Whitehall Ellis

Whitehall Ellis, born c. 1767, died after 1837.

During his tour of the West Indies, Joseph Sturge describes being "introduced to Whitehall Ellis, the head negro, an intelligent man, who is still as active and as lively as a boy, though nearly seventy years of age. He has a numerous family of descendants, and is a man of considerable property, being possessed of a light taxed cart, and a number of cattle and sheep. He owned, before the 1st of August, nine slaves, twenty head of cattle, and seventy sheep, but, like other prosperous men, he has experienced occasional reverses. His speculations in slaves did not turn out well; he gave us a most amusing account of one of them, who stole some of his cattle, and sold them for himself in Kingston market, and then, pretending they were lost, almost killed his master by leading him a wild -goose chase in search of them, among the swamps and woods. As he, being himself a slave, could not hold slaves in his own right, he was likely also to lose the Compensation, through the faithlessness of the friend in whose name they had been registered. Ellis invited us to his house, which is a large, comfortable, and furnished cottage, with jalousies in the casements. He produced a bottle of madeira, and wine glasses; and, by so doing, according to West India notions, refuted the thousand and -one statements of the Anti-slavery Society, of the physical sufferings of slaves!"

We are grateful to Steven Carter for his assistance in compiling this entry.

Harvey, Thomas, and Joseph Sturge. The West Indies in 1837. Being the Journal of a Visit to Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, and Jamaica. Undertaken for the Purpose of Ascertaining the Actual Condition of the Negro Population of Those Islands . Hamilton, Adams & Company, 1838, p. 186.