Stedman Rawlins

Hon. Stedman Rawlins (c.1784–1830) was a slave and sugar plantation owner, and the President of His Majesty's Council, on the Caribbean Island of St. Christopher.

Hon. Stedman Rawlins plantations and Negro Houses, Island of Saint Christopher, 1828 (inset)
Hon Stedman Rawlins, Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
One of the Rawlins Plantations (left), St. Kitts (1782)[1]

Life

Stedman was born in the Caribbean and baptized at Trinity Anglican Church, Trinity Palmetto Point Parish. He became a profitable slave owner in Saint Thomas Middle Island Parish, just as his father Stedman Rawlins Sr. (b.1749) did before him,[2][3] (The French used one of the Rawlins Sr. plantations to bomb British fortifications on Brimstone Hill during the American Revolution.[4]) Rawlins Jr. married Gertrude Tyson c. 1805. England outlawed the slave trade (1807).

Rawlins became the Governor of Saint Christopher (1816). He owned the Verchild's and the Crab Hole plantations. Rawlins was one of the magistrates that ruled against slave Betto Douglas's complaint of cruelty, returning her to her master after he had kept her in stocks for 7 months (1826).[5] Rawlins was the President of His Majesty's Council on St. Christopher. Missionary accounts indicate that he encouraged missionaries to preach to the slaves in the President's hall.[6][7] In 1827, Rawlins became the acting Governor of St. Kitts.[8] He was charged with the selling of criminal slaves, even after the slave trade had been abolished.

He went to Halifax, Nova Scotia and died there being buried in the Old Burying Ground (1830). Rawlins's obituary reads that he was at St. Christopher, "where he was much respected. He had recently come to this country [Nova Scotia] in the hope of restoring his constitution, debilitated by a long residence in the West Indies."[9]

Three years later, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery all together in the British empire.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

See also

References
  1. The French mortar battery on Rawlins’ Plantation near the shore (left) can be seen shelling the British fortifications on Brimstone Hill.
  2. Legacies of British Slave Ownership
  3. The British Colonial Slave Registers show all the Rawlins family male and female and the slaves they owned.
  4. Blog
  5. pp.73-74
  6. Report from Select Committee on the Extinction of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions By Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on the Extinction of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, p. 220
  7. The Methodist Review, Volume 9,p. 198-199
  8. The Milk Jug Was a Goat By Chris Birch, p.
  9. Novascotian or Colonial Herald, June 3, 1830
  10. Correspondence re: slavery
  11. Parliamentary papers
  12. Genealogy
  13. p. 25
  14. Map of Stedman Rawlins Slave Plantation
  15. Details of a case of piracy, in the capture of the brig Carraboo, of Liverpool, Finlay Cook, master : comprising the official correspondence relating to a claim made by His Honor the commander-in-chief of St. Christopher, to the commandant of St. Eustatius and Saba, for the restitution of the vessel and cargo ; together with an account of the capture, by His Majesty's ship Victor, Capt. Lloyd, of the schooner Las Damas Argentinas (the vessel which had taken the Carraboo,) also, a report of the trial, condemnation, and execution of the pirates ; and, a representation, laid before the court by the grand jury of Saint Christopher ; with other documents and particulars.
  16. Privateer Incident

Other readings
  • Dyde B 2005, 'Out of the Crowded Vagueness: A History of the Islands of St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla', Macmillan Caribbean, Oxford.
  • Hubbard VK 2002 'A History of St Kitts: the Sweet Trade', Oxford.
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