Making Money from the Royal Navy in the Late Eighteenth Century: Charles Kerr on Antigua ‘breathing the True Spirit of a West India agent’

Abstract

Recent studies of the legacy of people enslaved in the British Caribbean have neglected how non-plantation owners in colonies such as Antigua sometimes became enormously wealthy. This article examines how the Scottish-born Antiguan merchant Charles Kerr acquired his fortune through his activities as a prize agent, especially relating to the British occupation of St Eustatius (1781) and of Guadeloupe (1794) and as a contractor/supplier to the Royal Navy and others for a variety of goods and services. Charles Kerr, and those like him, need to be added to the subjects requiring study to strengthen our understanding of the various legacies of slavery and the nature of the British Empire.