Henry Hawley (governor)

Henry Hawley was the controversial English Governor of Barbados from 1630 to 1640.

Career

Henry Hawley was the younger son of James Hawley,^[1] who held the lease for Brentford Market in Middlesex and, until 1622, the lease for Boston Manor nearby. His father was a Mercer^[2] who had trained at Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court to do with Law in London but does not appear to have been called to the bar. Governor Henry Hawley himself served a Mercer's apprenticeship at the Three Cranes Tavern in London. Almost all of Governor Henry Hawley's siblings embarked on colonisation in the New World. One exception was his younger brother, Gabriel, who left his Draper's^[3] apprenticeship to serve in 1622 ^[4] his Mercer uncle Henry Hawley, who had been newly appointed as the English East India Company's chief merchant in the East Indies. Governor Henry Hawley's brother, James,^[5] had served his Mercer's apprenticeship with his uncle Henry Hawley and may have immigrated to settle in Virginia. Governor Henry Hawley appointed his brother, William to colonise and govern St. Croix, one of the Virgin Islands but they were soon routed by the Spanish.^[6] Governor Henry Hawley's sister, Susan, married Richard Peers,^[7] a fellow planter and in Hawley's absence, the acting deputy governor.^[1] In addition, he was also brother in law of Richard Ashcraft (1590-1600).^[8] Governor Henry Hawley's eldest brother, Jerome, was one of eight investors in the founding of Maryland colony and served in the colony's General Assembley. As Captain Henry Hawley, he was appointed governor of Barbados in 1630, arriving in June that year initially in the capacity of Commissioner to the Earl of Carlisle, who after a war of patents between himself, Sir William Courten and the Duke of Marlborough, emerged as the victorious proprietor of the island. James Hay, the Earl of Carlisle, a favourite of King James I and a fellow Scot, died heavily in debt in 1636 and, owing to the minority of his son, trustees were appointed to administer his estate. Onerous demands were made on Barbados by the trustees to settle these debts via high taxes (payable in cotton or tobacco) and custom duties. The high taxes and tariffs, brutally enforced by the governor, proved to be arduous to the islanders and injurious to trade.

Recent historians such as Larry Dale Gragg ^[9] and Mathew Parker ^[10] look back on Governor Henry Hawley's rule of the island and write that he "was universally held to be a tyrant" and a "drunkard". In keeping with such a strong indictment of his character it is believed that he brought in the first ever slave code in 1636 ^[11] that Black Africans brought to the island to be sold should be enslaved for life, although some ^[12] doubt it ever existed. Darryll Clarke,^[13] author of Governor Henry Hawley and the 1636 Slave Code makes the case for its existence and points out that this slave code is central to our understanding of what is now considered to be the origin of racialised slavery. Exactly when, how and why the English enslaved Black Africans for life in the decades leading up to and immediately after 1636 lacks any clear explanation in history and, because we in the West are living in a multi-racial post slave and colonial era, deserve consideration by academics and historians alike.

A new interpretation ^[14] of Barbadian early colonial settlement suggests that the initial wave of settlers brought to the island in 1627 and funded by Sir Willem Courteen, a Dutchman living in England, may have been Puritans.^[15] Sir Willem Courteen, a Protestant Lutheran who held favour with King James I, may have been representing these Puritans and lobbying the King for a patent secretly on their behalf. The arrival of Governor Henry Hawley on the island signalled the determination of the secret Roman Catholic faction in England to wrestle control of the Caribbean from the Puritans by having their frontman, James Hay, the Earl of Carlisle, lobby the King for a patent on their behalf. Evidence for such a secret faction has been found ^[16] centred in and around Brentford where Governor Henry Hawley's family held the lease for Brentford Market since 1560. This secret Roman Catholic faction is linked not only with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 but with determined and repeated attempts to colonise, not just Barbados but the rest of the Caribbean and the Americas from 1583 onwards.

References