For this year’s Black History Month blog, I have decided to look at James Robertson’s map of Jamaica which I first encountered in the early days of the opening of the Library of Birmingham in 2013.
[MS 3147/31/84 – 86 (Accession nos. 614066 – 614068)]
A researcher approached the enquiry desk on level 4 and enquired what historic maps of the Caribbean, particularly Jamacia, we held – my interest was piqued! My initial search of our archives catalogue (the archives catalogue can be accessed online) along with the library catalogue (the library catalogue can also be accessed online) of the library’s printed resource collections, produced a nil return.
Not to be deterred, I hastily thought of alternatives and the oft overlooked Local Studies & History map catalogue came to mind. There, tucked in amongst the copious rows of typed cards which constitute the catalogue, was a card for Robertson’s map, intriguingly baring a handwritten annotation – MS 3147/31/84 – 86. My interest was heightened. Why was this map held in the records of the business partnership between the entrepreneur, Matthew Boulton, and the inventor of the steam engine as we know it today, James Watt, at the Soho Manufactory and Foundry? The hunt was on…
Who was James Robertson and why did he create this map?
James Robertson (ca 1756 – 1841) was born in Shetland. His map of Jamaica is considered to be the island’s first official survey, although Robertson’s skills were as a map maker. He arrived in Jamaica in 1778 and persuaded the Jamaican Council to award him a commission to survey all of the island at a cost of £5,000 – upon which he completed the surveys of the three counties and the entire island. In all, the Council paid Robertson £10,000 for his efforts. The map is dedicated to the Prince of Wales, so Robertson made himself a tidy sum from the venture as well as gaining royal patronage.
[MS 3147/31/84/1]
The map is large scale. Our copy of the three counties takes the form of 6 large, folded sheets, and is very detailed, showing features such as mountains and rivers, the locations of towns and settlements and plantations. The map was considered to be an accurate recording of the new county and parish boundaries which had recently been created on the island. The map was often used to settle land disputes.
On the Explanation to the map (which is basically a key of the symbols drawn on it), mention is made to sugar and coffee estates and anchorage for large vessels. I think these details make it quite clear as to one of the purposes of the map – it’s a survey of the most effective points of production on the island and a tool for encouraging further investment. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1807, it wasn’t until the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), that it was no longer possible for a slave owner to hold slaves against their will. How interesting that the place names – Cornwall, Middlesex and Surrey, quintessential English counties – have been imposed upon a very different type of landscape and climate to that in England. A little taste of the Motherland found many miles away from home, trying to distract from the enslavement of people to create goods such as sugar and coffee – a process of topographical gentrification. A colonising force relies upon maps to cement its authority. It’s a powerful tool in negating indigenous culture and an attempt to use the empirical discipline of cartography to rewrite history so the new names appear neutral and organic, and part of the history of the conquered land.
The Boulton & Watt connection
As mentioned previously, I could find no mention to Robertson’s map in either the catalogue to the archive or the library’s printed resources. A bit of investigating led me to the hard copy catalogue for MS 3147 Records of Boulton & Watt. There’s no entry for MS 3147/31/84 – 86 in the catalogue, but I did discover sub series 31 is for materials added to the collection by the Birmingham industrialist George Tangye (1857 – 1915) of Tangye Bros, Cornwall Works, Smethwick, who purchased the majority of the Boulton & Watt Collection from James Watt & Co. in 1895. The collection was relocated to the Birmingham Library in 1915. During his ownership, Tangye made several of his own additions to the collection.
Boulton & Watt were members of the Lunar Society – a late eighteenth-century informal society of learned individuals based in the Midlands who espoused Enlightenment concepts of reason, liberty and toleration. Both have been viewed as supporters of the movement to abolish slavery which gathered pace at the time. Yet, Boulton was a businessman who created wealth by selling steam engines and toys – toys in eighteenth century terminology were a wide variety of small and fancy objects such as snuff boxes and buttons. Many of these objects formed a considerable part of the cargo of slave ships to the Caribbean. Through business associations in the Caribbean, Matthew Boulton was able to develop a market for plantation owners to purchase steam engines to enhance the production of commodities such as sugar. Between 1778 – 1825, Boulton & Watt supplied the Caribbean with c.200 steam engines designed for use in, amongst other places, sugar mills. The arrangement was quite a lucrative one for the company.
A deep-seated contradiction there between the aspirational views of the individual and the stark reality of how wealth has been generated. No generation is immune from it – as we are all part of history – none of us are separate from the incessant flow of time, and we are blindsided to how many of the commodities we now take for granted, are created and made affordable on the back of exploiting those less fortunate and empowered than ourselves.
Please contact archives.heritage@birmingham.gov.uk for details of how to view this map.
Paul Taylor, Coordinator
The Iron Room 