A Documentary History of the Cinnamon Bay Estate

1718 - 1917

PART I

Establishment and Consolidation, 1718 - 1755

The 300 acre Cinnamon Bay Plantation was formed by the gradual consolidation of three approximately 100 acre agricultural land grants, generally referred to in Danish as "plantagies" [SJLL, 1728]. While it is evident that at least two of these parcels were associated through common family ownership within a decade of their establishments, all were independently settled as singularly functioning endeavors. By virtue of necessity, each of these holdings would have been minimally comprised of a processing facility, known in the era as a "works"; a residence, with associated cook house and bake oven; a grouping of shelters for the enslaved laborers, collectively referred to as the "village"; and, a field system, made up of cultivated areas, land cleared for pasture, and substantial acreage left in forest to provide the necessary resources of timber and fuel-wood. It can therefore be stated, that within the bounds of the modern day Cinnamon Bay Estate, there lies at least some evidence of the remains of three well established early period plantagies, although to this date none of these original sites have been conclusively located or defined.

Initially, the three small agricultural holdings taken up at Cinnamon Bay were all known by the names of the owners. Hence the plantation name, Cinnamon Bay, was probably not adopted until well after the properties were merged to form a single estate, perhaps as late as the 1760s when it first appeared in mortgage records [MP, 1766-69]. The bay that fronted these properties, however, was noted as Cinnamon Bay in colonial documents dating back as far as the earliest records for St. John, so it may well be that the name predates Danish settlement [SJLL, 1728]. It is believed that the name was given to the bay for the abundance of "Kaneel boom", the Dutch term for Cinnamon trees, which early Europeans encountered there. These trees were not true Cinnamon trees, but rather a type of Myrtle which can still be found there today, pimenta racemosa, known locally as the Bay-rum Tree [Little & Wadsworth, 1964].

The Daniel Jansen Property

We may never know for certain which of the Danish colonists was the first to take up a plantagie at Cinnamon Bay, but the first to receive a formal Danish deed was Daniel Jansen, the Creole son of an Irish born St. Thomas innkeeper, John Hatch, and his Dutch born wife, Adriana Delicat.¹ By the time St. John tax rolls began to be compiled in 1728, the thirty-nine year old Burger Captain Daniel Jansen was noted as the owner of a 3000 (Danish) foot long, by 2000 foot wide, Caneel Bay Quarter sugar plantagie which had been taken up since 1718, so it is presumed he was the original claimant of that property (see Map 1; parcel A, p. 18). Further supporting Jansen's early presence on St. John is the fact that his name appears on a list of the island's colonists compiled in 1722; however, no geographical location was indicated on that occasion [LD, 1720-22].

Although the sugar works on Jansen's plantagie was described in the 1728 tax rolls as "meedelmaadig" (mediocre or run-of-the-mill) [SJLL, 1728], even a rudimentary sugar operation would have been a fairly well developed affair. In 1718, when Governor Bradel first laid out a set of guidelines for the occupation of St. John, one of the six requirements was that a sugar works had to be erected within five years on penalty of the confiscation of the property [BD, 1718]. While it was later realized that not all of the land on St. John was suitable for growing sugarcane and the order was never enforced, any planter with the necessary capital and appropriate location was clearly encouraged to do so.

To establish a sugar plantagie, the first step was the arduous process of clearing away the dense subtropical forest which still covered much of the island. After the larger trees and woody bush were cut off, the land was further cleared by burning. As the task of preparing the ground for cultivation commenced, construction of the necessary plantagie structures was also begun. A circular, level earthen platform was built, upon which an animal driven crushing machine for the extraction of sugarcane juice was mounted. Next, a stout, fire resistant boiling house, with at least three built-in kettles, would begin to take shape, followed soon after by a warehouse, a shed for the dry-storage of fuel-wood and magass, a cooper's shop, pens for the property's beasts of burden, and a rum still. Additionally, shelters for the enslaved, a house for the overseer, and a residence with a detached cook house and bake oven, suitable for a prominent burger and his family, would all be raised in relative close proximity to the sugar factory complex (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Depiction of a rudimentary sugar works

of the early eighteenth century

The largest of the properties that would later be merged to form the broader Cinnamon Bay estate, and the only one of the three which was well suited for development as a sugar plantagie, the Daniel Jansen parcel was the most economically viable of the holdings. As development of the property progressed, production capabilities increased, leading the Jansen family to seek additional lands in order to raise their level of production and attain maximum profitability from the holding. The first substantial expansion of the Jansen property came in 1728, not by purchase, but through the marriage of Daniel and Adriana Jansen's widowed daughter, Elizabeth, to Pieter Durloo. In that year, Durloo had expanded his St. John holdings to include a well situated shorefront cotton plantagie, which lay alongside the Jansen property (see Map 1; parcel B, p.18) [JP, Durloo vs. Jansen, 1745-49].

But Captain Jansen did not survive to realize his goal of establishing a large and lucrative sugar plantation on St. John. After his death in 1729 [JP, 1745-49], it was to be his widow and their heirs who would see the property through the final stages of development to emerge as a valuable and highly coveted estate.

Map 1: Detail from a 1918 United States survey map of

St. John overlaid with the approximate boundaries of

the Jansen (parcel A), Gandy/Durloo (parcel B), and

de Buyck/Beaudewyn (parcel C) plantagies.

The Gandy / Durloo Property

Described in the 1728 tax rolls as being located "inde flacten af Caneel Bay" (in the flat of Cinnamon Bay), Peter Durloo's newly acquired cotton plantagie bounded the Jansen holding on its south barricade, and ran 3000 feet in length along the shoreline of Cinnamon Bay. The Durloo property had been previously taken up in 1722 by William Gandy² [SJLL, 1728], an Englishman and master builder by trade [PCR, 1723]. Gandy had lived on his waterfront holding with his wife, Elizabeth, and her two daughters, Anna Maria and Rachel Mauor [STBP, 1724-32]. Given his abilities as a builder one would assume that the structures Gandy erected on his property were soundly constructed and well finished. Experienced in the construction of packhouses on St. Thomas, it might well be that the warehouse, which still stands on the Cinnamon Bay waterfront today, comprises at least elements of Gandy's handiwork. It is also possible that even after taking up a plantagie Gandy had continued to practice his trade, and he may have been responsible for overseeing the construction of the original structures on the nearby Jansen sugar plantagie.

Figure 2: A bay side cotton plantagie of the early eighteenth century

The physical infrastructure of a cotton plantagie was sparse in comparison to a property engaged in sugar production, the only necessary structures being a shed, where the ginning and baling of the cotton took place, a dry weatherproof storage building, a residence with its associated cook house and bake oven, and shelters for the workers (see figure 2). Labor requirements were also comparatively low, and no more than ten slaves were ever noted as working the Gandy plantagie before it was purchased by Peter Durloo in 1728 [SJLL, 1729]. It is likely, therefore, that only three or four wattle and daub structures comprised the entire workers village on the site during this period.

Unlike William Gandy, Peter Durloo did not live on his Cinnamon Bay plantagie, and as early as 1729 the property may have already been integrated with the Jansen holding. In fact, records suggest that Durloo only financed the acquisition of the parcel for the already heavily indebted Jansen heirs. In any event, the purchase of the waterfront Gandy plantagie by the husband of Daniel Jansen's eldest daughter, not only increased the amount of land available to the Jansen family for cultivation, but also secured them unencumbered access to the shoreline for the export of their products and the import of materials and supplies [JP, 1745-49]. However, a formal merging of the two properties' operations was not reported until 1731, when land records show Daniel Jansen's widow, Adriana, in possession of both plantagies [SJLL, 1731]. And, although the former Gandy parcel continued to be recorded in the tax rolls as a cotton plantagie until 1739, it is evident that at least a portion of the property had long since been converted to sugarcane cultivation by that date [JP, 1745-49].

Further cementing the Jansen family's ties to the former Gandy plantagie was the marriage of Daniel and Adriana Jansen's son, Johannes, to William Gandy's stepdaughter, Rachel Mauor, in 1731 [STBP, 1723-32]. After their wedding, the couple took up residence on the property where they resided until Johannes' death ten years later [SJLL, 1732].

So it can be stated with assurance that while the industrial heart of the Jansen plantagie continued to be the property's active sugar works, by 1731 the buildings associated with the former Gandy/Durloo cotton plantagie had become integral elements of the recently expanded Jansen estate complex: a property worked at that time by a combined labor force of twenty-seven adult male and female slaves.

It is just an aside, but there is a poignant postscript to the story of William Gandy. After selling his plantagie to Peter Durloo in 1728, Gandy moved to his wife's inherited property on Lovango Cay, where it is said that soon after he was murdered in his sleep by his slaves [Martfeldt, c. 1765].

The St. John Slave Insurrection of 1733 and its Impact on the

Jansen Properties at Cinnamon Bay

By 1733, the Cinnamon Bay sugar plantagie, now run by the widowed Adriana Jansen with her two younger sons, Lieven and Johannes, and worked by fifty slaves, appears to have been going through a period of stable productivity. In the previous year more than eleven thousand pounds of sugar had been delivered to the Company warehouse on St. Thomas for credit to Madam Jansen's account [LD, 1730-32], and in early May another fourteen hogsheads of brown sugar and three barrels of kill-devil (rum) had been sent [STRB, 1730-37].

But this situation was soon to change. The spring of 1733 proved to be the driest in memory, and it was soon followed by a long and destructive summer hurricane season. As provisions became increasingly scarce, more and more slaves took to the secluded hills of St. John's well forested interior to escape the famine that had gripped the plantagies.

In October, word spread across the island that all of the enslaved from the Suhm property on the East End of St. John, as well as a number from the Company estate and other plantagies around the Coral Bay area, had gone maron. Despite all efforts to hunt them down, the runaways deftly avoided capture; their lurking presence serving only to heighten the already tense atmosphere in the colony. Then, at three o'clock on the morning of November 23, 1733, the first defiant acts of outright rebellion took place on the Coral Bay plantagie owned by Magistrate Johannes Sødtmann [Pannet, 1733 (trans. Caron & Highfield, 1984)].

The well documented 1733 slave insurrection on St. John, proved to be one of the longest and most costly uprisings in the history of the West Indies colonies. After gaining control of the Danish fort in Coral Bay, the rebels swept across the island plundering the plantagies and killing any white inhabitant they encountered. But not all of the slaves were drawn into the plot. Many fled along with their masters or escaped into hiding to avoid confrontation. Some even stood their ground against the onslaught, protecting both their homes and the planters' properties. Such was the case at the Jansen plantagie, where it was reported that when the insurgents arrived to enlist Madam Jansen's laborers into their group, "these Negroes, who had armed themselves defensively, received the rebels with indescribable courage [Pannet, 1733]." They were not, however, able to protect the property's dwelling house, storage building, and boiling house from being looted and burned, nor could they prevent the Jansen cane fields from being set ablaze [BD, 1734]. As for Madam Jansen and her family, Adriana was on St. Thomas when the revolt broke out and thereby avoided being caught up in the fray, but it was later reported that her sons Johannes and Lieven, along with their families, had narrowly escaped death by concealing themselves on tiny Cinnamon Cay which lies only a few hundred feet off the beach at Cinnamon Bay [Martfeldt, c.1765].

For three months the rebels doggedly held St. John, continually laying siege upon a makeshift fortress the colonists had erected at Peter Durloo's Klein Caneel Bay plantagie. It was only after the Danes enlisted the help of French troops from Martinique that they were able to shake the Africans' resolve. Still, for months to come many of the rebels remained at large, and it was not until August 25, 1734, that the last fifteen stragglers were finally lured into surrender.

The de Buyck / Beaudewyn Property

The St. John slave revolt stunned the island's colonists and suppressed development on the plantagies for a number of years. Yet it was during this time period that the Jansen family again increased their land holdings. When the yearly tax accountings for St. John were resumed in 1736, Daniel and Adriana Jansen's eldest son, Jasper, was reported as the owner of a small coastal cotton plantagie directly west of the two Jansen properties occupied by his mother and younger brother, Johannes [SJLL, 1736] (see Map 1; parcel C, p.18).

The property that Jasper Jansen acquired had first been taken up by Pieter de Buyck in 1719. After de Buyck's death in 1728, it became the property of Abraham Beaudewyn, husband and legal guardian of de Buyck's widow [STBP, 1728]. Despite Pieter de Buyck's relatively short tenure of ownership, the bay which fronted his plantagie has continued to be known to this day by his name: Peter Bay -- as has Peter Peak, Peter Cay, and Peter Point [Edwards, 1993].

Neither de Buyck nor Beaudewyn ever lived on their Peter Bay property. Instead, they relied on hired masterknegts to oversee the day-to-day running of the plantagie [SJLL, 1728-33]. The least developed of the holdings which were joined to form the Cinnamon Bay estate, only three enslaved laborers, Piero, Janno, and Lena, had been on the plantagie at the time of de Buyck's death [STBP, 1728], and no more than six workers were ever reported on the property prior to Jasper Jansen's purchase [SJLL, 1736-39]. With such a small labor force it is apparent that only modest amounts of provisions, cotton, and some sugar (which was processed elsewhere) were being grown. Given the property's limited production, coupled with the fact that the owners were seldom, if ever, in residence, it is unlikely that the plantagie consisted of anything more than a simple field system, a baling and ginning shed, a storage building, one small dwelling for an overseer, animal pens, and a few shelters for the enslaved. It was reported in the tax records, however, that soon after Jasper Jansen's purchase an upgraded cotton works was erected on the property [SJLL, 1737-39].

Like their predecessors, Jasper Jansen and his wife Rebecca van Still did not live on their property, but neither were they recorded to have employed a masterknegt. Upon Jasper's death, in August of 1737, Rebecca became the recorded owner of the Peter Bay plantagie. It is of interest to note that in the three years following Jasper Jansen's death, one Mulatto woman was reported as the only free person in residence on the property, while as many as eleven enslaved men, women, and children, still labored on its ground [SJLL, 1737-39].

By all appearances it would seem that while the Jansen, Gandy/Durloo, and de Buyck/Beaudewyn properties remained listed in the St. John tax records as separate parcels throughout the first half of the eighteenth century, by the late 1730s all three were already being run as a single Jansen family holding. And while the administrative core of this broadly diversified operation was undoubtedly the original Daniel Jansen plantagie, the extended Jansen family took full advantage of all the resources and infrastructures associated with each of the properties they had acquired. As a result, during this time period the activities on the Cinnamon Bay land holdings were still relatively non-centralized, and population dispersal over the broad area of their lands was most likely at its peak.

The First Recorded Inventory of the Jansen Family's Cinnamon Bay Property

Some years before the death of Madam Adriana Jansen, members of the family had begun to be concerned that the aging matriarch might "distribute the estate to the disadvantage of the heirs." To aid in a proper evaluation of the Jansen sugar plantagie, in 1738 Peter Durloo and Lieven Jansen requested that a formal appraisal of the combined Jansen and Gandy/Durloo properties be carried out. While it is unfortunate that the standing structures on the parcels were not itemized in the appraisal inventory, the following extract provides not only our first detailed look at conditions on the Jansen's Cinnamon Bay property, but also offers a rare glimpse at the composition of a Danish colonial sugar plantagie during the pre-consolidation era (for a copy of the original inventory see Appendix III, document 1):