
no data 
no 
data 
1799 
187 
2503 
1831 
218 
2063 
1768 
44 
2303 1800 
186 
2430 1832 
173 
1955 
1769 
63 
2215 1801 
160 
2435 1833 
170 
1988 
1770 
71 
2302 1802 
169 
2531 1834 
157 
1921 
1771 
78 
2432 1803 
109 
2430 1835 
180 
1809 
1772 
71 
2431 1804 
181 
2604 1836 
187 
2004 
1773 
70 
2324 1805 
228 
2541 1837 
178 
1973 
1774 
70 
2293 
1806 
no data 
no 
data 
1838 
210 
2007 
1775 
94 
2355 1807 
199 
2598 1839 
188 
2003 
1776 
85 
2398 1808 
216 
2588 1840 
166 
1923 
1777 
107 
2482 1809 
210 
2516 1841 
199 
1999 
1778 
90 
2426 1810 
207 
2420 1842 
169 
1965 
1779 
99 
2497 1811 
200 
2456 1843 
171 
1913 
1780 
102 
2285 1812 
200 
2404 1844 
173 
1779 
1781 
106 
2388 1813 
201 
2402 1845 
165 
1746 
1782 
114 
2371 1814 
185 
2291 1846 
169 
1775 
1783 
110 
2229 1815 
215 
2445 1847 
171 
1703 
 
 
 
75 
 
Appendix nr. 2: List of artifacts found at the Leinster Hill ruins 
 
Accession 
# 
Catalog 
# 
Finding 
Aids, Fld 
Specimen 
# 
Key 
Descript 
Description 
Manufact. 
Date 
Measure-
ments 
Within Site 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57311 
46.0001 
Porcelain 
Chinese Export 
Porcelain 
1600-
1880 
 __4.2g 
Leinster Hill 
Ruin, Surface 
Collection 
(319083.28 
E, 
2031262.16 
N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57312 
47.0001 
Pipe 
Stems 
Pipe Stems 
(5/64 
Diameter) 
1720-
1750 
 __1.9g 
Leinster Hill 
Ruin, Surface 
Collection 
(319074.87 
E, 
2031262.97 
N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57313 
47.0002 
Pipe Stem Pipe Stems 
(6/64 
Diameter) 
1680-
1720 
 __1.2g 
Leinster Hill 
Ruin, Surface 
Collection 
(319074.87 
E, 
2031262.97 
N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57314 
48.0001 
Pipe 
Stems 
Pipe Stems 
(4/64 
Diameter) 
1750-
1800 
 __1.3g 
Leinster Hill 
Ruin, Surface 
Collection 
(319089.48 
E, 
2031266.15 
N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57315 
49.0001 
Pipe Stem Pipe Stem 
(5/64 
Diameter) 
1720-
1750 
 __0.8g 
Surface 
Collection 
(319068.56 
ME, 
2031259.48 
MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57316 
49.0002 
Coarse 
Earthenw
are 
Olive Jar Base 
1490-
1900 
 __226g 
Surface 
Collection 
(319068.56 
ME, 
2031259.48 
MN)  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
76 
 
 
Appendix nr. 3: The factory site of the Leinster Bay Estate   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
77 
 
Appendix nr. 4: Table of artifacts found at the Leinster Bay 
Estate 
 
Accession 
# 
Catalog 
# 
Finding Aids, 
Fld 
Specimen # 
Key Descript 
Description 
Manufa
ct. 
Date 
Measure-
ments 
Within Site 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57188 
10.0001 
Pearlware 
Blue Hand 
Painted 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __13.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318318.37 E, 
2031168.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57189 
10.0002 
Porcelain 
American 
Porcelain 
1769-
Present 
 __2.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318318.37 E, 
2031168.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57190 
11.0001 
Bright Green 
Bottleneck 
Bright Green 
bottleneck 
with tooled 
finish 
1885-
1920 
 __28.5g 
Surface Collection 
(308321.60 E, 
2031166.62 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57191 
11.0002 
Delft 
Plain Delft 
1600-
1802 
 __5.6g 
Surface Collection 
(308321.60 E, 
2031166.62 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57192 
12.0001 
Slipware 
Yellow Lead 
Glazed-
Combed 
1670-
1795 
 __11.1g 
Surface Collection 
(308305.24 E, 
2031171.22 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57193 
13.0001 
Stoneware 
White Salt 
Glazed 
Stoneware 
(Bead and 
Reel Pattern) 
1740-
1770 
 __9g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031166.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57194 
13.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __3.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031166.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57195 
13.0003 
Pipe Stem 
Pipe Stem 
(5/64 
Diameter) 
1720-
1750 
 __0.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031166.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57196 
13.0004 
Pipe Stem 
Pipe Stem 
(4/64 
Diameter) 
1750-
1800 
 __1g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031166.11 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57197 
14.0001 
Porcelain 
Underglazed 
Blue Chinese 
Porcelain 
1660-
1880 
 __2g 
Surface Collection 
(318325.75 E, 
2031165.64 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57198 
15.0001 
Porcelain 
Chinese 
Export 
Porcelain 
(No Design) 
1550-
Present 
 __4.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031162.54 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57199 
15.0002 
Quartz 
Chunk 
Quartz 
Chunk 
  
 __27.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318329.18 E, 
2031162.54 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57200 
16.0001 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __8.9g 
Surface Collection 
(318335.58 E, 
2031159.02 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57201 
17.0001 
Stoneware 
19th 
Century 
Brown Salt 
Glazed Ink 
and Ginger 
Beer 
Stoneware 
1820-
1900 
 __35.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318306.40 ME, 
2031183.23 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57202 
17.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __3.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318306.40 ME, 
2031183.23 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57203 
17.0003 
Mortar with 
Wattle 
Impressions 
Mortar with 
Wattle 
Impressions 
  
 __56.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318306.40 ME, 
2031183.23 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57204 
18.0001 
Creamware 
Creamware 
with Brown 
Decorations 
1762-
1820 
 __1.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318309.15 ME, 
2031189.17 MN)  
78 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57205 
19.0001 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __1.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318312.88 ME, 
2031187.46 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57206 
19.0002 
Pipe Stem 
Pipe Stem 
(4/64 
Diameter) 
1750-
1800 
 __3g 
Surface Collection 
(318312.88 ME, 
2031187.46 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57207 
20.0001 
Stoneware 
White Salt 
Glazed 
Stoneware 
1720-
1820 
 __0.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57208 
20.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __0.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57209 
20.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __0.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57210 
20.0004 
Stoneware 
19th 
Century 
Brown Salt 
Glazed Ink 
and Ginger 
Beer 
Stoneware 
1820-
1900 
 __5.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57211 
20.0005 
Coarse 
Earthenware  
Brown Lead 
Glazed 
Coarse 
Earthenware 
1650-
1900 
 __4.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57212 
20.0006 
Pearlware 
Blue Hand 
Painted 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __4.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57213 
20.0007 
Possible Flint 
Possible Flint 
  
 __10.9g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.90 ME, 
2031189.81 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57214 
21.0001 
Stoneware 
Tankard 
Stoneware, 
Fulham 
Brown Stone 
Tankard with 
Gray Bottom 
1722-
1755 
 __21.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318314.01 ME, 
2031175.97 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57215 
22.0001 
Dark Green 
Bottleneck 
Dark Green 
bottleneck 
with a 
cracked off 
top and 
flattened 
string rim. 
1765-
1785 
 __60.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57216 
22.0002 
Bottle Base 
Free Blown 
Bottle Base 
1700-
1860 
 __164g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57217 
22.0003 
Whiteware 
Plain 
Whiteware 
1815-
Present 
 __27g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57218 
22.0004 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __13.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57219 
22.0005 
Coarse 
Earthenware 
Brown Lead 
Glazed 
Coarse 
Earthenware 
1650-
1900 
 __11g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57220 
22.0006 
Pearlware 
Blue Banded 
Annular 
Pearlware 
1810-
1830 
 __2.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57221 
22.0007 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __2.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57222 
22.0008 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Late Style) 
1830-
1840 
 __0.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.13 ME, 
2031202.86 MN)  
79 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57223 
23.0001 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Late Style) 
1830-
1840 
 __1.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318373.40 E, 
2031198.87 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57224 
23.0002 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __1.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318373.40 E, 
2031198.87 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57225 
24.0001 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __4.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.30 E, 
2031188.13 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57226 
24.0002 
Whiteware 
Light Blue 
Transfer 
Print 
Whiteware 
1830-
1992 
 __0.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.30 E, 
2031188.13 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57227 
25.0001 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __16.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57228 
25.0002 
Creamware 
Mocha 
Creamware 
1795-
1820 
 __2.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57229 
25.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __5.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57230 
25.0004 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __1.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57231 
25.0005 
Pearlware 
Blue Shell 
Edge 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __10.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57232 
25.0006 
Pearlware 
Green Shell 
Edge 
Pearlware 
1800-
1840 
 __1.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57233 
25.0007 
Whiteware 
Light Blue 
Transfer 
Print 
Whiteware 
1830-
1992 
 __10.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57234 
25.0008 
Whiteware 
Banded 
Annular 
Whiteware 
1830-
20th 
Centur
y 
 __0.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57235 
25.0009 
Coarse 
Earthenware 
Coarse 
Earthenware 
(El Morro) 
1550-
1825 
 __15.9g 
Surface Collection 
(318368.47 E, 
2031209.96N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57236 
26.0001 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __23.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57237 
26.0002 
Pearlware 
Blue 
Transfer 
Print 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __7g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57238 
26.0003 
Pearlware 
Flow Blue 
Pearlware 
1820-
1850 
 __0.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57239 
26.0004 
Pearlware 
Blue Hand 
Painted 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __0.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57240 
26.0005 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __2.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57241 
26.0006 
Pipe Stem  
Pipe Stem 
(5/64 
Diameter) 
1720-
1750 
 __1.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57242 
26.0007 
Pipe Stems 
Pipe Stems 
(4/64 
Diameter) 
1750-
1800 
 __5.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
80 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57243 
26.0008 
Whiteware 
Plain 
Whiteware 
1815-
Present 
 __1g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57244 
26.0009 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __6.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57245 
26.0010 
Pearlware 
Finger 
Painted, 
Variegated 
Dipt 
Pearlware  
1790-
1820 
 __5.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318365.56 E, 
2030201.61N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57246 
27.0001 
Pearlware 
Blue Hand 
Painted 
Pearlware  
1783-
1830 
 __3.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57247 
27.0002 
Whiteware 
Sponged/Pla
tterware 
Whiteware  
1830-
1865 
 __0.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57248 
27.0003 
Pearlware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __3.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57249 
27.0004 
Porcelain 
American 
Porcelain 
1769-
Present 
 __4g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57250 
27.0005 
Porcelain 
Chinese 
Export 
Porcelain 
1660-
1880 
 __3.9g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57251 
27.0006 
Pearlware 
Blue Shell 
Edged 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __2.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57252 
27.0007 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __1g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57253 
27.0008 
Pearlware 
Sponged 
Pearlware 
1770-
1830 
 __19.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57254 
27.0009 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __32.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57255 
27.0011 
Pearlware 
Wormy 
Finger 
Painted 
Pearlware 
1790-
1820 
 __1.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318363.72 E, 
2031216.79 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57256 
28.0001 
Green Bottle 
base 
Square Cup 
Mold Base 
1850-
1920 
 __55g 
Surface Collection 
(318369.13 E, 
2031221.16 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57257 
28.0002 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __16g 
Surface Collection 
(318369.13 E, 
2031221.16 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57258 
28.0003 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __2.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318369.13 E, 
2031221.16 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57259 
28.0004 
Pearlware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __6.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318369.13 E, 
2031221.16 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57260 
28.0005 
Pearlware 
Embossed 
Pearlware 
1823-
1835 
 __3.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318369.13 E, 
2031221.16 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57261 
29.0001 
Aqua 
Medicine 
Bottle 
Aqua 
Medicine 
Bottle with 
an Irregular 
Polygon 
Base 
Pre 
1920 
 __22.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318377.19 E, 
2031222.31 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57262 
29.0002 
Pearlware 
Blue 
Transfer 
Print 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __0.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318377.19 E, 
2031222.31 N)  
81 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57263 
29.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __6.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318377.19 E, 
2031222.31 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57264 
30.0001 
Rickett's 
Mold Base 
Rickett's 
Mold Base 
1820-
1920 
 __366g 
Surface Collection 
(318389.19 E, 
2031232.98 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57265 
30.0002 
Porcelain 
Underglazed 
Blue Chinese 
Porcelain 
1660-
1880 
 __2.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318389.19 E, 
2031232.98 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57266 
30.0003 
Pearlware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __1.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318389.19 E, 
2031232.98 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57267 
31.0001 
Pearlware 
Even 
Scalloped 
Impressed 
Bud 
Pearlware 
1813-
1835 
 __48.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318367.99 E, 
2031246.88 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57268 
31.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __6g 
Surface Collection 
(318367.99 E, 
2031246.88 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57269 
31.0003 
Pearlware 
Green Shell 
Edged 
Pearlware 
1800-
1840 
 __10.9g 
Surface Collection 
(318367.99 E, 
2031246.88 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57270 
31.0004 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __11g 
Surface Collection 
(318367.99 E, 
2031246.88 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57271 
32.0001 
Black 
Bottleneck 
Black  Glass 
Bottleneck 
with a Down 
Tooled Lip 
and String 
Rim 
1819-
1840 
 __120g 
Surface Collection 
(318376.20 E, 
2031256.24 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57272 
32.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __2g 
Surface Collection 
(318376.20 E, 
2031256.24 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57273 
32.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __1g 
Surface Collection 
(318376.20 E, 
2031256.24 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57274 
32.0004 
Porcelain 
Chinese 
Export 
Porcelain 
1660-
1880 
 __1.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318376.20 E, 
2031256.24 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57275 
33.0001 
Pearlware 
Polychrome 
Pearlware 
(Early Style) 
1795-
1830 
 __10g 
Surface Collection 
(318399.51 E, 
2031205.30 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57276 
33.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __4.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318399.51 E, 
2031205.30 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57277 
33.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __6g 
Surface Collection 
(318399.51 E, 
2031205.30 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57278 
34.0001 
Pearlware 
Mocha 
Pearlware 
1795-
1840 
 __4.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318407.72 E, 
2031209.96 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57279 
35.0001 
Bottle Base 
Bottle Base 
(Removable 
Type) 
1820-
1920 
 
__119.6g 
Surface Collection 
(318221.26 E, 
2031469.15 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57280 
36.0001 
Bottle Base 
Bottle Base 
(Circular Dip 
Mold) 
1730-
1870 
 __232g 
Surface Collection 
(318198.55 E, 
2031481.92 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57281 
37.0001 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
(Blue Line 
on One) 
1780-
1830 
 __4.7g 
Surface Collection 
(318196.50 E, 
2031483.90 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57282 
37.0002 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __15.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318196.50 E, 
2031483.90 N)  
82 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57283 
38.0001 
Solarized 
Glass Base 
Solarized 
Drinking 
Glass Base 
1880-
1920 
 __90.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318183.23 E, 
2031472.99 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57284 
38.0002 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __13.4g 
Surface Collection 
(318183.23 E, 
2031472.99 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57285 
38.0003 
Pearlware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __0.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318183.23 E, 
2031472.99 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57286 
38.0004 
Shell Bead 
Shell Bead 
  
 __1.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318183.23 E, 
2031472.99 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57287 
39.0001 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __7g 
Surface Collection 
(318179.27 E, 
2031478.80 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57288 
39.0002 
Pearlware 
Blue Hand 
Painted 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __5g 
Surface Collection 
(318179.27 E, 
2031478.80 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57289 
39.0003 
Whiteware 
Green 
Transfer 
Printed 
Whiteware 
1828-
1900 
 __0.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318179.27 E, 
2031478.80 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57290 
40.0001 
Clear 
Tumbler 
Fragment 
Clear 
Tumbler 
Fragment 
(Cut Finger 
or Fringe 
Fluted 
Design) 
1812-
1814 
 __2.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57291 
40.0002 
Porcelain 
Chinese 
Export 
Porcelain 
1660-
1800 
 __2g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57292 
40.0003 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __0.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57293 
40.0004 
Pearlware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Pearlware 
1783-
1830 
 __7.5g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57294 
40.0005 
Pearlware 
Willow 
Pattern 
Pearlware 
1795-
1830 
 __2.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57295 
40.0006 
Pearlware 
Banded 
Annular 
Pearlware 
1785-
1840 
 __2.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318176.43 E, 
2031481.28 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57296 
41.0001 
Cooking Pot 
Fragment 
Metal 
Cooking Pot 
fragment 
with Ear 
Shaped 
Handles 
18th 
Centur
y 
 
__172.2g 
Surface Collection 
(318175.33 E, 
2031474.21 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57297 
41.0002 
Pearlware 
Pearlware 
"WOOD" 
Embossed 
on the 
bottom 
1780-
1830 
 __4.3g 
Surface Collection 
(318175.33 E, 
2031474.21 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57298 
41.0003 
Whiteware 
Blue 
Transfer 
Printed 
Whiteware 
1830-
1865 
 __1.8g 
Surface Collection 
(318175.33 E, 
2031474.21 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57299 
41.0004 
Porcelain 
Plain 
Porcelain 
1550-
Present 
 __1.1g 
Surface Collection 
(318175.33 E, 
2031474.21 N)  
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57300 
42.0001 
Porcelain 
American 
Porcelain 
1769-
Present 
 __0.5g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31196.35 E, 
2031461.53 N) 
83 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57301 
42.0002 
Whiteware 
Plain 
Whiteware 
1815-
Present 
 __0.7g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31196.35 E, 
2031461.53 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57302 
42.0003 
Minton 
Majolica 
Minton 
Majolica 
1851-
1890 
 __9.3g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31196.35 E, 
2031461.53 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57303 
43.0001 
Porcelain 
American 
Porcelain 
1769-
Present 
 __4.4g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57304 
43.0002 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __3.4g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57305 
43.0003 
Pearlware 
Blue Banded 
Annular 
Pearlware 
1810-
1830 
 __1.7g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57306 
43.0004 
Pearlware 
Sponged 
Pearlware 
1770-
1830 
 __3.3g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57307 
43.0005 
Whiteware 
Transfer 
Printed 
Whiteware 
1830-
1865 
 __2.8g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57308 
43.0006 
Creamware 
Banded 
Annular 
Creamware 
1785-
1815 
 __0.9g 
Guardhouse (In 
Front of 
Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(31819.68 E, 
203145.97 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57309 
44.0001 
Pearlware 
Plain 
Pearlware 
1780-
1830 
 __2.8g 
Guardhouse 
(South Side), 
Surface Collection 
(318203.10 E, 
2031449.04 N) 
VIIS-
00337 
VIIS   
57310 
45.0001 
Creamware 
Plain 
Creamware 
1762-
1820 
 __0.3g 
Guardhouse 
(Inside 2nd Room 
Off Casemate), 
Surface Collection 
(318207.82 E, 
2031454.82 N) 
84 
 
Appendix nr. 5: Percentage graph of enslaved at the Leinster 
Bay Estate   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
0 
2 
4 
6 
8 
10 
12 
1755 
1760 
1765 
1770 
1775 
1780 
1785 
1790 
1795 
1800 
1805 
1810 
1815 
1820 
1825 
1830 
1835 
1840 
1845 
Procentage 
Procentage amount of the enslaved 
population at Leinster Bay, of the total on 
the island 
Leinster Bay Estate 
85 
 
Appendix nr. 6: List of arrestees and deponents in the 1818 case 
 
Arrestees: 
No. 1, John Oslev: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 2, Timoth: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 3, Jeremy: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 4, John: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 5, Leinon: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 6, Lorn: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
No. 7, Plato: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate. 
No. 8, Time: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
No. 9: Mary: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
No. 10, Eva Maria: Enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
No. 11, Lettie: Enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
Nr. 12, Billy: enslaved at CoralBay Estate.  
 
Deponents: 
Unfree Dublin: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
Unfree, Peter Stiller: enslaved at Leinster Bay Estate.  
Free, Peter Brady: overseer at Leinster Bay Estate. 
Free, John Hacket: second overseer, or under overseer at Leinster Bay  
Estate.   
William Knot: overseer at Annaberg Estate.  
Felix Dagherty: sergeant in the military. 
Joseph Speakman: overseer at Abrahamsfancy. 
John Dam: overseer at Coralbay Estate.