Slave emancipation

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Hendrik Van Cooten was a plantation and slave owner.

In Britain, in August 1833, the Slave Emancipation Act was passed, giving all slaves in the British empire their freedom, albeit after a set period of years. Plantation owners received compensation for the ‘loss of their slaves’ in the form of a government grant set at £20,000,000. The slaves themselves received no recognition of the injustices done them, no reparations, nor apology.

A recent segment on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) Radio National (RN) Late Night Live programme looks at some of the ramifications of slave emancipation – https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/blood-money_-emma-christopher/11924196

An article taking a position on a current compensation movement appears in the Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity

University College London hosts a website detailing the compensation money paid to slave owners at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/.

Although Hendrik died in 1825, his estates and family received payments.

Hendrik appears in the database, indicating that he had been the owner of plantations Vryheids Lust and Sheet Anchor in Demerara. The plantations had the following slaves:

Year Males Females Total
1817 119 99 218
1826 124 104 228
1832 166 133 299

 

299 enslaved persons were registered in 1832 to the heirs of the late Hendrick van Cooten, by John L.C. Playter.

On 19th Apr 1836 compensation for 286 enslaved of £14638 18s 6d was issued.

An Elizabeth Ann Van Cooten received £36 7s 0d (1 enslaved) and £35 9s 10d (2 enslaved). Elizabeth is possibly Eliza Ann Van Cooten or Elizabeth Van Cooten nee van Tienen.

Nicholas Van Cooten received £287 10s 2d (5 enslaved) and British Guiana £98 9s 11s (2 enslaved). This Nicholas is either Hendrik’s son or Hendrik’s grandson.

Who was Theodore Barrell?

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Looking closely at the the letters written by Theodore we can infer:

  • He has a father named Walter Barrell, alive in 1799
  • He has sisters Abby, Polly and Charlotte
  • He has an uncle Theodore
  • His mother is deceased in 1799
  • He has an uncle Joe, who has a daughter Hannah
  • He has an uncle Colborne
  • He was educated at Mr. Andrew Rae’s Academy, Islington, London

It is likely that Theodore is the Theodore Barrell listed at https://barrell.one-name.net/getperson.php?personID=I40&tree=T014

A description of archives at Columbia University “Barrell family papers, 1751-1929 bulk 1791-1889”  http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078972/ says:

The Barrell Family were noted merchants and businessmen in London and in Colonial Demerara, now part of Guyana. Theodore Barrell, the son of Walter Newberry Barrell, a London-based businessman, was both in Boston in 1771. He spent most of his career working as a merchant in the Americas, including in Barbados where he met his wife Elizabeth Beckles Barrell (born November 18, 1783) and in Demerara. Theodore Barrell died in Saugerties, New York in 1846.

Theodore Barrell has a brief biography in Bram Hoonhout’s “Borderless Empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800”.

The New-York Historical Society hold a “Letter book, 1798-1803” by Theodore Barrell – https://bobcat.library.nyu.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=NYHS&docid=nyu_aleph001507649&context=L  described as

Summary: Letter book, 1798-1803, with correspondence to business associates in London, Barbados, etc., as well as letters to relatives and friends on personal affairs, and life in Guiana. Includes many letters to William and Samuel Jones, London; Walter Barrell, London; William Gill and Samuel Went, Barbados.
Language: English
Publication Date: 1798
Description: 1 v. (182 p.)

Looks like I need to make a trip to the Columbia University archives!

Borderless Empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800

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In 2015, Bram Hoonhout, then a PhD student working on the 18th century history of Essequibo and Demerara, alerted me to the existence of references to Hendrik, Jan and Nicolaas van Cooten in the letterbooks of Theodore Barrell, a merchant in Demerara.

He was able to supply images, and my transcription is now available here. The page image is made available with the permission of the New York Historical Society.

Bram has now published his history – “Borderless Empire : Dutch Guiana in the Atlantic World, 1750-1800”. The description at bookdepository.com reads:

Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world. Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into “national Atlantics” suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the “Dutch Atlantic” by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries.

The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins. The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.

Bram’s book has gone straight to my wishlist!

I’ll work through the information in the Theodore Barrell letters in future posts.

The Spagnoletti Speaking Instrument

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Great great grandfather William Thomas, in his handwritten autobiography of 1926, refers to his time on the railways in Wales in the early 1870s, and using the “Spagoletti speaking instrument.”

Spagnoletti Code

This turns out to be a form of the Single Needle Instrument developed by Charles Ernest Spagnoletti. I’ve found details of this at Sam Hallas’ page at http://www.samhallas.co.uk/railway/single_needle.htm. He gives an explanation and diagram of the code, which is a representation of morse code.

This confirms William’s recollection of the signalling code he learned as a youth.

Where is Hendrik junior?

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The will of Hendrik Van Cooten (transcript) in 1825 implies that Hendrik had two sons, Cornelis and Hendrik, born out of wedlock, prior to his marriage to Dorothea Nicols.

The will says that Hendrik junior has “absented himself from Holland where he had been for his education so that no tidings from him have been received by me for several years.”

It turns out that Hendrik senior wasn’t the only person concerned about Hendrik junior’s whereabouts.

I’ve just found the following in Amsterdamse Courant of 10 May 1800, found in the MyHeritage Netherlands Newspapers, 1659-1899 collection.

Transcription:
Indien iemand met zekerheid weet naricht te geeven van het Verblyf, Leeven of Dood, van eenen HENDRIK VAN
COOTEN, van Demerary, in het Jaar 1794, als Matroos nebbende gediend onder Kapitein SIMON RYNTJES, doch in
Maart 1795, afgadankt, en federd zyn verblyf onbekend zynde, wordt verzocht zich en adresseeren by den Boekverkooper
J. TEN BRINK GZ., in de Warmoesstraat, over de St. Annastraat, zal daar voor eene belooning genieten.—Zullende ge-
melde HENDRIK VAN COOTEN, nog in leeven zynde, vriend lyk ontvaugen en gelegenne gegeven worden om na zyn
genoegen te kunnen worden geholpen, waneer zich dezelve in Persoon o per Missive, aan gein. Boekverkooper a levesfeerd.

Rough Translation:
If someone knows with certainty about the Residence, Life or Death, of a HENDRIK VAN
COOTEN, from Demerary, in the Year 1794, serving as a Sailor, serving under Captain SIMON RYNTJES, but in
March 1795, retired, and residence was unknown, are invited and addressed by the book seller
J. TEN BRINK GZ., In the Warmoesstraat, on the St. Annastraat, will be rewarded there for a reward.
pleasure to be helped when they are in person or per Missive. Book seller is supplied.

Hendrik senior was born in Doorn in 1750, and arrived in Demerara about 1773. Hendrik junior could well have been born not long after, which would feasibly have him at about 20 in 1794.

The J. ten Brink making the enquiry is quite probably Jan ten Brink, book store owner and publisher. Netherlands Wikipedia has an entry for him. I wonder why he was being enquired about? Did he owe money?

A stolen hat

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In searching the 19th Century English Newspapers for Maggie’s Gormans, we came across the following intriguing item in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle for July 13 1861:

William Taylor a respectably
dressed young man, was charged with stealing a hat on
the previous Sunday, at the Independent
Chapel, High-street, the property of Mr. George Gorman,
ship’s steward. Mr. Gorman attended service at the
Independent Chapel, High-street, on Sunday evening,
the 30th of June, and placed his hat, of the value of 13s.,
on the window ledge near where he was sitting. The
prisoner, a stranger to the congregation, was present, and
at the conclusion of the service, took the hat and walked
off. About an hour afterwards he was apprehended by
P. C. Littlefield, in the street, with the hat on his head.
He said he took it by mistake, but which could not be the
case, as he had only a cap with him when he went into
the chapel. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to six
weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour.

Just a random vignette, but which conveys much information about George Gorman and either pointers to further sources of information, or sufficient to match this person with other events  – his name, occupation, the date, and his place of worship.

Newspapers as sources

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In a previous item I referred to the Australian Newspapers on line project. There are a number of other resources that I have encountered in my research.

The first I would like to mention is the transcription of Guyana colonial newspapers being transcribed by John Wilmer. These are a valuable source of information for an area for which it is extremely difficult to obtain any primary sources.

A great newspaper source for English research is the 19th Century British newspapers from the British Library. I have accessed these online by being eligible for a reader’s card at the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the State Library of Victoria (SLV). I’ll give some examples of specific interesting items in a subsequent item. The NLA also provides access to the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, however I’ve yet to explore these fully.

Another great resource provided through the NLA and SLV is the Times Digital Archive. I’ve found a number of Van Cooten and Smithers items in this collection.

Australian Newspapers on line

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The National Library of Australia released in December 2008 the first stage of their project to digitise out of copyright newspapers. They are creating a free online service that will enable full-text searching of newspaper articles. This is a really fantastic project, and one of the current features is the ability of users to improve, annotate, and tag the scanned material.

I’ve found some interesting tidbits already. These include:

Not just Van Cootens

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I know its been quiet here for a while, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening on the family history research front. Over the next little while I’ll catch up with some of the progress that I’ve made on Maggie’s side of the family – Edwards, Gormans and Lacks. Stay tuned.

William Eaton Rusher

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A name that I occasionally do a search for is that of William Eaton Rusher. John Hughes Van Cooten was Mr Rusher’s “amanuensis” for about four years from about 1870 (when John would have been about 15) to 1874 (when John was about 18 and migrated to Australia). The collection of Van Cooten family letters contains a reference from Mr Rusher dated September 1874 – presumably carried by John on his voyage. There is also a reference dated 1876 – presumably posted. Another curious item is correspondence from Mr Rusher where each letter has been formed by a matrix of pin pricks forming the shape of capital letters. This form of writing was a competitor for braille, and a description of it can be found in section 6 of chapter 3 of Pamela Lorimer’s “A critical evaluation of the historical development of the tactile modes of reading and and analysis and evaluation of researches carried out in endeavours to make the braille code easier to read and to write”. The existence of this letter implies that Mr Rusher had a sight impairment.

I have always wondered what the connection was between the Mr Rusher and the Van Cooten family.

I have recently discovered that Mr Rusher spent time on Guernsey. He was a student at Elizabeth College. His alumnus entry reads:

Trinity Term, 1835. 526. William Eaton Rusher, born Oxford, Jan 13th 1820, son of Dr. William Rusher (Oxford). Left 1837 Magdalen Hall, Oxford, B.A. (3rd class Classics) 1842, M.A. 1852. Afflicted with blindness and unable to follow any profession.

This makes William Rusher a contemporary of John Lucius Van Cooten. John Lucius’ eldest son John Rodolphus Van Cooten became a teacher at Elizabeth College from about 1878.