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and William Jonathan should die before the age of 21, “an additional eight hundred pounds be given to my mulatto son Joseph Pitt Washington Franklin.” He recommended that “humanity and care be used to and taken of all my slaves, particularly Nelly and Grace, to whom I leave five pounds and desire them to stay with my children.” Following the death of his father, the provisions of the will seem to have been carried out. Washington was certainly manumitted and it is apparent that he did receive an education, leading the historian Robert Schomburgk to assert that he was “superior to those with whom he intimately associated.” Subsequently, two of his brothers, Joseph Bailey and Thomas Jonathan died. There seems to have been some dispute over the further provisions of his father’s will regarding the sum of eight hundred pounds to be given to Washington Franklin and he felt cheated by his half siblings. It is believed that this may have contributed to the radicalization of Franklin. There were probably other contributing factors. The situation of his mother must have caused him anguish. Certainly, even though he was relatively privileged when compared to the lot of the enslaved population around him, it is clear that Washington Franklin empathized with their status and resented the institution of slavery which he hoped to end on the island. Irrespective of his feelings however, he continued to live at Franklyns. From the evidence gathered by the committee to investigate the causes of the 1816 revolt, as well as other sources such as the journal kept in 1816 by Mr. Cave of Nicholas Abbey, one of the officers of the militia operating in St. Philip against the revolting slaves, it is clear that a number of individuals played important roles and that Bussa was not the exclusive leader of the slave revolt. Franklin played a principal role in sensitizing the enslaved population and in providing much of the intellectual impetus for the planning and execution of this revolt. For example, the confession of Robert, slave on Simmons Plantation states that “he heard Jackey say that Washington Francklin was to be Governor and to live at Pilgrim. Jackey used to go very often (sometimes at night) to see Washington Francklin: that he has heard Jackey tell Will
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Nightengale to go to Washington Francklin and he would tell him what was to be done.” Robert Schomburgk who arrived in Barbados some thirty years after the events of 1816, to conduct research for his massive History of Barbados, had this to say about Franklin: “superior to those with whom he intimately associated: to him was afterwards distinctly traced the practice of reading and discussing before the slave population those violent speeches which were at that period delivered against slavery in the mother country: nor is there any doubt that he conceived and planned the outbreak which spread such desolation over the island.” It is apparent that he made no effort to protect his family’s plantation. This sustained damage to the amount of three thousand pounds. His sister Elizabeth Franklin died in the same year of the revolt. She was just thirty; her half brother Washington was thirty four. In his Handbook of Barbados (1912) E.G. Sinckler states, “Joseph Pitt Washington Franklin, a free coloured man, conceived and planned the outbreak. He and others were hanged.” By the strangest of coincidences, family connections link the author to Franklin and to his place of execution. The author is related to the Franklin family and Enmore, where Washington Franklin was executed, later became the family home of his ancestors, the Cavan and McChlery families. The 1816 slave revolt was crushed by superior military power within three days. In assessing the role of the forgotten or ignored Washington Franklin, one must ask the question: would the 1816 slave revolt have taken place without the input and role of Franklin to inform and agitate and as the principal organizer? There is every likelihood that the events of 1816 would never have taken place without Franklin. Did Franklin, Bussa, Jackey and all those others who took part die in vain? The answer must be no. Modern historiography while not discounting the work of the abolitionists in Britain, ascribes great importance to the slave uprisings of 1816 in Barbados, 1823 in Demerara, Guiana and 1832 in Jamaica for their role in sensitizing the world to the injustices of slavery and of convincing the authorities who wielded power both in the metropolis and the colonies that change was inevitable.
Lady Gilbert Carter Gertrude Codman Parker was born in Boston, USA into an upper class family whose roots lay in the Mayflower. A child of privilege, she studied art at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. Her marriage in 1903 to Sir Thomas Gilbert Carter the British Governor of the Bahamas after a whirlwind courtship of a few weeks, would take her to Barbados where she also had ancestral roots, as do so many other prominent American families. Her Barbadian ancestor, Nathaniel Kingsland was a landowner in Christ Church and the family name still lives on in the district known as Kingsland. Sir Thomas was re-assigned to Barbados and the couple arrived in Bridgetown in 1904. Almost immediately, her skills were seen by the Barbadian public, when she submitted her designs in a competition to select a stamp issue commemorating the Trafalgar Centenary. Her design did not win, but the following year when another competition was held to design a