ALS preceded by duplicate ALS to Alexander West Hamilton Esq, Jamaica, concerning the purchase of slaves and management of plantations in the West Indies.

£950 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An interesting piece of correspondence between two Scottish slave owning merchants, at a key moment in the history of the slave trade in the West Indies . These letters give an insight into the management of Scottish owned estates in the West Indies, and the way in which business was done between absentee and in situ plantation owners. Humphrey Ewing (1773-1860) clearly travelled back and forth between Glasgow and Jamaica, working alongside his brother James Ewing (1775-1853), a wealthy and influential import agent who later established the first savings bank in Glasgow, and became an MP. Humphrey makes reference to his brother in the letter dated 10 September 1814: “[I] am greatly obliged by your attention to my interest in the lease of Mr Christie’s Negroes c. - If you saw a favourable opportunity of buying a few negroes my Brother will immediately honour your bills at 90 days for the amount of their purchase“. This business interest in then revisited in the October letter: “[I] am happy to learn that you have got possession of Mr Christie’s place negroes which I trust will enable us to make something of Arbol by and by”. “Arboll” is listed in UCL’s Legacies of British Slavery database as an estate registered in 1815 to Humphrey Ewing Maclae (this name added after the death of his father Walter Ewing Maclae in 1814), at that point being registered with 27 enslaved people. 1815 is the first year recording the estate at Arboll, so it is possible that the enslaved people purch

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