7 - Eighteenth-Century African Lives

Summary

Africans in Near Slavery

There is one example in Norfolk and Suffolk after 1700 where Africans living in the region were described as ‘slaves’. This is the record of the baptism of Thomas Cross in Ipswich in 1815, when Thomas’ parents, Cuffee and Amber, were described in the section of the parish register noting ‘Quality, Trade or Profession’ as ‘negro slaves’. The address of the Cross family was given as Silent Street, Ipswich, which suggests that the presence of Cuffee and Amber was related to the Worrell family, who owned plantations in Barbados. This is because the St Nicholas register also records the baptism on 23 June 1768 of Mary Hellet, who was described as ‘a negro girl servant to Jonathan Worrell Esq’. Jonathan Worrell (1734–1814) was a slaveowner in Barbados who lived in England from 1764. Worrell lived in Ipswich at a house in Silent Street until 1781 and owned several properties in the area. He then bought Hainford Hall in Norfolk and would later move to Surrey.

The Silent Street address links Cuffee and Amber Cross firmly to the Worrell family. Their arrival was probably related to the family’s ownership of plantations in Barbados and the decision by two of Worrell’s sons to return to the island in 1788. One of these, Jonathan Worrell (1767–1843), came to own another plantation, Highland, in his own name but sold it and returned to England permanently around 1815. It is possible, therefore, that he may have lived at Silent Street while he finalised where he would live, and that he brought Cuffee and Amber with him from Highland plantation. Alternatively, they may have already been resident in the property before this date. What happened to Cuffee, Amber, and Thomas after 1815 is unclear. They do not appear in the St Nicholas register again, nor do they appear in East Grinstead, where Worrell finally settled. The 1852 census for St Matthew in Ipswich records an ‘anastatic printer’ named Thomas Cross, who was born in Ipswich in 1820, living in St George’s Street with his wife and daughter. The birth year does not correlate, but this may be the same Thomas, we cannot be sure.