Everything about Thomas Modyford totally explained
Colonel
Sir Thomas Modyford, 1st Baronet, (c.
1620 –
2 September 1679) was a planter of
Barbados and
Governor of Jamaica, 1664-70.
Modyford was the son of a mayor of
Exeter with family connections to the
Duke of Albemarle, who emigrated to Barbados as a young man with other family members in 1647, in the opening stages of the
English Civil War. He had £1,000 for a down payment on a plantation and £6,000 to commit in the next three years. Modyford soon was dominant in Barbados island politics, rising to be speaker of the house of assembly in
Barbados during the reign of
Charles II, and factor for the Royal Adventurers, who had a monopoly in the
slave trade to the islands.
He negotiated with the Commissioners of the
Commonwealth to be governor of Barbados, which put him in an awkward position with the
Restoration of the English monarchy.
He was appointed
Governor of Jamaica, by commission dated 15 February 1664. He arrived in Jamaica 4 June 1664, with seven hundred planters and their slaves, marking the wholesale introduction of a slavery-based
plantation economy in Jamaica. He appointed to his council his brother, Col. Sir James Modyford and Col. Thomas Modyford. Under Modyford the island was first divided into parishes. Modyford remained a factor for the Royal Adventurers until 1669, overseeing their plantation in Jamaica. Sir James was granted a royal license in November to ship convicted felons from England to his brother in Jamaica. In Jamaica Sir Thomas used a labor force of twenty-eight
indentured servants from England.
Sir Thomas had a
cacao plantation at Sixteen Mile Walk in St. Katherine's parish
In 1670 he was "Governor of His Majesty's Island of Jamaica Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesties Forces within the said Island and in the Islands adjacent Vice-Admiral to His Royal Highness the
Duke of York in the American Seas", according to the commission to
Henry Morgan to make war upon the Spanish. Soon his notoriety for corruption caught up with him and he was removed as Governor (1670) and returned to London for trial. Modyford spent two years in the
Tower of London, but in the end he was not charged and returned to his plantations in Jamaica.
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