From Exeter to New York and Jamaica

A WEEK ON GENEALOGY!
Yesterday I shared information about the Sylvesters of Shelter Island.

But to get back to my matriarchal pursuits...(though you know of course this is no longer women's history month..but I can celebrate women's history any day of the week!)

11) Gissell Brinley Sylvester's parents were (numerically going back in history) 12) Thomas Reeves Brinley, (born 1591 in Exeter, Devon, England died 15 Oct 1661 in Datchett, Buckinghamshire, England) and 12) Anna Wase (b. 1606 in Petworth, Sussex, England, d. 13 Jun 1687 in Datchet, Buckinghamshire, England).  

12) Thomas Reeves Brinley is well documented as the "Auditor General of the Revenues of King Charles I and II."  He left England during the English Civil War by Cromwell, and returned to his post for King Charles II but died a year later.

12) Anna Wase had 8 children, and also went with her husband when the revolution of Cromwell made Royalists unpopular, and lived into her 80s probably back in her home of Datchet.

Her parents were 13) William Wase (b. May 1580 in Petworth, Sussex, England, d. 19 September 1642 in Datchet, Buckinghamshire, England) and 13) Ann Cole (b. 1582 as recorded in St. Leonard, Heston, London, Middlesex, England, death unknown.)  Apparently she married 13) William Wase when she was 16 in Petworth, Sussex, England.  There is no other information on her at Ancestry at this time.  But she is one of  the earliest matriarchs that I'll be mentioning today.

12) Thomas Reeves Brinley's mother was 13) Joanne Reeves (his middle name from her) (b. 1567 in Exeter, Devon, England, Death in (?) Exeter, Devon, England.)

An illustration of Exeter in 1563, entitled Civitas Exoniae (vulgo Excester) urbs primaria in comitatu Devoniae

Exeter has a wonderful history, dating from Roman times and before...and I can't begin to explore all that is in this town.  The map above would have been how it looked during Joanne Reeves lifetime.   

Exeter Cathedral, completed 1400

Looking back to the Sylvesters of Shelter Island, I just want to show their connection to my family.  Their daughter 10) Ann Sylvester married 10) Capt. Jonathan Bowers in 1695. 

Ancestry has lots of confusing listings for poor 10) Ann Sylvester Bowers, with different birth places, dates, different marriage places and dates, and different death places and dates.  Wherever she may be buried, may she rest in peace. 

Their daughter, 9) Mary Bowers married 9) Joseph Swasey, my grandmother's third great grandparents. (Grandmother was Ada Swasey Rogers.)

And as noted yesterday, Nathaniel "... Sylvester and his associates were part of the Triangle Trade between the American colonies (including the Caribbean), Africa and England. His descendants continued to use slaves on the plantation into the 19th century. An estimated 200 blacks are buried at the Negro Burying Ground on the North Peninsula.<sup>[4]

I am a descendent of slave owners, (the guilt is upon my grandfathers, not me) and it appears the Sylvesters also were involved with slave traders...which is what the Triangle Trade means.
  Wikepedia says:
"A classic example[of the Triangle Trade] is the colonial molasses trade. Sugar (often in its liquid form, molasses) from the Caribbean was traded to Europe or New England, where it was distilled into rum. The profits from the sale of sugar were used to purchase manufactured goods, which were then shipped to West Africa, where they were bartered for slaves. The slaves were then brought back to the Caribbean to be sold to sugar planters. The profits from the sale of the slaves were then used to buy more sugar, which was shipped to Europe, restarting the cycle. The trip itself took five to twelve weeks.

AND then the same article also says:
"Yet, the "triangle trade" as considered in relation to New England was a piecemeal operation. No New England traders are known to have completed a sequential circuit of the full triangle, which took a calendar year on average, according to historian Clifford Shipton.[7]  [7.</sup> Curtis, Wayne. And a Bottle of Rum. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006–2007....there's no mention of Shipton in this footnote.]

^{So I'm not sure how involved in this trade triangle the Sylvesters were...but it's pretty likely that they did profit from one or all three of the three arms of trade from Africa to America to Europe to Africa.}

1781 auction of 620 Igbo captives to be sold straight off the slave-ship, from Nigeria to Jamaica. More the exception than the rule for their ethnicity to be noted, but many determined researchers of African-American origins have gone through existing archives to ferret out this information.

Some of this information has come to Wikepdia from the book by Mac Griswold, The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. I haven't been able to find a copy of it yet.