Author Description

"From the mid seventeenth century to the 1830s, successful gentry capitalists created an extensive business empire centred on slavery in the West Indies, but inter-linked with North America, Africa and Europe. S.D. Smith examines the formation of this British Atlantic world from the perspective of Yorkshire aristocratic families who invested in the West Indies. At the heart of the book lies a case study of the plantation-owning Lescelles and the commercial and cultural network they created with their associates."--Jacket.