Christopher Codrington
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Christopher Codrington (1668 - April 7, 1710), British soldier and colonial governor, whose father (also named Christopher Codrington) was captain-general of the Leeward Islands, was born in the island of Barbados, West Indies, in 1668.
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of All Souls, and subsequently served with the British forces in Flanders, being rewarded in 1695 with a captaincy in the Guards. In the same year he attended King William III on his visit to Oxford, and, in the absence of the public orator, was chosen to deliver the University oration.
In 1697, on the death of his father, he was appointed captain-general and commander-in-chief of the Leeward Isles. In 1703, he commanded the unsuccessful British expedition against Guadeloupe. After this he resigned his governorship, and spent the rest of his life in retirement and study on his Barbados 'estates', as they were euphemistically known.
[edit] Slave Trading and Slave Holding
The 'estates' were in fact, a series of forced labour camps where enslaved Africans, who had been forcibly removed from their homeland and transported across the Atlantic in slave ships, endured a harsh and brutal regime producing sugar and other high value commodities for the benefit of the Codrington family.
[edit] Location of Profits
Codrington died on the 7 April [[1710[[, bequeathing his slave plantations to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for the foundation of a college in Barbados. This college, known as the Codrington College, was built in 1714-1742. To All Souls College, Oxford, he bequeathed books worth £6000 and £10,000 in money, from which was built and endowed the Codrington Library there.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
