From pp. 57-59, Chapter 2, "Barbados: The Rise of the Planter Class," still
referencing James Hay CARLISLE as the "earl of CARLISLE:
***********
Thanks to the Barbados census of 1680 (to be discussed in the next
chapter), we know who the leading families were in the golden days of the
sugar industry on the island. In 1680, 175 planters drawn from 159 families
constituted the island elite. Some 62 out of these 159 families--or 39
percent--were already Barbados property holders in 1638 [footnote #29:
"This calculation is reached by correlating the names of the big planters in
the 1680 census, C.O. 1/44/142-379, with the list of 764 "Inhabitants of
Barbados, in the Year, 1638, who then possessed more than ten Acres of
Land." [Duke], *Memoirs,* 51-62. Most of the surnames found on both lists
are sufficiently unusual so there can be little doubt that we are dealing
with the same families."]. The 62 early comers may be called the charter
members of the Barbados elite. Among them were such important Barbados
names as ALLYN, BULKELY, CODRINGTON, DRAX, FRERE, GUY, HOTHERSALL, PEARS,
and YEAMANS. Many in this core group seem to have had commercial background
in England. The evidence is circumstantial, but it looks as though a high
percentage came from English merchant families that had previously invested
in overseas trading companies or privateering ventures and were thus
particularly attuned to the possibilities of business enterprise in the West
Indies [footnote #30: "RABB, *Enterprise and Empire,* lists over 6,000
persons who invested in overseas commercial ventures during these years.
Among our group of 62 Barbadians, 45 have surnames that turn up on Prof.
RABB's list. Since RABB's list is so large and his time span closes just as
West Indian settlement begins, the correlation may prove nothing. However,
one would surely expect pre-1630 investors in trade and privateering to
interest themselves in post-1630 settlement."]. A good many people from
this core group were among the early island leaders. In 1639, 14 of the 62
sat on Governor HAWLEY's Council or in the Assembly. James DRAX, founder of
the first great Barbados sugar fortune, was a militia captain and
assemblyman in the 1630s. From the outset the Council and Assembly were
studded with names like GIBBS, FORTESCUE, SANDIFORD, READ, HOTHERSALL, and
BERRINGER that would recur repeatedly later in the century [footnote #31:
"List of Barbados Council and Assembly, July 19, 1936, *Jour. Bar. Mus.
Hist. Soc.,* X (1942-1943), 173-174. There were 33 councillors and
assemblymen in all."].
Yet we must not suppose that Barbados's political and social structure
was already taking firm shape in these early years. On the contrary, the
island population was highly fluid and transient. The majority of the big
sugar-planting families had not yet appeared on the scene, and a great many
of the big names in early Barbados history would soon disappear without
permanent trace. Sir William COURTEEN; the earl of CARLISLE; Gov. Henry
HAWLEY; John and Henry POWELL, who worked for COURTEEN; Peter HAY and James
HOLDIP, who worked for CARLISLE; Marmaduke ROYDON, William PERKINS, and
Alexander BANNISTER, who headed the merchant syndicate backing CARLISLE;
Edward OISTIN and William HILLIARD, with their large plantations---none of
these men left descendants in Barbados who were prominent or wealthy two
generations later [footnote #32: "For a parallel situation in early
Virginia, see Bernard BAILYN, "Politics and Social Structure in Virginia,"
in SMITH, ed., *Seventeenth-Century America,* 92-95."]. Barbados began as a
raw, crude, roisterous, and unsettled frontier community. "If all
whoremasters were taken off the Bench," Captain FUTTER asked Judge READ in
the 1630s, "what would the Governor do for a Council?" Though Captain
FUTTER was an assemblyman with forty servants, Governor HAWLEY punished his
insolence by putting him in the pillory at high noon without a hat [footnote
#33: "DAVIS, *Cavaliers and Roundheads,* 61; DAVIS, "Papers relating to the
early History of Barbados," *Timehri,* New Ser., VI (1892), 331."]. Still,
he seems to have asked a fair question.