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NOTES Introduction 1. For other illuminating analyses of slave trading, see Bancroft, Gudmestad, Wendell Holmes Stephenson, Tadman, and Walvin. See Drago for a valuable compilation of letters written by South Carolina slave trader A. J. McElveen to a Charleston slave broker, Z. B. Oakes, from 1852 to 1857. Chapter 1. Possessive Relations Epigraph transcribed by Julian Prentis from records at the London Guildhall Manuscript Library. http://www.prenticenet.com/news/2005/prentices_halton_ buckingham_england.htm. 1. Prentis’s partner, John Norton, was willing to risk British condemnation for treason to protect his American business interests. He wrote a public apology from London on January 16, 1775, in which he averred, “My avowed principles (which I now publish) are, that the Parliament of Great Britain have not the least shadow of right to tax America; that I never will, directly or indirectly, deviate from these principles, which I have always professed, and which ought to govern every person that has any regard for the liberty of America” (Virginia Gazette, May 6, 1775). 2. The will ran as follows: August 19, 1773 I John Prentis of the City of Williamsburg Merchant . . . Give bequeath and devise unto my brother Joseph Prentis and his Heirs forever, my Lands in Surry, James City and York County’s as also my waiting Boy Alexander and [other slaves] I give to my sister Waters my sett of Table China, and if she is Indebted to me at the time of my death I desire she may not be called upon to pay it as I Give it her. I desire my Man Squire may Chuse his Master. . . . After the Payment of my just Debts I desire the Remainder of my Estate be equally divided Between my Brothers Daniel and Joseph Prentis and my Cousin Robert Prentis who I appoint my Executors and desire they may not be held to give Security to the Court. . . . John Prentis (York County Records) 3. Order of the York County Court, December 12, 1776. Robert and Joseph continued to pay an annuity to support Elizabeth, who survived into the nineteenth century. 4. Robert attempted to continue overseeing management of the store from Trinidad. The removal of Virginia’s capital from Williamsburg to Richmond was “fatal” to business, he asserted. Suffering from debts in Trinidad, he pleaded with Joseph for financial assistance: “All I have to request & repeat to you is, to use your utmost Endeavors to extricate me from Debt here, & if it cannot be effected by any other means endeavor to raise it by a Mortgage on the Store, observing to make Insurance on what you send to avoid the Loss by risk of the Sea” (Robert Prentis to Joseph Prentis, June 23, 1786, wpfp). 5. William Bowdoin died at the age of one and a half. Joseph Jr. was born at Green Hill in January 1783, baptized at the Bruton Parish Church, and eventually followed in his father’s footsteps. The third son, also named William, died at the age of five; fourth, John Bowdoin, died at the age of two. The fifth child, John Brooke Prentis, was born in 1788. Margaret next gave birth to her first daughter, Eliza Bowdoin, in 1791. Another son, Robert Waters, was born and died in November 1794. In 1796, Margaret gave birth to Mary Anne. 6. For thorough analyses of Tucker’s life and work, see Hamilton and Doyle. 7. The book, along with many other books from Judge Prentis’s library, is preserved in the Rockefeller Library of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 192 notes to chapter one ...

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