John Tharp, Esq. 1736-1804 was born in Jamaica to a wealthy plantation owner and purchased his own vast estate there called 'Good Hope', when he was only 23.

He prided himself on his reputation for being a more benevolent slave owner than most: ‘My negroes have increased and are happy. They kill me with their constant visits and attentions. It gives pleasure, though I am fatigued to death before the day is half gone for I must talk and shake hands with every one of them.’

It is known that Tharp took pains to ensure his slaves were well fed, clothed and housed. He established a Free School to teach some of the more able children to read and write and next to that, in 1798, a hospital for sick slaves pictured below.

Plan of hospital for sick slaves on the Good Hope Estate, 1798. [Cambridgeshire Archives: R55/7/121/16]

The records of the Tharp family of Chippenham, near Newmarket include substantial material relating to their estates in Jamaica where the family found its fortunes during the eighteenth century. Deeds; plans of estates; inventories and valuations of slaves and stock; crop books and records of the sugar trade are all deposited at Cambridgeshire Archives.

The catalogue of the Jamaica records has been made available on-line by Edward Crawford of Brunel University at his own family history website. Click on the link on the right of this page

Letters of John Miles, a leading Bristol merchant to John Tharp between 1770 and 1789, selectively published in ‘A Bristol Miscellany’, Bristol Record Society, 1985, provide an almost unrivalled insight in to the sugar-trade between Britain and Jamaica. Tharp shipped his sugar to Bristol using Miles’ own ships. Miles would then sell it on and purchase various supplies and equipment for Tharp in Bristol in return for a commission on sales.

Miles was also involved in the shipping of slaves. In the letter below he speaks of a new ship, The Gascoigne:

...now near ready for sea at this Port, she is a large ship, mounts 20 or 22 guns and is going for 600 slaves to the Gold Coast...’ [Cambridgeshire Archives R55/7/128b*]

‘Negroes and stock’
It is difficult for us to come to terms with the apparent treatment of slaves as little more than disposable property. That attitude is brought into sharp focus by the document below, an account of the increase and decrease of slaves and livestock on Tharp’s estates. On the left hand side, entries recording children born to slaves are intermingled with those detailing the purchase or transfer from other estates of mules and cattle.

On the right, the deaths of slaves (and occasional runaways like ‘Jupiter ‘ here) are set down alongside those of livestock. [Cambridgeshire Archives: R83/58]

Covey estate
In 1785, Tharp set up another estate in Jamaica which he named Covey. The sugar factory he established there was to become one of the largest and most productive in the West Indies and to work it he purchased over 300 slaves, formerly the property of Edward Gardiner, deceased.

Valuation of Gardiner's slaves on the Bossue and Prospect Pen estates listed under their various occupations with their given names. [Cambridgeshire Archives R55/7/123/3]

 
The majority of those listed were field workers, two of whom, called ‘Jammie’ and ‘Doctor’, we assume to be the more senior and experienced since they were valued at £150 each. At the other end of the scale were the children, including the curiously named ‘High Tide’, assessed at only £5 each.

Abolition and beyond
On his death in 1804 John Tharp's estates were valued at £500,000 including 2,800 slaves. His grandson who should have inherited in 1818 when he reached the age of 24 was judged insane.

A nephew, Joseph Tharp ran Good Hope during the 1830's and the estate prospered despite the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1838. It was broken up and sold off some 30 years later although the Good Hope sugar factory continued in operation until 1902.