THE EDITOR, Sir:
The black man who bought the first lot of land in the "free village" of Sligoville in 1838 was by no means the first black to own land in Jamaica, as implied by The Gleaner's bold headline of 24 April on page 11 of Youth Link.
In 1799, Mary Freeman, a free black woman made the highest bid at a public auction and purchased a house and land at Port Royal for 366 pounds sterling. Two years earlier, William Virgo bequeathed his estate (both real and personal) to three of his Negro slaves with instruction they be freed immediately. In 1803, Sarah Morris, a free black woman, bought 668 acres in St. Andrew for 400 pounds sterling. When Kingston Pen, now called West Kingston, was subdivided into 250 lots in 1805, James Henry, Elizabeth Delpratt and Sarah Fickle Jacques were among the free blacks who bought lots there.
If we extend the question to free people of mixed race (never referred to in the 18th or early 19th centuries as black, Negro or African but always free people of colour) an inquiry in 1762, reporting on property inherited by such persons from white fathers, mentioned four sugar estates, seven cattle pens and other property.
Some whites were alarmed at this transfer of wealth to non-whites and a law was passed forbidding whites to bequeath property worth more than two thousand pounds sterling to non-whites. Yet in spite of this, James Swaby, son of a black mother, inherited estates in St. Elizabeth from his white father which sustained 217 slaves and 231 head of stock in 1828. In the subdivision of Kingston Pen, Priscilla Hill Martins, a free woman of colour, bought a total of 17 lots between 1807 and 1824, at an average price of one hundred and forty pounds each.
These examples are not given to detract in any way from the prestige of Sligoville as the first "free village" established at Emancipation, or from the respect due to the free people who by 1842 had bought all 150 of the lots there. The first to buy at Sligoville was Henry Lunan, the first to register his title was William Atkinson, the first woman owner at Sligoville was Elizabeth Francis. But we cannot establish the first black or coloured property owner in Jamaica until all the early land transaction records have been examined.
We are etc.
GLORY ROBERTSON
JACKIE RANSTON
For the Jamaica Historical Society
