Pen (Jamaican cattle farm)

A pen was a livestock farm on the Island of Jamaica. Pen-keeping included the breeding of cattle, horses, mules, sheep and dairy farming.[1] Gardner (1873), referring to the 1750s, stated: "The life of a tolerably successful pen-keeper was at this period, as it is now, the most enviable to be found in the colony. Cattle thrive well, and few servants are required when once a pen is well established."[2]

1889 map of Thetford Pen in the Parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica, containing 2,034 acres, the property of Louis Verley Esq.

Batchelors Hall Pen was owned by Chaloner Arcedekne; it supplied Golden Grove Plantation, owned by the prominent Simon Taylor. Correspondence between the two men survives.[3]

See also

• List of plantations in Jamaica

References

1. Jamaica in 1896. A Handbook of Information for Intending Settlers and Others, pamphlet, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, 1896, pp. 14–17.
2. William James Gardner, A history of Jamaica: From its discovery by Christopher Columbus to the year 1872, 1873, p.160
3. Betty Wood, T.R. Clayton and W.A. Speck, The Letters of Simon Taylor of Jamaica to Chaloner Arcedekne, 1765–1775, Journal of Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series, Volume 19, July 2002 , pp. 1-164

Further reading

• Shepherd, Verene A., The effects of the abolition of slavery on Jamaican livestock farms (pens), 1834–1845, 2008
• Shepherd, Verene A., Pens and pen-keepers in a plantation society: aspects of Jamaican social and economic history, 1740–1845, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1988.
• Carol Stiles, Vineyard: A Jamaican Cattle Pen, 1750–1751, A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History, College of William and Mary in Virginia, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, 1985