Malcolm Ross Letter to Richard Oswald

Richard Oswald (1705-1784) was a Scottish born merchant, slave trader, and British landowner who was a frequent consultant with the British government in the areas of trade and British colonial policy during and after the American Revolution. Oswald owned plantation land and estates in British Florida, Georgia, and Virginia as well as in the Caribbean. Oswald promoted land purchasing among wealthy British business owners and used political clout in southern and Caribbean colonies to ensure land grants to investors abroad. Toward the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War, Oswald led informal negotiations with the Americans in Paris, France in 1782. The preliminary articles in the negotiations were signed by Oswald for Great Britain. These articles were adopted in 1783 with no major changes added.

Malcolm Ross worked at the Mount Oswald Plantation in British Florida, one of four settlements owned by Oswald in the colony. Oswald’s plantations cultivated indigo, rice, cotton, and sugar. To work the land, enslaved workers and indentured servants were brought to these plantations. Indentured servants were often indebted to the landowner and entered the indenture, which was a contract for them to live and work on the plantation without a wage in order repay those debts. Indentured servants were considered free peoples with more, though minimal, freedoms than enslaved workers.

Children of enslaved workers were born as enslaved persons, even if one parent was not enslaved. The child's freedom had to be purchased from the plantation owner who may also have been the child's parent. While not uncommon for white men to father children with enslaved workers, the practice evoked a sense of societal shame. Transactions to purchase their children's freedom were often done in confidence.