I’m delighted to announce that my new book, Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, is being published on 4th September by Oneworld in the UK and 7th October by Pegasus in the US.
It’s been seven years since I started this project and I can hardly believe it’s finally going to be out there!
Heiresses exposes how, for almost two centuries, generations of women became enslavers and plantation owners in their own right, and brought huge fortunes back to Britain. I tell the dramatic - sometimes scandalous - stories of nine women who inherited enslaved people and plantations in the Caribbean and used their tainted wealth to marry into British society and fund lavish lifestyles. Money didn’t buy happiness: one heiress was arrested for shoplifting, another faked her own daughter’s death. Tracing their lives led me to some unexpected places - from Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution to Aston Villa Football Club – and people - from Jane Austen to Napoleon.
I also found out more about the people the heiresses enslaved than I had imagined possible, pushing beyond lists of names and ‘values’ to find individual stories. A Jamaican carpenter who collected caricatures of his enslavers; Dinah, an Antiguan heiress’s former nurse, who wrote to her former charge in India to demand her freedom; and Betsy Newton who travelled all the way from Barbados to London to confront her enslavers face-to-face.
I can’t wait to tell you more - watch this space for news of my book tour starting in the autumn - but in the meantime feel free to pre-order your copy - hope I can sign it for you in person soon!
It’s been seven years since I started this project and I can hardly believe it’s finally going to be out there!
Heiresses exposes how, for almost two centuries, generations of women became enslavers and plantation owners in their own right, and brought huge fortunes back to Britain. I tell the dramatic - sometimes scandalous - stories of nine women who inherited enslaved people and plantations in the Caribbean and used their tainted wealth to marry into British society and fund lavish lifestyles. Money didn’t buy happiness: one heiress was arrested for shoplifting, another faked her own daughter’s death. Tracing their lives led me to some unexpected places - from Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution to Aston Villa Football Club – and people - from Jane Austen to Napoleon.
I also found out more about the people the heiresses enslaved than I had imagined possible, pushing beyond lists of names and ‘values’ to find individual stories. A Jamaican carpenter who collected caricatures of his enslavers; Dinah, an Antiguan heiress’s former nurse, who wrote to her former charge in India to demand her freedom; and Betsy Newton who travelled all the way from Barbados to London to confront her enslavers face-to-face.
I can’t wait to tell you more - watch this space for news of my book tour starting in the autumn - but in the meantime feel free to pre-order your copy - hope I can sign it for you in person soon!
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