Existing comment:
Slavery in Grand Cayman:
Grand Cayman had a slave economy for at least a century.
The earliest records of slaves being brought to Grand Cayman date from the 1730s. Shipping records show that most slaves came as a result of the "occasional intercourse between this island and Jamaica." By 1802 some 388 free people and 545 slaves lived here. In 1834, just before emancipation, 985 out of a total of 2,000 people were registered as slaves on the Cayman Islands. This greatly contrasted with Jamaica, where the ratio of slaves to free people was at times greater than 10 to 1.
The slave return fro 1834 tells us that most owners on the Grand Cayman had fewer than ten slaves. On more prosperous islands, such as Jamaica, a single plantation could have hundreds of slaves.
A rare photograph, taken in Bodden Town at Christmas 1910 of men and women who had been slaves. |