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Stedman Rawlins

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Stedman Rawlins

Hon Stedman Rawlins (c.1784–1830) was Slave/Sugar Plantation owner and the President of His Majesty's Council of the Island of St. Christopher. He was born in the Caribbean and baptized at Trinity Anglican Church, Trinity Palmetto Point Parish. He became a profitable slave owner in Saint Thomas Middle Island Parish, just as his father did before him, Stedman Rawlins Sr. (b.1749). (The French used one of the Rawlins Sr. plantations to bomb British fortifications on Brimstone Hill during the American Revolution.) Rawlins Jr. married Gertrude Tyson c. 1805. England outlawed the slave trade (1807).

Rawlins became the Governor of Saint Christopher (1816). He owned the Verchild's and the Crab Hole plantations. Rawlins was one of the magistrates that ruled against slave Betto Douglas' complaint of cruelty, returning her to her master after he had kept her in stocks for 7 months (1826). Rawlins was the President of His Majesty's Council on St. Christopher. Missionary accounts indicate that he encouraged missionaries to preach to the slaves in the President's hall. In 1827, Rawlins became the acting Governor of St. Kitts. He was charged with the selling of criminal slaves, even after the slave trade had been abolished. He went to Halifax, Nova Scotia and died there being buried in the Old Burying Ground (1830). Three years later, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery all together in the British empire.

Other readings

  • Dyde B 2005, 'Out of the Crowded Vagueness: A History of the Islands of St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla', Macmillan Caribbean, Oxford.
  • Hubbard VK 2002 'A History of St Kitts: the Sweet Trade', Oxford.
  • References

    Stedman Rawlins Wikipedia