Nathaniel Wells

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Nathaniel Wells (born 1779 in St Kitts; died 13 May 1852 in Bath, Somerset), was the son of a Welsh merchant and his black slave. After inheriting his father's plantations, he became a wealthy land owner, magistrate, and Britain's first black Sheriff.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Return to Wales 1.2 Slave estates 1.3 Piercefield House and Monmouthshire 2 References 3 External links

[edit] Biography

Nathaniel was the son of William Wells, who emigrated from a rich Cardiff family to St Kitts where he was a successful slave trader and latterly became a wealthy plantation owner. After his British wife died, William began fathering children by his slave women - at least six, all by different women^[1]. Although rape was a well known practice, Wells untypically looked after both the children and their mothers, giving them their freedom and sums of money to live on - including Nathaniel and his mother Juggy.

[edit] Return to Wales

Nathaniel was sent by his father to Wales to be educated. On graduation he stayed in Britain and seems to have been accepted without comment by other members of his class in the area around Chepstow, Monmouthshire, becoming a land owner fuelled by his fathers wealth. Wells became a magistrate, sitting in judgement over white people at a time when most black people in Britain's colonies - including Wells' own estates - would have had no right to a court hearing.

[edit] Slave estates

Wells managed his inherited sugar plantation estates like any other absentee white owner. Wells would have had little control over the way the slaves he owned were treated, as the estates were leased out to local managers. But the punishment of slaves by the manager of one of his estates was singled out for criticism by abolitionists, which became the subject of an abolitionist tract^[2]. There were only supposed to be 39 lashes administered in a certain period of time, while it was alleged that the manager gave 39 lashes plus a 'brining' - putting pepper water on to those lashes to make the slaves scream.

He remained a plantation owner and slave owner until emancipation was enacted in St Kitts in 1833, and was compensated financially by HM Treasury.

[edit] Piercefield House and Monmouthshire

By 1801, Wells had property worth an estimated £200,000 and was married to the only daughter of Charles Este, a former chaplain to King George II ^[3].

In 1802, he bought Piercefield House from Colonel Mark Wood, after agreeing to buy it for £90,000 over dinner^[4]. Wells added to Piercefield until it reached almost 3,000 acres (12 km²). Wood stated :- "Mr Wells is a West Indian of large fortune, a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour as to be little removed from a Negro".^[5]

Already a Magistrate, in 1818 Wells became Britain's only known black sheriff when he was appointed Sheriff of Monmouthshire and Deputy Lieutenant of the county^[6].

In light of his failing health, Wells sold Piercefield to John Russell in 1850. Wells had been married twice (his second wife was called Esther), and had 22 children.

He died in Bath, Somerset in 1852 at the age of 72, worth an estimated £100,000.

A memorial tablet can be seen at St Arvans Church, near Chepstow, Monmouthshire^[7][8]. Piercefield estate is now the home of Chepstow Racecourse, while the house is abandoned and derelict.

[edit] References

• Wells, Nathaniel (1779–1852) - a biography by J. A. H. Evans, first published Sept 2004^[9]

[edit] External links

• BBC Bio