One of the owners of the largest number of slaves we have encountered so far in the Jacmel area was Jean Lacroix, a surgeon and planter who died in 1737. As the above table illustrates, with numbers from a notarized document from 1738, digitized at Family Search, his estate included 53 adult slave (plus 20 children). Included among these adults were several Creoles who came from other colonies, including some from English colonies, 1 from Martinique and 1 "Spanish" slave. And while men outnumbered women, the gender imbalance wasn't as stark as it could be on other estates.
The substantial child population and Creole population attest to some degree of longevity of the plantation and local births. Moreover, one is struck by the huge diversity of captives here. In addition to the familiar Congo, Ibo, Arada and Mondongue, one sees a Tiamba (which was difficult to read in the text), a Timbou (again, difficult to decipher), Bibi, and more English Creoles than one would expect. Yet the general pattern of a substantial Congo, Ibo and Arada presence is undeniable, as is the low number of Upper Guinea Africans. One wonders about the origins of the Creoles in this case, but one clearly sees a pattern of imported slave labor favoring West Central Africa and Lower Guinea. The high number of Creoles suggests possible smuggling or inter-colonial slave trading. The difficult to decipher digitized documents in the Minutes notariales, 1704-1803 make it hard to know exactly what the slaves were doing in this case, but it may have involved indigo and other tasks.
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