This page contains details about the Rose family from Jamaica and possible link with members of the Robertson family who lived and worked there from the late 1700s.
The main purpose of this page is to provide information that may help to connect descendants.
Note for reference (as these terms are used in the registers):
Alexander Rose married Janet McDonald in or near Moulin, Perthshire, before 1778 (details to be investigated). They had at least one child:
In 1797, Daniel Rose was apprenticed to R Graham and Co, a merchant firm in Perth that traded with Black River in Jamaica. This was likely how Daniel ended up in Jamaica.
Some time between 1803 and 1804, Daniel Rose travelled to Jamaica, likely on the Greenock (not listed in passenger records, but it fits the merchant dispatch).
By 1805, Daniel Rose was serving as a bookkeeper at Elim Estate, near Black River and Cashew/Cashoo district in the Saint Elizabeth area, where he managed plantation accounts and oversaw the enslaved labour.
In 1806, a merchant ledger records that Daniel Rose extended credit to 'A. Robertson (woman of colour) - for salt fish and flour provisions'. This entry suggests a relationship of some sort with Ann Robertson (see below).
Daniel Rose became a modest landholder and enslaver in the Saint Elizabeth area, appearing in Jamaican records including the Jamaica Almanac from 1811 to 1826. According to the Slave Register of 1823, he owned five enslaved persons. There is no mention of any family, his married status, or any heirs. The 1826 Slave Register confirms continuity of ownership of the same five enslaved persons. It is not known if Ann Robertson was one of these slaves. A child named Nancy died btween 1823 and 1826; it is not clear if this child was connected with Daniel or with his slaves.
Despite his ownership of slaves, Daniel Rose was recorded as being an abolitionist and supported anti-slavery movements.
Daniel Rose likely died in late 1828 or early 1829 in the Cashew area, as his name disappears from records. A burial entry in the St Elizabeth records matches a planter of his age (50) and denomination (Presbyterian). Daniel left no known will or legitimate heirs in Scotland or Jamaica.
A three-month old 'quadroon' named Duncan Daniel Rose was baptised in Cashew, in the Parish of Saint Elizabeth, in the County or Cornwall, Jamaica on 28 March 1830 to Ann Robertson. The father was named as Daniel Rose, and both parents were recorded as 'unmarried'.
For the child to be a quadroon, it is assumed that the father was Daniel Rose, a white man, and Ann Robertson was a mulatto.
It has not been possible yet to definitively connect Ann Robertson with other members of the Robertson families living in Jamaica at the time but it is assumed she was full white.
It is believed that Daniel Rose was born around 1806. There have been suggestions that Daniel's father may have been a man named James Whitehorse Rose from Scotland, and his mother an African slave, but there is no documentary evidence to confirm this.
Daniel Rose: was recorded in St Elizabeth Land Tax records in the early 1800s; was living in Hanover (Jamaica) in 1817; and was recorded in the Manchester Parish land records in 1865.
Daniel Rose and Ann Robertson may have had at least one more child, a girl named Isabella Rose, born in 1833 in Manchester, Jamaica.
Daniel Rose died on 1 April 1882 in Williams Field, Saint James, Jamaica.
The fear of more uprisings as well as other factors prompted the British to abolish slavery in Jamaica on 1 August 1834. At that time, the British attempted to make all enslaved Blacks remain working for the same masters as apprentices. The system was a failure, and that also was abolished. Enslaved Blacks received their unrestricted freedom on 1 August 1838.
According to the Atlanta Black Star 'In order to sustain the exploitation of Blacks, an ideology of racism was developed to make the terms African, 'negro' and 'slave' interchangeable. The primary objective of this ideology was to categorize Black Africans, including those on the island, as less than human.'
According to one source:
After the abolition of slavery in Jamaica in 1834 (and the end of the Apprenticeship system in 1838), formerly enslaved people began acquiring land, though the process was difficult due to economic and social barriers imposed by the colonial government and former plantation owners. Many freed Jamaicans pooled their resources to purchase abandoned plantations or smaller plots of land, leading to the rise of free villages and peasant farming communities in the 1840s and 1850s. However, large-scale plantation ownership by black Jamaicans was rare in the immediate post-emancipation period due to limited access to capital, high land prices, and efforts by the planter class to maintain control over agricultural production. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some black and mixed-race Jamaicans who had accumulated wealth through trade, farming, or professional work were able to purchase plantations. However, widespread black ownership of large estates remained limited due to the economic dominance of white and foreign landowners.
John Pearson was recorded as a Planter in Grenada in 1831 and 1840 when he died. He may be linked with the Pearson Estate, owned by British settlers at St George, Grenada for which records exist from 1829 to the 1840s.
John Pearson may be the father of at least three children born in Grenada:
An Elizabeth Pearson was involved in a property transfer in the 1850s from Grenada to Jamaica.
Note that two girls with the name Harriet/Harriette Pearson were born in the UK around 1830. It is not yet known if either of these two had any connection with Jamaica:
Duncan Daniel Rose (born 1830), a planter, married Harriette/Harriet Elizabeth Pearson in Manchester, Jamaica on 26 April 1852. Duncan and Harriet Rose (nee Pearson) had eleven children:
Robert Alexander 'John' Rose married Priscilla/Pricilla Lawrence on 29 April 1903 at Content, Saint Mary, Jamaica. Robert and Priscilla Rose had six children:
According to his death certificate, Daniel Duncan Rose died (of old age) on 9 June 1905 at Santa Hill, Clarendon. He was 78, married and a planter. His grandson Hubert Kirkby (Jane Kirkby's son) was present at his death.
Page created 21 March 2025, last updated 20 March 2025. Copyright © Andrew Warland