Abstract

"“Having been a slave owner and much dissatisfied in being so”: A microhistory of David Barclay and the sale of the Unity Valley Penn"

Ian Jones, University of York (ianjones12345@hotmail.co.uk)

In 1787 David Barclay wrote a letter to his son-in-law Richard Gurney, the husband of his only surviving daughter. Barclay’s letter discusses personal and business matters including his efforts to sell the Unity Valley Penn, an estate in Jamaica that he and his brother had taken ownership of due to a debt. Included with the Penn were 32 enslaved people, all of whom Barclay planned to manumise.
In a series of letters between 1790 and 1795, Barclay and John Ashely, his agent in the United States, discussed Barclay’s plan for freeing the slaves. Additionally, a pamphlet published in 1801 by Barclay shows us his conclusions from the experience. While we know that many Quakers were involved in the abolition movement in Great Britain and carried their religious ethics into their business activities, we also know that not all Quakers unified their religious ethics with their professional business.
This paper will take a microhistory approach to analyse what allowed David Barclay to act in a way that accorded with his religious ethics and potentially why others choose not to or were not able to. The paper will look at what forces were acting so shape, enable and prevent Barclay from enacting his wishes, and will argue that while Barclay may not have held the most progressive views amongst the abolition movement, nor pursued his goals with the utmost vigour, this instance can still act as an example for modern organisations when contemplating their corporate ethics. Barclays did not allow a search for a perfect solution to prevent him from acting, did not allow long term horizons to prevent short term actions, did not accept that systemic challenges that minimised his impact were a valid reason not to free his slaves, and accepted that while his actions in his personal and professional life may have only a small impact, they were just as important as his efforts to challenge wider systemic problems through his involvement in abolitionism.