Drax of Drax Hall by Paul Lashmar review – forensic exposé of a British dynasty built on slavery
This timely and important book reveals Barbados plantation owner James Drax to be the equal of Robert Clive or Cecil Rhodes in his profiteering from human miseryIn his enthusiastic introduction to Paul Lashmar’s Drax of Drax Hall, David Olusoga observes that Britain’s role in slavery was, until recently, a “terra incognita”. While a deeper reckoning seemed to have begun in the past few decades – statues toppled, archives scoured, reparations debated – the global rightward lurch has seen a renewed reluctance to connect past crimes with present privilege. Lashmar’s book makes that connection impossible to ignore. Unlike broader studies of Britain’s colonial economy, such as Matthew Parker’s The Sugar Barons or Michael Taylor’s The Interest (to both of which Lashmar acknowledges a great debt), Drax of Drax Hall narrows its focus to a single family, showing that the Drax dynasty did not just profit from slavery but pioneered its brutal processes.James Drax, the family’s 17th-century patriarch, was not merely a plantation owner but the founder of a system of control and punishmen. Arriving in Barbados in 1627, he was instrumental in shifting the island’s labour force from white indentured servants to enslaved Africans. By the 1640s, he had devised the plantation model that would dominate the Caribbean for centuries – a vast industrial machine, extracting staggering wealth through calculated cruelty. At the height of their power, the Draxes enslaved up to 330 people at any one time. The violence was staggering: life expectancy for the enslaved on the island was just five years. Lashmar makes clear that, while figures such as Clive or Rhodes may loom larger in the public imagination, James Drax deserves equal, if not greater, infamy as one of history’s great profiteers of human misery. Continue reading...
This timely and important book reveals Barbados plantation owner James Drax to be the equal of Robert Clive or Cecil Rhodes in his profiteering from human misery
In his enthusiastic introduction to Paul Lashmar’s Drax of Drax Hall, David Olusoga observes that Britain’s role in slavery was, until recently, a “terra incognita”. While a deeper reckoning seemed to have begun in the past few decades – statues toppled, archives scoured, reparations debated – the global rightward lurch has seen a renewed reluctance to connect past crimes with present privilege. Lashmar’s book makes that connection impossible to ignore. Unlike broader studies of Britain’s colonial economy, such as Matthew Parker’s The Sugar Barons or Michael Taylor’s The Interest (to both of which Lashmar acknowledges a great debt), Drax of Drax Hall narrows its focus to a single family, showing that the Drax dynasty did not just profit from slavery but pioneered its brutal processes.
James Drax, the family’s 17th-century patriarch, was not merely a plantation owner but the founder of a system of control and punishmen. Arriving in Barbados in 1627, he was instrumental in shifting the island’s labour force from white indentured servants to enslaved Africans. By the 1640s, he had devised the plantation model that would dominate the Caribbean for centuries – a vast industrial machine, extracting staggering wealth through calculated cruelty. At the height of their power, the Draxes enslaved up to 330 people at any one time. The violence was staggering: life expectancy for the enslaved on the island was just five years. Lashmar makes clear that, while figures such as Clive or Rhodes may loom larger in the public imagination, James Drax deserves equal, if not greater, infamy as one of history’s great profiteers of human misery. Continue reading...
