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Reference: Notable Clays, Jonas Clay (c1617-c1663) 1st New England Clay and above map of Barbados dated 1736
Unanswered Questions:
- Did Jonas Clay come to the New England Colony via Barbados (see Clay in red circle upper left)?
- Did Jonas Clay’s wife, Mary Batson come via Barbados also (see Batson in red circle near middle)?
- Did Mary Batson’s brother-in-law Simon Trott also come from Barbados (right side of map)?
The map shown above is dated 1750. The Trott addition in red is pulled from a 1657 map and superimposed here. No newer maps of Barbados show the Trott plantation. Barbados maps of 1671 to 1794 show a Batson plantation in the location shown above. Barbados maps of 1750 to 1794 show the Clay plantation. The map ledger for the above map indicates that a circle like the one under Batson is a “Plantation of one Windmill” and the icons under Clay and Trott are “Plantations of less Note.”
Barbados is a southeastern Caribbean Island 21 miles by 14 miles first settled by the British in 1625.
In the period 1640–1660, the West Indies attracted over two-thirds of the total number of English emigrants to the Americas. By 1650, there were 44,000 settlers in the West Indies, as compared to 12,000 on the Chesapeake and 23,000 in New England. Most English arrivals were indentured. After five years of labour, they were given “freedom dues” of about £10, usually in goods. (Before the mid-1630s, they also received 5–10 acres of land, but after that time the island filled and there was no more free land.) First, a tobacco producer, but then sugar after tobacco prices fell in the 1630s, as Chesapeake production expanded. – Wikipedia