At the conclusion of the War of Spanish Succession (Queen Anne's War), the joint occupation of St. Kitts by the French and English came to an end. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht made all of St. Kitts an English territory. This cession meant that at least 20,000 acres of additional land was at the disposal of the Crown. The distribution of these lands proved problematic and the final scheme for their sale was not completed until 1726. Part of the problem was that some of the lands were provisionally granted to the French Protestants who chose to stay after the peace, while others were given to persons for their notable public service. Additionally other colonists had been granted temporary possession of lands they settled on during the war, while still others leased lands while waiting for their final dispersal. The multitude of states of ownership that resulted obviously led to a great deal of chaos. In 1715 a plan was settled on to sell the lands by auction. Frank Pitman in his "The Development of the British West Indies" (1917) described the process as follows: "Persons desirous of purchasing the whole or parts of the French cession were to deliver, on or before August 24, 1717, their sealed proposals to the Board of Trade. A large number of bids were made, some by groups of capitalists for the entire area, some by West Indians, but absentee planters in England were the principal and highest bidders... Many of those then occupying the land on provisional grants, offered through their London merchants L5 per acre for estates ranging from 100 to 300 acres. This was thought a reasonable price for the lands... The number of provisional holders in 1718 was 97, and in 1721 it was 137." (pp.104-105) |
In the end all of the provisional grants were annulled and in 1726 three commissioners were sent to St. Kitts to sell the French lands. They were instructed to sell parcels of not over 200 acres to the highest bidders (Pitman 1917:105). Apparently the lands were sorted by quality and bids were placed accordingly. |
The following are the sales lists for each of the French sections. While the contents of these pages are arranged alphabetically by surname it is also possible to search these pages for individual surnames using either the "Find in Page" command on your browser or the search engine located on the St. Kitts-Nevis Genealogy Homepage: |
The lists were generously provided to me by Bruce Manson who received copies of the originals in the Journal of the Commissioners on file with the St. Kitts National Archives from Mrs. Victoria O'Flaherty, Archivist.
Burns, Sir Alan
1954 History of the British West Indies. George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., London.
Dunn, Richard
1972 Sugar and Slaves. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Merrill, Gordon
1958 The Historical Geography of St. Kitts and Nevis, the West Indies. Instituto Panamericano de Geografia E Historia, Mexico.
Pitman, Frank Wesley
1917 The Development of the British West Indies, 1700-1763. Reprinted 1967 by Archon Books.
