Slavery in Jamaica, Records from a Family of Slave Owners, 1686-1860 - Key Data

This collection contains records from the Surrey History Centre detailing the Goulburn family’s longstanding ownership of the Amity Hall plantation and associated properties in Jamaica during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The plantation had 300 acres of land cultivated for the lucrative sugar cane and, at its peak, housed almost 300 enslaved people.

Most of the papers concern the properties when they were administered by Conservative MP Henry Goulburn between 1805 and 1856. They provide a comprehensive overview of the operation and eventual abolition of the slave trade in Jamaica and the West Indies. This covers everything from abolitionist criticism of Goulburn’s plantation to the resistance and organisation of enslaved workers.