This 2011 blog post from the John J. Burns Library at Boston College describes two eighteenth-century letterbooks held in the Library’s Collection. The letterbooks belonged to Stephen Fuller, a British agent for Jamaica in the late eighteenth century. If you click on the hyperlink towards the end of the blogpost, you’ll go to the finding aid for the Williams Ethnological Collection, of which the Fuller letterbooks are a part. This Collection seems to hold some fascinating primary sources, relating to eighteenth and nineteenth century Jamaica. This would be a great place to start for anyone seeking a Jamaican research topic.
Time consuming and laborious, hand-written letterbooks were employed to keep a record of correspondence before modern technologies such as photocopiers, scanners and computers became commonplace tools. As part of the Williams Ethnological Collection, the Burns Library holds two letterbooks that belonged to Stephen Fuller. Fuller (1716 – 1808) was the British Agent for the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the late 18th Century, which was under British colonial rule from 1655 until 1962. Fuller held this post from 1765 to 1795 and these letterbooks cover his correspondence during the years 1762-1773 and 1776-1784. Thus, the books include transcriptions of letters regarding Fuller’s application for the position in the months leading up to his appointment. Fuller cited many well-connected potential supporters, including William “Alderman” Beckford—Lord Mayor of London in 1762, owner of two lucrative plantations in Jamaica, and father of the important author William Thomas Beckford who was…
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Dr Jennifer McLaren 