George Williams

George Williams was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 394 acres of land in Westmoreland. Trevor Burnard shows a George Williams Esquire as leaving Total Physical Wealth of £12,435 sterling (including enslaved people; excluding realty and financial assets and liabilities) in 1775, making him the ninth largest Jamaican wealth-holder with an inventory taken in that year. Tentatively identified as the same man.

Seagrove and Williams were listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owners of 400 acres of land in St Andrew and 275 acres of land in St George, total 675 acres. Williams and Blagrove were listed in the same source as the owners of 2955 acres of land in St Ann. The individuals in these partnerships have not been identified. Seagrove may be Samuel Seagrave (q.v.). Blagrove may be John Blagrove the elder or Thomas Blagrove (both q.v.). There are 13 different individuals with the surname Williams listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754.

In 1758 Martin Williams offered Thistlewood a job on his brother George's estate Moreland (which Thistlewood turned down).

The will of George Williams of Westmoreland, Esq. was proved in Jamaica 10/01/1775. In it, he manumitted Queen, a "negro slave" and gave her an annuity of £50 per year for life. Likewise he manumitted a "mulatto slave" named Fanny Douglass, and gave her £40 per year and manumitted his "mulatto slave" named Jenny Webb, and gave her £30 per year. "I likewise give unto my natural daughters Catherine Williams (by me begotten on the Body of my sambo woman slave named Amelia) and Mary Williams (begotten by me on the Body of my negro woman slave named Quasheba otherwise Queen [the same noted above]) the sum of one thousand pounds a piece of like money to be paid them severally in manner following (that is to say) fifty pounds a pice of like money, yearly and every year from and immediately after my decease till the whole two thousan pounds are paid off and discharged." He also manumitted his "seven natural sons following (that is to say) George Williams, Thomas Williams, and Martin Williams, John Williams, Julius Cesar Williams and Job Williams (by me begotten on the Body of my said negro woman slave named Quashebah otherwise Queen) and Alexander Williams (begotteen by me on the Body of my said mulatto woman slave named Fanny Douglass) All the rest residue and remainder of my whole real and personal Estate." He gave some small allowances to family in Britain.

"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; Trevor Burnard, Planters, merchants and slaves (2015) p. 19.

Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (Chapel Hill, 2004) p. 47.

LOS 42 ff. 88-89.

We are grateful to Daniel Livesay for his assistance with compiling this entry.