James Tobin (planter) explained

James Tobin (1736/7–1817) was a prominent merchant and planter based in Nevis. During his life, he became one of the most prominent proslavery activists from the West Indies.^[1]

Life

Tobin was born in London, the son of James Tobin Sr. of Nevis, identified tentatively in the ODNB with the sea captain James Tobin (1698–1770), as given in Caribbeana. Educated at Westminster School, he took articles as a solicitor. After a period in Nevis, he returned in 1784 to Bristol. He was in business there, with John Pretor Pinney, and advocated for the planters' point of view on the abolitionist movement. He was a member of the Bristol West India Association.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Tobin travelled first to Nevis in 1758, to work in the family plantation business, at Stoney Grove Estate. From 1760 to 1782 he was there at least three times. He went back there in 1808.^{[1] [4]} In 1817, the year of his death, there were 213 enslaved people on the Stoney Grove plantation.^[5]

In the end Tobin quarrelled with the Pinney family. He died in Bristol, on 6 October 1817.^[1]

Works

Tobin was one of a group of writers who defended the existing institution of slavery, based on experience in the Caribbean, that included also Samuel Estwick, Edward Long, Richard Nisbet who published Slavery not Forbidden by Scripture (1773), and Philip Thicknesse.^{[6] [7]} He was drawn into controversy by the views of James Ramsay, expressed in An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies of 1784;^[8] and published a number of works:

• Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay's Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies (1785).^[9] Tobin deployed arguments including the deprivations found in English rural life, compared to an idealised West Indian plantation drawing on the novels of Henry Mackenzie and Sarah Scott.^[10] He cited the pro-slavery work of Rev. Robert Robertson from earlier in the century,^[11] and followed racial purity arguments from Long.^[1]
• Short Rejoinder to the Reverend Mr. Ramsay's Reply (1787).^[12] Tobin pointed out the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts as owner of a Barbados sugar plantation that used slave labour.^[13]

Tobin was addressed personally by Ramsay in A Letter to James Tobin, Esq., late member of His Majesty's Council in the island of Nevis (1787). He replied in:^[12]

• A Farewel Address to the Rev. Mr. James Ramsay (1788)^[14]

The 1786 Essay on Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species by Thomas Clarkson deals with Tobin as the "Cursory Remarker".^[15] In 1787, Ottobah Cugoano responded to a number of authors defending enslavement, including Tobin, in Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.^[16] Olaudah Equiano replied to Tobin in 1788, in The Public Advertiser, attacking two of his pamphlets, and also a related book from 1786 by Gordon Turnbull.^{[17] [18]} Hector Macneill wrote positively about Tobin's Cursory Remarks in his Observations on the Treatment of the Negroes in Jamaica (1788).^[19]

In February 1790 Tobin gave evidence to a parliamentary committee on the slave trade.^[1] A later work was A Plain Man's Thoughts on the present Price of Sugar (1792).^[20] In that year a bill to abolish the slave trade was defeated in the House of Commons.^[21]

Family

Tobin married in 1766 Elizabeth Webbe, daughter of George Webbe, a Nevis planter. Living until 1777 in Salisbury, they had eight children: James Webbe, George, Henry Hope, John, Elizabeth, Charles Meadows, Joseph Webbe, and Frances. Elizabeth married John Cobham of Barbados, and Frances Robert Bush of Clifton. In a marriage of first cousins, George Webbe Tobin, son of George, married Susannah Cobham, daughter of Elizabeth.^{[1] [22]}

Through his son, Joseph Webbe, Tobin is the four times great grandfather of astronomer William Tobin.

External links

• Miniature believed to be of James Tobin

Notes and References

1. 53030. David. Small. Tobin, James.
2. Book: Lena Boyd Brown. Vere Langford Oliver. More Monumental Inscriptions: Tombstones of the British West Indies. September 2007. Wildside Press LLC. 978-0-89370-422-3. 68.
3. Web site: Caribbeana: being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies. Oliver. Vere Langford. 1918. Internet Archive. Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke. 2. V. 14 May 2016. London.
4. Book: Royal Historical Society. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society: Volume 3: Sixth Series. February 2012. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-55169-4. 192.
5. Book: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command. 1818. H.M. Stationery Office. 17. 119.
6. Book: Bernard Bailyn. Philip D. Morgan. Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire. 1 December 2012. UNC Press Books. 978-0-8078-3941-6. 214.
7. Book: Larry E. Tise. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701–1840. 1 October 1990. University of Georgia Press. 978-0-8203-2396-1. 28–.
8. Book: James Ramsay. An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. 1784. J. Phillips.
9. Book: Olaudah Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. 22 February 2001. Broadview Press. 978-1-55111-262-6. 6.
10. Book: B. Carey. British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment and Slavery, 1760-1807. 31 August 2005. Palgrave Macmillan UK. 978-0-230-50162-1. 122.
11. Book: Vincent Carretta. Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage. 2011. University of Georgia Press. 978-0-8203-3338-0. 208.
12. Book: Christopher Leslie Brown. Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. 1 December 2012. UNC Press Books. 978-0-8078-3895-2. 367.
13. Book: Vincent Carretta. Philip Gould. Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. 5 February 2015. University Press of Kentucky. 978-0-8131-5946-1. 38 note 39.
14. Book: Travis Glasson. Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World. 1 February 2012. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-977399-2. 216.
15. Book: Vincent Carretta. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century. 23 July 2013. University Press of Kentucky. 978-0-8131-4409-2. 181 note 16.
16. Book: Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism. 24 June 2014. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-987451-4. 160.
17. Book: Vincent Carretta. Philip Gould. Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. 5 February 2015. University Press of Kentucky. 978-0-8131-5946-1. 67.
18. Book: Peter Fryer

    . Peter Fryer. Peter Fryer. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. 1984. University of Alberta. 978-0-86104-749-9. 108–9.

19. Book: Michael Morris. Scotland and the Caribbean, C.1740-1833: Atlantic Archipelagos. 12 March 2015. Routledge. 978-1-317-67586-0. 142.
20. Book: James Tobin. A Plain Man's Thoughts on the Present Price of Sugar, &c. 1792. J. Debrett.
21. Book: Thomas Clarkson. Ottobah Cugoano. Thomas Clarkson and Ottobah Cugoano: Essays on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. 5 October 2010. Broadview Press. 978-1-77048-254-8. 53.
22. Web site: Caribbeana: being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies. Oliver. Vere Langford. 1918. Internet Archive. Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke. 2–4. V. 14 May 2016. London.