Samuel Martin (planter)

{{Infobox person

| name = Samuel Martin

| birth_date = {{circa|1694|lk=yes}}

| birth_place = Green Castle, Antigua

| death_date = {{Death year and age|1777|1694}}

| death_place = Ashtead, England

| nationality = British

| occupation = {{hlist|Planter|writer}}

| notable_works = Essay upon Plantership (1754)

| children = 23, including Samuel, Henry, and Josiah

| module = {{Infobox military person

| embed = yes

| embed_title = Military service

| allegiance = {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Great Britain}}

| branch = Antigua Militia

| branch_label = Branch

| rank = Colonel}}

}}

Colonel Samuel Martin ({{circa|1694|lk=yes}} – 1777) was a British West Indian planter who wrote Essay upon Plantership (1754). He is known as "Samuel Martin the Elder" to distinguish him from his son,{{cite document |last=Martin |first=Samuel |date=30 May 1777 |title=Will of Samuel Martin of Ashtead, [Ashstead], Surrey |location=Kew, England |publisher=The National Archives}} Samuel Martin, who served as a British member of parliament and the secretary to the Treasury.

Early life and career

Martin was born on the Greencastle estate in Antigua,{{cite web |last1=Jeppesen |first1=Chris |title=Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds: Uncovering connections between the East India Company and the British Caribbean colonies through the British Library's Collections |url=https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dist/1/251/files/2013/01/East-meets-West-Finding-Aid-Final-21.08.14.pdf |accessdate=12 September 2019}} to Major Samuel Martin who, in 1701, was murdered during a slave revolt after having demanded the enslaved Africans on his estate work on Christmas Day. The seven year old Samuel escaped a similar fate, being hidden in nearby fields by his nanny. She was herself enslaved and was subsequently freed in recognition of this act. The younger Samuel was sent to live with family in Ireland while his mother remarried Edward Byam.{{cite web |last1=Kalamaula Maioho |first1=Miller |title=Lydia Thomas |url=https://www.geni.com/people/Lydia-Thomas/6000000006412988414 |website=Geni |publisher=Geni.com |accessdate=12 September 2019}}

Personal life

Martin fathered 21 children, at least 16 of whom died during his lifetime.{{cite book |last1=Sheridan |first1=Richard B. |title=Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775 |date=1994 |publisher=Canoe Press |isbn=978-976-8125-13-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QUV98bwrqscC&pg=PA200 |language=en|pages=200–207}} The eldest son, Samuel, became a British member of parliament and the secretary to the Treasury; Henry became comptroller of the Navy, a member of parliament, and a baronet; Josiah was governor of North Carolina.{{cite journal|jstor = 3740144|title = Samuel Martin, Innovating Sugar Planter of Antigua 1750-1776|last1 = Sheridan|first1 = Richard B.|journal = Agricultural History|volume = 34|issue = 3|pages = 126–139|year = 1960}}

''Essay upon Plantership''

In 1754, Martin wrote Essay upon Plantership, a treatise on managing a sugar plantation.{{cite web |title=Samuel Martin the elder of Antigua |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146634488 |website=Legacies of British Slave-ownership |publisher=UCL Department of History |accessdate=12 September 2019}}{{cite journal |last1=Foy |first1=Anna M. |title=The Convention of Georgic Circumlocution and the Proper Use of Human Dung in Samuel Martin's Essay upon Plantership |journal=Eighteenth-Century Studies |date=2016 |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=475–506 |doi=10.1353/ecs.2016.0032|s2cid=163277043 }} It appeared in at least seven editions between 1750 and 1802. In the work, he urged planters to treat their slaves with “tenderness and generosity”; the aim was to induce “love” by setting an example of “benevolence, justice, temperance, and chastity.” When Janet Schaw, a Scot, visited his Greencastle estate in Antigua in 1774, she described the eighty-year-old planter in rosy terms, as “a kind and beneficent Master,” who was “daily employed” to render the island “more improved.”{{cite book |editor-last=Peterson |editor-first=Derek R. |editor-link=Derek R. Peterson |date=2010 |title=Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic |location=Athens, Ohio |publisher=Ohio University Press |page=107 |isbn=978-0-8214-1901-4 |oclc=794698907}}