Mesopotamia, Jamaica

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.

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

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

• List of plantations in Jamaica

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.

External links

• https://books.google.com/books?id=JrMyBQAAQBAJ&dq=Mesopotamia+in+Westmoreland+Parish&pg=PA62