John Gladstone FRSE
(1764-1851)

Died aged 86

Sir John Gladstone of Fasque, 1st Baronet, FRSE (11 December 1764 – 7 December 1851) was a British merchant, slave owner, politician and the father of the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. Through his commercial activities he acquired several large plantations in Jamaica and Guyana that were worked initially by enslaved Africans. The Demerara Rebellion of 1823, a slave revolt centred on his estates was brutally crushed by the military. The extent of his ownership of slaves was such that after slavery was abolished in 1833, he received the largest of all compensation payments made by the Slave Compensation Commission. After the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Gladstone expelled most African workers from his estates and imported large numbers of Indian indentured-labourers through false promises of providing them schools and medical attention. However, upon arrival they were paid no wages, the repayment of their debts being deemed sufficient, and worked under conditions that continued to resemble slavery in everything except name.

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