Frank Travels: Space, Power and Slave Mobility in the British Leeward Islands, c. 1700–1730

By tracing the regional and trans-Atlantic travels of an enslaved man named Frank, this article examines the relationship between slave mobility, space and power in the British Leeward Islands from 1700 to 1730. Comprising Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, Saint Kitts and several of the Virgin Islands, the British Leewards rest in close proximity to each other. In turn, plantation slaves like Frank lived in a world where acculturation to slavery involved adapting to an archipelagic context. Relying on private letters sent between Frank's plantation manager and his absentee owner, colonial legislation and government correspondence, this article argues that the geography of the Leeward archipelago shaped master–slave relations in the region and, in turn, influenced the ways slaves used their knowledge of the environment as a source of power and even liberation.