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The Rev. William Harte and Attitudes to Slavery in Early Nineteenth-Century Barbados1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

J. T. Gilmore
J. T. Gilmore
Affiliation:
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
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Extract

In St Mary's Church, Barbados, there is a monument to a curate who died in 1851, and ‘whose labours as a clergyman of the Church of England for fifty years were distinguished by talent, energy & faithfulness. His efforts were unceasing to make known the truths of the Gospel to all classes in this island. At an early period in his ministry he led the way in rescuing the then slave population from spiritual bondage and darkness. In this work of Christian love he was ever resolute, singlemin-ded, Sc uncompromising’. Mr Harte's claim to our interest is further increased when we learn that he was once prosecuted by the vestry of his parish for, among other things, teaching slaves ‘doctrines of equality inconsistent with their obedience to their masters’ and for comparing the white inhabitants of his parish to those of Sodom and Gomorrah, somewhat to the advantage of the latter.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 461 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

2 There is a photograph of the monument in Goodridge, S. S., St Mary's, Barbados, 1827-1977, Barbados 1977Google Scholar.

3 B.D.A. RL1/5, p. 117 and B.D.A. RL1/4, p. 381. (Parish registers and other MS records in the keeping of the Barbados Department of Archives are hereafter referred to as B.D.A. followed by the call number used by the Department.)

4 W. Bishop to bishop of London, 22 June 1800, Fulham Papers (American) preserved in the Lambeth Palace Library (hereafter Fulham Papers), xxviii, fo. 86r.

5 Thos Allinson to bishop of London, 25 June 1800, Fulham Papers, xxviii, fos. 94-5. Allinson was rector of St Philip's, Barbados.

6 Letter of W. Bishop (above note 4).

7 Note on the verso of one of Harte's ordination papers, Fulham Papers, xxviii, fo. 89v.

8 W. Garnett to bishop of London, 23 June 1800, Fulham Papers, xxviii, fo. 90.

9 On this institution, see Klingberg, F. J., Codringlon Chronicle: An Experiment in Anglican Altruism on a Barbados Plantation, 1710-1834, Berkeley 1949, andGoogle ScholarBennett, j. H. Jr, Bondsmen and Bishops: Slavery and Apprenticeship on the Codrington Plantations of Barbados, 1710-1838, Berkeley 1958Google Scholar.

10 , Klingberg, op. cit., 118.Google Scholar

11 Coleridge, Bishop, Charges, London 1835,Google Scholar General Appendix, p. 7.

12 , Bennett, op. cit., 110–11.Google Scholar

13 Harte's name is not to be found in Bennett, op. cit.

14 For Harte's tenure of St Joseph, see the register of that parish, B.D.A. RL1/30, 84 and 103. Canon Goodridge (above note 2), 12-13, erroneously states that he was rector of St James.

15 See her obituary, The Barbadian, 26 May 1838 and various parish register entries. (All newspapers referred to were consulted in the Barbados Department of Archives.)

16 See Harte's Defence, a letter of his to Bishop Coleridge and other accompanying documents, published in The Barbadian, 24 July 1827. (This is one of the most important sources for Harte's career, as other possible sources, such as vestry minutes, are no longer extant. I refer to it from now on simply as ‘Defence’ and any unattributed quotations are derived from it.)

17 He is referred to as such in the account of the consecration of Chapel, St Mary's given in The Barbadian, 27 07 1827Google Scholar.

18 The Barbadian, 21 December 1836. This implies that the portrait was then in the possession of Bishop Coleridge, but it must have been given to the sitter, perhaps on the bishop's retirement to England in 1841, as Harte was able to leave it in his will to his elder son (B.D.A. RB4/73, 325).

19 The Barbadian, 7 07 1832,Google Scholar as cited in the Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, iii (1935), 205Google Scholar.

20 The West Indian, Barbados, 13 01 1851.Google Scholar A shorter obituary appears in The Liberal, another Barbadian newspaper, for 18 January 1851.

21 Sir Schomburgk, Robert H., The History of Barbados, London 1848, 94.Google Scholar

22 Editorial, The Barbadian, 17 08 1827.Google Scholar The editorial 28 August, following an attack in another local paper, asserts that ‘we alluded to his early exertions, before he had the happiness to be connected with the parish of St Lucy. We did not mention that parish at all, although it would be no difficult matter to prove the existence of violent prejudice, and the fact of opposition, there too’.

23 Letter of Harte's published in The Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette, 21 09 1819Google Scholar.

24 Published as an advertisement in the Mercury, 14 September 1819.

25 Mercury, 21 September 1819.

26 ‘Defence.’ The Mercury letter of 1819 explains that a friend of Harte's had been threatened by a member of the vestry, who was also the father of the man who had caused the original trouble.

27 This is printed in Harte, W. M., Lectures on the Gospel of St Matthew, London 1824, ii, 475–500.Google Scholar Printed for the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro Slaves in the British West India Islands, these lectures were delivered to Harte's slave congregation. I refer to them hereafter as Lectures, and page references are to the copy in the University Library, Cambridge; it should be noted that the pagination of a second edition, of which there is a copy in the Institute of Jamaica, appears to be entirely different. See Handler, J. S., A Guide to Source Materials for the Study Barbados History, 1627-1834, Carbondale, 111. 1971, 75 and 80Google Scholar.

28 A society had just been, formed in Barbados to encourage the spread of Christianity among the slaves, and various planters, including Sir Reynold Alleyne, later one of Harte's opponents, were among the founder members.

29 Caldecott, A., The Church in the West Indies, London 1898, 97–8.Google Scholar

30 Bennett, (above note 9), 116 and 122.

31 This would have been in entire conformity with the opinions of Bishop Coleridge. See , Caldecott, op. cit., 96Google Scholar.

32 Bishop of Barbados to Rev. W. M. Harte, 19 July 1827, printed with Harte's ‘Defence’.

33 , Caldecott, op. cit., 106.Google Scholar

34 The charges were printed, together with Harte's detailed refutation of them, in The Barbadian, 7 08 1827Google Scholar.

35 See Northcott, Cecil, Slavery's Martyr: John Smith of Demerara and the Emanicipation Movement, 1817-1824, London 1976.Google Scholar

36 See The Barbadian, 4 09 1827.Google Scholar

37 The Barbados Globe and Demerara Advocate, 27 09 1827.Google Scholar

38 A good summary of the purely judicial aspects of the case may be found in Schomburgk, (above note 21), 427-8.

39 The Barbados Globe, 17 12 1827.Google Scholar

40 The Barbados Globe, 14 02 1828.Google Scholar

41 Harte, W. M., Pastoral Duties, taken in connection luith the state of the West India Islands, Barbados 1830.Google Scholar

42 In addition to the Lectures (for which see above note 27) and the sermon mentioned in the previous note, Harte also published a volume of Practical Sermons, London 1839, which contains nothing of specifically West Indian interest.

46 Lectures, i, 243, 287.

44 See the sermon printed in ibid., ii, 475-500.

45 Ibid., i, 6, 24,6.

46 Ibid., ii, 489.

47 Ibid., i, 71, 46-7, 138-9, 156.

48 Ibid., ii, 161, 292-3, 192.

49 This was long disputed in Barbados and used as an excuse for refusing religious instruction to slaves. For a famous example, see Ligon, Richard, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, London2nd edn, 1673, 50Google Scholar.

50 Lectures, ii, 293-6.

51 See his letters, printed as appendices to Harte's ‘Defence’.

52 Lectures, ii, 498.

53 Ibid., ii, 479.

54 Ibid., ii, 491.

55 Ibid., ii, 207-8.

56 Ibid., i, 272.

57 Ibid., i, 362-3.