A large and handsome mortgage against the Worcester Estate for £12,000 at an interest rate of £6 per annum.
After a somewhat dissolute career at Eton, William Hall purchased the land that became Worcester estate to demonstrate a new seriousness to his father. Worcester was in the Parish of St James, roughly between Falmouth and Montego Bay. The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery state that the plantation was purchased in 1774 and remained in Hall’s name until roughly 1820.
The document sets out not only the terms under which the the mortgage was made but includes a full schedule of the property which includes a workforce of 206 enslaved labourers, each of whom are divided by gender, age and occupation. For example, we have a list of field men, house servants, cooks, carpenters, stablemen, coopers, cattle and hog boys, as well as invalids. A note running down the side of one column states that eleven of the boys were bought from Mr Young in September 1774. As part of the property, livestock is listed on the same sheet: mules, steers, bulls, cows and calves.
It was a important time in the region, not just due to the Declaration of Independence issued that July, but 1776 also represents rougly the peak of the slave trade in the Americas.
