Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library

'A Villainous tribe of Fiddlers and Fixers'
Campbell of Auchinbreck, Jamaica schemes 1712-1776

By Peter Dickson

An entry by David Dobson in his publication 'Scots in the West Indies, 1707-1857', names a Colonel John Campbell as being 'in Jamaica' in 1719. The NAS catalogue reference cited is for two linked sasines registered on the same day in June of that year, at Dumbarton.  At a glance, the documents record no more than a change in ownership of property in Argyll, in the first instance from Alexander Campbell of Kirnan to Colonel John Campbell of Black River, Jamaica. Kirnan and the colonel are cousins, Alexander a son of Elizabeth Campbell, sister to the Rev. Patrick Campbell of Torbhlaren in Glassary parish, and John Campbell the Rev. Patrick Campbell's youngest son. There may be nothing unusual about the transfer of land within this branch of the Auchinbreck sept, nor perhaps with the close relationship of each of the two men to a dozen others named in the sasines, but the circumstances here suggest more afoot. The colonel has been absent from Scotland for some two decades and this, together with detail from other sources, transforms a seemingly ordinary land transaction in Argyll into a pivotal moment for Campbell ambitions at Jamaica.

Until 1716, Alexander Campbell appears regularly as a principal or as a witness in deeds recorded in the Sheriff Court Books at Inverary.²  However, his transactions between 1700 and 1715 show that his liabilities exceed his assets by a factor of eight,³ excluding the value of any land. By 1716 he has reached a crisis and leaves Scotland. In March of that year he is in London, anticipating a longish absence from home. On the thirteenth he appoints his wife, Isobel Stewart, his factor 'to uplift the rents and duties of the lands of Kirnanmore, Kirnanbeg etc.', his properties in Glassary parish.⁴  Following this, Alexander does not appear in the records for the next four years. Isobel is in Edinburgh in May 1716, where she executes a sub-factory for 'Archibald Campbell, cousin to Angus Campbell of Glasvar', to collect the rents 'in respect of her absence from the country'. By October, she is home at Kirnan and appoints Alexander Campbell, minister at Inverary, factor for the same purpose. At this point her husband's creditors begin to stir. Some merely record long standing debts with the Sheriff Court but two begin legal action - her new factor, the minister at Inverary, and Duncan Campbell of Asknish.⁵

The sasines recorded at Dumbarton (incidentally in Latin) are the final act in a two year sequence of events that account for Alexander's intentions if not his precise whereabouts after London. On the 14th of September 1717, he resigns all his rights to 'the lands of Baraquhill lying in the parish of Glassary in favour of Colonel John Campbell of Jamaica' who is a man of means after seventeen good years on the island as a planter and a rising politician. The transaction includes Alexander's neighbouring properties in Glassary - Kirnanmore, Kirnanbeg, Kenlochlean, Achaleik and 'a tenement of land with a house and yard'.⁶ Importantly, a clause of absolute warrandice safeguards the new owner from any possible demands by Alexander's creditors. All this is recorded as being done with the prior 'consent of Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck', superior of the lands in question. John Campbell's intentions are not immediately as clear as his cousin's but in the following month, on the 16th October 1717, he disposes of all the same properties to Sir James who is then free to do with them as he wishes.

Where were Alexander and John Campbell when they executed their respective documents in successive months? The timing of events points to Jamaica, perhaps Alexander's destination from London? The papers are not noted in Scotland until one year after their signing, in October 1718, when Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy acknowledges them on behalf of his absent uncle,⁷ the colonel; the interval strongly suggests a distance from Argyll. Moreover, John Campbell had particular reasons not to leave the island about this time. Between May 1712 and March 1716 he had patented 1,200 acres of new land⁸ to develop as additional sugar works or pasture and would have been more intent on securing and increasing his prosperity abroad than on returning to Scotland merely to deal with the minutiae of less valuable property there.  As a colonel of militia and a Member of the Assembly, he was also at the centre of island governance. In 1717, the new governor had already marked him for appointment to the Council of Jamaica 'when vacancies happen,⁹ a recommendation unlikely had Campbell been 'off the island'.

Six months after the documents are received in Scotland, Auchinbreck finalises a Charter of Adjudication on all of Alexander's lands, granting them to Knockbuy. Precisely what was hatched in such a round about way by the indebted Kirnan, Auchinbreck, Knockbuy and their prospering kinsman in Jamaica may never be known, but all the evidence suggests the seizing of an opportunity for a calculated redistribution of property. No sums of money are mentioned but a restructuring of finances all round undoubtedly applied. At the Mill of Kirnans, on the 24th April 1719, a family gathering observes the formalities of the transfer. Alexander of Kirnan is not there. Archibald of Knockbuy is also absent but has appointed a cousin, James Campbell, 'only lawful son of Rev. Daniel Campbell at Kilmichael in Glassary' as his attorney. Another cousin, Archibald Campbell, 'lawful son of the deceased Colin Campbell of Attichuan', is there as Auchinbreck's baillie for the occasion. Also present, as witnesses, are other relations: John Campbell, another son of Attichuan; Peter and Colin, two sons of Dugald Campbell of Kilmory; Duncan Campbell the younger of Kilduskland; Hector McNeill the younger of Ardmeanish, island of Gigha; James Stewart, son of Dugald Stewart, minister at Rothsay, brother to Kirnan's wife, Isobel. The notary public who records everything is Donald McGilchrist, son-in-law to the Rev. Daniel Campbell.¹⁰

Alexander of Kirnan is recorded as circulating in Argyll once more by the summer of 1720. According to the Sheriff Court Books and the testament registered after his death at Kilmichael, Glassary, in February 1725,¹¹ a number of those who convened at the mill in 1719 were, or represented, several creditors and debtors who stood to gain in some way. Most significant, however, is that so many of them, and other relations, are well documented as making their way to Jamaica soon after and in subsequent years: Peter, Colin, James and John, sons of the colonel's brother Dugald of Kilmory; Dugald, a son of his sister Bessie and Colin of Attichuan; James, a younger brother of Duncan Campbell of Kilduskland; Knockbuy's son, Archibald the younger; the Rev. Daniel Campbell's grandson, Duncan of Duchernan;¹² and Alexander McGilchrist and his nephew William, both kinsmen of Donald, the notary.¹³

A letter by Peter Campbell Fish River, who had left for Jamaica within a few years of the gathering at the mill,¹⁴ discloses that his father's lands of Kilmory, Torbhlaren and Carran were mortgaged to Archibald of Knockbuy in order to provide him and brother James Orange Bay with start money for their settling at Jamaica.¹⁵ The late Marion Campbell of Kilberry, a descendant of these Campbells, once described them as a 'villainous tribe of non-Establishment fiddlers and fixers'.¹⁶  In this instance it is hard to deny that the concentration of so much additional property in Knockbuy's hands was an example of such 'fiddling' by which the 'fixers' got what they wanted. Their action pre-empted any forfeiture of family lands for debt. It enhanced Knockbuy's status, income and credit and so eased the raising of finance. It thus enabled the departure of Colonel Campbell's nephews to assist in expanding that overseas establishment. It also opened a clear conduit for plantation proceeds to benefit those at home.

The rewards were not long in coming. By 1729, 2,700 acres have been added to family holdings in the far western parish of Hanover [Table 1] where the Kilmory brothers Peter, James and Colin¹⁷ are now settled. Knockbuy's initial support has been supplemented by the colonel who holds a half share in each of his nephews' expanding plantations, both of which are now officially mapped on the West coast.¹⁸  The debts on Kilmory are redeemed by the following year and Peter Campbell's letter also refers to improvements there as a result of Jamaica money sent home. The final repayment due on the other lands is only delayed, in 1732, by an unexpected demand to return hired slaves to their owner, the £300 Sterling set aside for this being put towards the purchase of new slaves. Knockbuy is merely asked if he might 'conveniently want [his] money for a year or two more'.¹⁹ The disparity between landed incomes achievable in Argyll and Jamaica is quite clear. The kind of sum that had been an impossible burden for Alexander of Kirnan is only a passing inconvenience for an overseas cousin after less than a decade as a gentleman planter. The colonel himself, firmly placed among the island's elite as a councillor since 1722, continues to support his nephews with additional funding: £3,000 by mortgage to James Campbell at Orange Bay and £400 by bond to Dugald Campbell, Attichuan's son, for the purchase of 400 acres at Salt Spring in 1736.²⁰

This last acquisition completes an enclave of at least six adjoining plantations in Hanover parish [Map]. John and James, sons of the colonel's brother Duncan, a merchant in Glasgow, are also in Jamaica. Peter Campbell, now the successor to Kilmory, dies at Fish River in 1739, twenty years after witnessing proceedings at the Mill of Kirnans. Although the colonel, Peter's brother James Orange Bay and his cousin Dugald Salt Spring are also buried in Jamaica within the next five years, expansion goes on apace. Another cousin, James Campbell, brother of Duncan Campbell of Kilduskland, arrives to trade as a merchant and manage Salem, a family plantation in Hanover.

By mid-century, Campbell possessions in the three western parishes amount to almost 18,000 acres, all in the names of just five cousins.²¹ [Table 2] The scale of the their collective ambition, status and enterprise is easily gauged. At this point they represent only one percent of all landowners in those parishes yet occupy ten percent of the cultivated land. It is already the third largest family holding on the island when a fortuitous inheritance for Peter Campbell's widow, Deborah Woodstock, adds 3,000 acres more to the total.²²  The remark that they are thus 'possessed of opulent fortunes'²³ is perhaps no overstatement - by his will, the colonel cancels the debts owed to him by his nephews in Jamaica and distributes land. Nor is Argyll forgotten. Five hogsheads of sugar go to another nephew, 'the Reverend Mr Neill Campbell principall of the university of Glasgow for the use of the poor of the parish of Clenary' and a £100 annuity is settled upon Knockbuy whilst the colonel's youngest son, William, remains with him.²⁴  By 1757, such prospects beyond Scotland are reason enough for Knockbuy's only son and heir, Archibald the younger, to go 'a fortune hunting'²⁵ to Jamaica where he establishes Minard, a stock farm.

Reason enough, too, for Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck to attempt a Jamaica scheme of his own. In 1739, he promises prospective migrants free passage to the island and free provisions for six months. However, John Campbell Duke of Argyll intervenes from London. Angrily dismissing Auchinbreck as a man who has 'ruined himself and his family by monstrous extravagancys', he writes to Archibald Campbell of Stonefield, Deputy Sheriff of Argyll, that the project is a 'knavish trick' to delude 'poor ignorant people by false representations of imaginary profits' to be made in the colony.²⁶  The scheme is damned as an attempt to bolster Auchinbreck's shaky finances by selling the 'poor wretches as slaves' at their destination. Would the Campbells in Western Jamaica have been involved? Argyll's long standing political connections extend his reach beyond officials and allies at home. Against Auchinbreck he can enlist the Governor of Jamaica, Edward Trelawny, and 'other Gentlemen who have the chief offices in that plantation'. One of these gentleman is, of course, Colonel John Campbell. With a respected reputation in island affairs for almost forty years, privately and officially, it is certain that neither he nor his up and coming nephews would have compromised their standing in Jamaica, Auchinbreck kinship notwithstanding.

The overall pattern of intra-family borrowing and lending recorded in Argyll repeats itself among the Campbells of Jamaica for two generations and also draws in relations by marriage at the island as well as in Scotland. Crested silverware²⁷ and emblazoned tombstones²⁸ proclaim, privately and publicly, their Auchinbreck lineage while the naming of Campbelton and Minard is another indication of a desire to affirm the Campbell settlement and to perpetuate its strength in Jamaica. Endogamous inter-marriage is yet one more. The second Peter Campbell of Fish River marries a first cousin, Mary, daughter of Colin Campbell of New Hope while Mary's sister, Elizabeth, becomes the wife of their cousin Colin of Campbelton, only son of retired sea captain 'John Campbell the elder of Orange Bay',²⁹ last survivor of the four Kilmory born brothers. There are other unions between Knockbuy and Kilmory cousins at home and in Jamaica³⁰and a letter of 1757 discloses two similar proposals that did not go any further.³¹

Continuity of the name is a preoccupation for the colonel's heir, Colin Black River. In 1748, he includes a particular clause in the will that he writes in London before visiting his Jamaican estates once more: if each of his two daughters are to retain a gift of £3,000 upon marriage, in addition to £4,000 due at their majority, any husband who is not a Campbell will have to secure an Act of Parliament in order to 'use the name Campbell and no other surname'.³²  Colin is buried in Jamaica in January 1752. It is no small irony that all of his four children remain childless³³ and that his estates, the first Campbell holdings in Jamaica, are the first to be broken up. In 1767, his heavily indebted heir, John Campbell III of Black River, arrives in Hanover and declares to his namesake and cousin at Orange Bay the he is 'perfectly inclined to satisfy all his creditors & very desirous that all his property sho,u'd be disposed of for that purpose'.³⁴

A decade of incontinent spending in Virginia has ruined him.³⁵  But it is a time of economic depression, 'the credit of the island totally sunk'³⁶ and he is 'afraid that purchasers will hardly be met with, except those who will buy to pay themselves'.³⁷  However, another home habit practised abroad is the retention of land within family at a time of crisis for a close relation. The kind of intervention recorded at the mill of Kirnans half a century earlier is reprised. John Campbell's island cousins and their local connections step in³⁸ - as much to improve their own lot with additional acres as to relieve his predicament. He is much of a stranger to them, having spent no more than a few of his thirty one years in Jamaica but he is, after all, a Campbell with assets going begging.

Although any property retained in Argyll is soon marginalized by the Jamaicans for its comparative low worth, it remains a means of settling matters among themselves. In 1766, Peter II Fish River sells Kilmory to his cousin John Campbell II Orange Bay³⁹  who continues to fund improvements there from abroad. The conveyance, first mooted in 1739,⁴⁰ is in part payment of a debt between the two Jamaican estates. Perhaps for similar reasons, the Rev. Daniel Campbell's grandson Duncan, a merchant at Lucea in Hanover, 'disposes of the lands of Duchernan and Craigmunel' to his cousin, John Campbell II of Salt Spring in 1770.⁴¹ The Scottish born Duncan had chosen to sever this tie with home but Peter and John Orange Bay, both Jamaica born, indulge a sentimental attachment to Kilmory some seventy years after their fathers had left home for good. Between them they 'agree that it should always remain in the family, as a memento from whence we came'.⁴²  Upon John Campbell's death at Orange Bay in 1808, Kilmory is left to Peter who has already retired to Britain and taken with him his 'trusty faithful servant of colour Jacob Campbell and his wife Sarah'⁴³ - constant reminders of his native country where family fortunes had been raised.⁴⁴

Date     Name                                                                                                     Parish                                       Acres

*This part of Westmoreland was subdivided to form Hanover parish in 1723

[Extracted from a list compiled by Evangeline Clare, a researcher in Jamaica]

Table 2, Campbell landowners, 1754

        Hon. Colin Campbell, deceased (2nd of Black River ) Hanover 3,513
                Westmoreland 90
                St. Elizabeth 7,720
        James Campbell, deceased (1st of Orange Bay) Hanover 1,185
                Westmoreland 450
        Dugald Campbell, deceased (1st of Salt Spring) Hanover 716
                St. Elizabeth 500
        Colin Campbell (1st of New Hope) St. Elizabeth 1,555
        Peter Campbell, deceased (1st of Fish River) Hanover 986
                Westmoreland 536
        Deborah Campbell (widow of Peter Campbell) Westmoreland 2,020
                St. Elizabeth 1,077
[Extracted from NA, CO 142.31, 'A list of landholders in the Island of Jamaica']

MAP
Campbell in Hanover parish, Jamaica

Campbell estates near Orange Bay by 1729, ten years after Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy was granted the Kirnan lands in Argyll and had funded the Kilmory brothers' settlement. Peter Campbell was at Fish River by 1724, brothers James and Colin were at Orange Bay by 1727 (James had first joined his uncle in St. Elizabeth's parish in 1720).

A cattle farm at Ireland Point was attached later to Orange Bay, Colonel John Campbell acquired Cave Valley (east of the 'hilly land') before 1740, and Dugald Campbell, son of Colin of Attichuan, purchased Salt Spring in 1736.
Within the area of Campbell land north of Salem were the plantations of Bachelors Hall and Mount Pleasant; it is assumed that these were part of the 3,513 acres in Hanover recorded for 'Colin Campbell (deceased)' in 1754 [Table 2] when the Hanover properties accounted for one third of all the family's Jamaican possessions.

Handwritten annotations on the original map reveal that this part of Hanover parish had been largely surveyed by Colonel John Campbell's father-in-law, Leonard Claiborne, between 1674 and 1676. Claiborne died in 1794, before Campbell's arrival, but his surveys in this sparsely populated quarter of the island proved to be a legacy that Campbell exploited fully for family advantage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1     NAS, RS10.4.f.396-397, Translated from the Latin by Mrs Diane Baptie, researcher in Edinburgh, 2012
2     Sir Duncan Campbell of Barcaldine, 'The Clan Campbell Abstracts…',  Otto Schulze & Co., Edinburgh, 1913
3     An approximate tally shows £4,000 Scots borrowed and £500 Scots due. In Sterling, his liabilities amount to a more than £300
4     Sir Duncan Campbell of Barcaldine, Op. Cit.
5     NAS, GD43.30.125, Adjudication in favour of Alexander Campbell, minister at Inverary, December 1718; GD43.30.122, Decreet in favour of Duncan Campbell, of Asknish, July 1717. (These two documents appear to have gone astray between the NAS and Argyll & Bute archives)  
6     NAS, RS10.4.f.396-397
7     Ibid.
8     Jamaican archives: Platt records, 1B.11.2.17, f.117-124
9     NA, London, CO137.12.61,Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Vol.30, 1717-1718, pp 1-24.  
10     RS10.4.f.396-397, 21 April 1719
11     NAS, CC2.3.8; testament dative for Alexander Campbell of Kirnan, August 1726
12     Dobson, David, 'Scottish Settlers in America', NAS, RD2.215.143
13     NA, London, PROB11.961, will of Alexander Gilchrist, proved in London, 9th October 1770 [several of this family had anglicised their names by dropping 'Mac']
14     Jamaican archives, Peter Campbell patented 300 acres in Hanover parish, 9 March 1724
15     Campbell, Marion, 'Letters by the Packet', Argyll & Bute Library 2004, Peter Campbell to Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy, 2 May 1732
16     Byrnes, Dan, 'The Blackheath Connection' Ch.4, footnote 3
17     Colin, later of New Hope d.1760. An act of the Assembly ordering a new road establishes that Colin was with James at Orange Bay in 1732
18     National Library of Jamaica, ref. Hanover 146, map of land patented at Orange Bay by 1729
19     Campbell, Marion, Op. Cit., Peter Campbell to Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy, 2 May 1732
20     Jamaica, RGD, 22.100, will of John Campbell, 1740
21     NA, CO 142.31, 'A list of landholders in the Island of Jamaica…' (completed 1754)
22     Deborah's brother, Barnard Andreis Woodstock [d.1753] left her plantations in St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland; they were inherited by her son, Peter Campbell II of Fish River in 1797
23     Lawrence-Archer, J., 'Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies', Chatto & Windus, London, 1875, monument to Colonel John Campbell of Jamaica at Hodges Pen, St. Elizabeth's parish
24     Jamaica, RGD, 22.100, will of John Campbell, 1740
25     Argyll & Bute archives, Dunardry papers, Colin Campbell to James Campbell of Kames, 22 August 1757. Minard is in St. Ann's parish, on the north coast. To this day it is a government institution devoted cattle breeding
26     NAS, GD 14.12, John Campbell, Duke of Argyll to Archibald Campbell of Stonefield, Deputy Sheriff at Inverary March 1740.  Argyll may have had another motive - preventing the departure of the tenant classes. It was certainly a concern in 1786 when the 5th duke led funding for a joint stock company aiming to stop 'the dangerous spirit of emigration now prevalent' by improving 'fisheries, agriculture and manufactures. . .in the Highlands & Islands' [Morning Post & Daily Advertiser, 12 June 1786]
27     NA, PROB11.1685, will of John Blagrove, nephew to John Campbell II of Orange Bay, proved 1824
28     Lawrence-Archer, J., Op. Cit.
29     Captain John Campbell [d.1766] is referred to in Jamaican documents as 'John Campbell the elder of Orange Bay', his  nephew 'John Campbell the younger of Orange Bay', being the son of James Campbell of Orange Bay who had died in 1744. Captain John was previously thought to have died unmarried but his will, located in Jamaican archives in 2010, names a wife and son [RGD, LOS 36.130, 1766]
30     Campbell, Marion, Op. Cit., James Campbell Orange Bay married Henrietta, sister of Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy; their son John Campbell Orange Bay married Grizel, daughter of Archibald of Knockbuy
31     Argyll & Bute archives, MacTavish of Dunardry papers, Colin Campbell of New Hope, Jamaica, to James Campbell of Kames, 22 August 1757
32     NA, London, PROB11.793. will of Colin Campbell, proved 1752
33     Only his eldest son married, in Virginia, a widow with four children. There were no further children by this marriage
34     Campbell, Marion, Op. Cit., John Campbell Orange Bay to Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy, 4 June, 1767
35     Virginia, Henrico County Records, Hylton v Hunter, 1785
36     Argyll & Bute archives, MacTavish of Dunardry papers, Colin Campbell of New Hope, Jamaica, to James Campbell of Kames, 22 August 1757
37     Virginia Historical Society, Spotswood papers, Mss1 SP687b 3-5, John Campbell to his wife, Mary Dandridge Spotswood, Spring of 1767
38     Mitchell Library, Sydney, 'Letter Books of Duncan Campbell'; Duncan Campbell, London merchant, to his cousin and brother-in-law, John Campbell Salt Spring, 15 September 1767
39     Campbell, Marion, Op. Cit., John Campbell Orange Bay to Archibald Campbell of Knockbuy, 21 July 1766
40     Jamaica, RGD, LOS 22.82, will of Peter Campbell, 1739
41     Dobson, David, 'Scottish Settlers in America',  NAS, RD2.215.143,
42     Campbell, Marion, Op. Cit., John Campbell Orange Bay to Archibald Campbell, Sheriff Clerk of Argyll, 15 July, 1799
43     NA, PROB 11.1601, will of Peter Campbell, proved London 1818
44     Fortune did not last. After the death in 1821 of Campbell's son, Peter III of Fish River & Kilmory, possession of the Jamaican estates was granted to principal London creditors, Milligan, Robertson & Milligan [NA, PROB11.1658, will of Peter Campbell, proved 1822]

SEARCH THIS SITE

GO TO:

Home

Plan of this website

Help - Frequently Asked Questions

Jamaica Almanacs Slave-owners, Civil & Military officers, Magistrates etc.

Items in the Samples Directory

Items in the Members Directory

Transcriptions from Registers and Wills (Church of England, Dissenters, Civil Registration)

Jamaican Roman Catholic Church Registers - transcriptions

Jamaican Methodist Baptisms - transcriptions

Jewish births marriages deaths - transcriptions

Slaves and slavery in Jamaica

Photographs, maps, prints, etc.