William Foster of Jamaica

1. Owned Watermount in St John, two pens and property in Kingston and Spanish Town, all of which he bequeathed to his illegitimate daughter Anna Petronella Woodart (q.v.) whom he manumitted. His will, as merchant of Kingston, was made in Jamaica 10/04/1756 and proved in London 13/09/1757. It opens with an account of the ownership of enslaved people on land in Portland, on which the enslaved people were divided into those belonging to him to which his brother had he said no claim, who were marked [i.e. branded] with an F on the shoulder, and those without such a mark.

2. William Foster owned Cork Hill with 250 acres and 12 enslaved people in St Andrew, Jamaica, in 1753. William Foster was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 1566 acres of land in St John. Samuel Williams and William Foster were listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 1738 acres of land in St John.

3. William Foster of Kingston, merchant. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1757. Slave-ownership at probate: 443 of whom 234 were listed as male and 209 as female. 0 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £56301.23 Jamaican currency of which £15621.51 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £1875.41 currency cash, £24,188.52 currency debts and £100.75 currency plate.

Brooke N. Newman, ‘Contesting “Black” liberty and subjecthood in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1730s-1780s’. Slavery & Abolition 32:2, 169-183, p. 173, which gives a death-date of 1760.

1. PROB 11/832/364.

2. CO137/28 pp. 169-175 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/1753Andrew.htm; 'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

3. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.