Francis Levett

Piggybacking on the exploding British Empire, these early English traders built juggernauts, trading everything from tobacco to indigo to textiles.

The early Levett brothers, sons of a Puritan rector in Ashwell, Rutland, built their empire from scratch, intermarrying with other powerful merchant families.

[8] Levett planned initially to import Greek labourers from Smyrna into the fledgling British colony to do the work of planting.

Then Levett was tapped as a judge for the new colony and granted large tracts of land at the insistence of Oswald and his brother-in-law Tonyn.

But the centrepiece of Levett's edifice was the domestic arrangement, which included a vineyard with 3,000 vines, two hanging gardens fronting the St. Johns River, 50 farm buildings, a network of bridges, roads and causeways built by Levett's slaves, including slave cabins, kitchens, barns, poultry houses and the crowning gem: a large two-story dwelling measuring 60 feet (18 m)-by-36 feet (11 m) with seven rooms on each floor.

It was an extraordinary gesture to import the luxuries of the life of a wealthy English gentleman to a fledgling, mosquito-infested colony in the Americas.

In addition to his inherited income, Levett relied on fees paid him by absentee English landlords to manage their plantations as well.

He was accused in a whisper campaign of embezzling funds by purchasing slaves for one of his absentee clients, Thomas Ashby, and then absorbing them into his plantation workforce.

By 1774, Levett returned to East Florida and subsequently resigned from the Royal Council after discovering that the controversy had rendered him ineffective: no members would sit with him.

But their haven didn't last long; in the diplomatic after effects of American independence, the British were forced to cede their Florida colony back to Spain in 1784.

Unwilling to swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown many of the English planters like Francis Levett Jr. were forced to pack up everything and leave hurriedly.

[13] Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Francis Levett Jr. was forced to transport all his goods, including 100 slaves and house frames and household silver, to the Bahamas on short notice.