ABSTRACT
Bornwithin a fewmonths of one another, JohnCunninghamand SimonTaylor each built large plantation fortunes in Jamaica. During their lifetimes, Jamaica was the most strate-
gically and commercially significant colony in Britain’s Atlantic empire, a status that rested on the lucrative sugar economy of the island. The hundreds of large slave-run sugar plantations, generally known as ‘estates’, produced the mainstay of Jamaican
exports, most of which went to Britain. Taylor and Cunningham took advantage of this colonial economy based on sugar and slavery, moving from mercantile activities into sugar planting to create their vast fortunes. Both died in Jamaica, leaving behind
them several plantations and huge holdings of enslaved people. Cunningham’s inventory listed the names of over 1300 enslaved people, and Taylor’s of over 2200.9 As leading slaveholders and extremely wealthy planters, whose income and social stature put them at the apex of Jamaican colonial society, both men performed public duties that were the
exclusive preserve of the colonial elite: the ‘highest offices of civil and military duty’, alluded to on Taylor’s epitaph. Taylor had served as an elected member of the powerful local legislature over many years. Both men had risen to high ranks in the militia and
served as custodes (chief magistrates) of their respective parishes, a role that permitted them to use the prefix ‘Honourable’ before their names.10
