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Mesopotamia, Jamaica

Mesopotamia plantation (arrowed) on James Robertson's map of 1804.[1]

Mesopotamia was a sugar plantation in Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica, north of Savanna-la-Mar[2] on the Cabaritta River. It was adjacent to the Friendship and Greenwich estate.

History

The plantation was established around 1700 and according to official returns was one of 23 sugar plantations in the parish that employed over 200 slaves.[3]

It was associated with the Barham family. It was first in the ownership of Dr Henry Barham (c.1728-1746) and subsequently Joseph Foster Barham (c.1746-1789) and Joseph Foster Barham II (c.1789-1832).

The chemist John Buddle Blyth was baptised at Mesopotamia in 1816.[4][5] His father John Blythe was attorney for Mesopotamia in the early 19th-century.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ James Robertson map of 1804. National Library of Scotland. 16 January 2019.
  2. ^ Mesopotamia Plantation, Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, Jamaica. Geni. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  3. ^ "Sugar Production and Slave Women in Jamaica" by Richard S. Dunn in Ira Berlin & Philip D. Morgan (Eds.) (1993). Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. pp. 49–72 (p. 52). ISBN 978-0-8139-1424-4.
  4. ^ John Buddle Blyth Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880. Family Search. Retrieved 16 January 2019. (subscription required)
  5. ^ John Blyth. Legacies of British Slave-ownership, University College London. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  6. ^ Mesopotamia. University College London. Retrieved 16 January 2019.