Visualizing Property
Belvidere, Jamaica
Plan of a Section of Belvidere Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica, 1772, #23-042 ©John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912. Photo by Rythum Vinoben.
Belvidere Estate (also referred to as Belvedere, Bellvidere, or Bellvedere) is located in Morant Bay within the Parish of St. Thomas in the East (now simply St. Thomas) in Jamaica. Belvidere was owned by John Cope Freeman (1726–1788) from 1763 until his death. Freeman was the eldest of five children born to Catherine Margaret Hampson and Cope Freeman of Salisbury, Wiltshire.
John Cope Freeman’s father owned two plantations in Jamaica: Mountain River and Guanaboa. He was likely a descendant of Colonel Thomas Freeman (c.1600–1690), an early settler in Jamaica and a member of the Jamaican Assembly in the 1660s. In the 1700s, Morant Bay became known as “Freeman's Bay” due to Col. Freeman's extensive landholdings in the area.
Freeman was the first cousin of Jane Austen’s father, the Rev. George Austen (1731–1805), and godfather to her brother Charles. As noted by Deirdre Le Faye, a record exists that shows George Austen received £30 from Freeman in 1765, around £4,440 in 2024. There are no records, however, directly connecting Jane Austen to Freeman or the Belvidere Estate. After John Cope Freeman’s death, Capel Cure I (d. 1820) served as the executor and trustee of Freeman’s estate. He is likely the Mr. Cure Jane Austen mentioned meeting in her letters in 1811.
Click on the map to see where Belvidere is today.
In 1772, Belvidere was surveyed and recorded on this plan at a scale of 10 chains (1/8 of a mile) to an inch. It depicts what appear to be provision grounds—plots of land unsuitable for cane cultivation that were allocated to enslaved people for cultivation to supplement the meager rations provided by the planters. This practice presented significant challenges, as they were required to tend to these plots during their “spare” time, and the land, often distant from the cane fields, was typically of poor quality. As depicted in an image from a map from 1800 reproduced in Higman’s Jamaica Surveyed (1988), the map likely corresponds to the land situated at the base of mountainous terrain.
“Part of a Plan of Belvidere Estate, St. Thomas, 1800, by John B. Pechon,” from Higman, B. W. Jamaica Surveyed: Plantation Maps and Plans of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Barbados: University of the West Indies Press, 2001, p. 252.
Two aspects of this map are particularly notable. First, it is a manuscript, which suggests it was for private use and served primarily as an informative document for Freeman’s records. The second notable feature is the description of the plots, handwritten to the right of the plan. Some of these descriptions relate to the crop cultivated (e.g., Indigo, Plantain, or Banana), others to a distinctive feature (e.g., Long Lane, Still House, or Red Gate). Most significantly, some plots are named after the person they were allotted to (e.g., Jupiter, Jack’s, or Peggy). While the names of enslaved individuals might appear in a plantation’s bookkeeping, they are rarely mentioned on a plan or map.
According to available records, in the period 1809 -1833, Belvidere had between 253 enslaved people in 1824 and 369 in 1817. In 1836, after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, the trustees of the estate, Capel Cure II–who likely inherited the position from his father–and Edward Jarman, were awarded compensation for its 328 registered enslaved people, amounting to £6,708, 2 shillings, 11 pence, approximately £641,809 in 2024.
Detail of Plan of a Section of Belvidere Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica, 1772, ©John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. Photo by Rythum Vinoben.
Details of Plan of a Section of Belvidere Estate, St. Thomas in the East, Jamaica, 1772, ©John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. Photos by Rythum Vinoben.