19. Tax Collectors 

This is King Street, a wide busy thoroughfare between the quays on the River Avon and the River Frome. The Tax Collectors office was in King Street.

The experienced tax collectors of Bristol had established a wharf for the uncontrollable Welsh, called Welsh Back where they were allowed to unload at night because of the tides and was obviously prone to smuggling, this area of illegal activities had attracted Hawkins whose family were the original Sea dogs in the Elizabethan period & Slavers in 1556 

Sir John Yeamans  The founding of Charleston, South Carolina

The largest brewery in Bristol in the 1640s was owned by John Yeamans.
One of his sons founded Charleston, South Carolina, and another was Mayor of Bristol.

In the early 1600s John Yeamans owned Bristol's largest brewery. It was much later sold to the Saunders family, who ran it for a hundred years. It eventually became the Georges' and then the Courage Brewery. Yeamans had 13 children, John was the eldest (born in 1610) and Robert was born in 1616.   

Sir John Yeamans (as he later became) was one of the early settlers to prosper on the Caribbean island of Barbados. He owned a sugar plantation in Barbados. He married his second wife in very despicable circumstances. He poisoned her husband, Col Berringer, married Margaret, and acquired their estate in 1650. 

Sir Robert Yeamans
Mayor of Bristol 1669

Twenty years later he established the Proprietorship colony in Charles Town, Carolina, where he imported 200 slaves and introduced slavery to North America. He imported the slaves to grab the largest plantation qualifying for an additional 100 acres for each slave.

He became the 3rd Governor only because he did not arrive with the original settlers. He arrived several months later, and the 80 yr old governor he appointed had died. He had to remove his replacement and he then took over. He established a plantation there but died of disease there in 1674.  

His descendents (the Moores) became very prominent in the following half century and his son and his descendents became slave dealers.

A pirate ship enters Charles Towne, Carolina

Yeamans’ brother Robert was the Sheriff, Mayor (in 1669) and Chief Magistrate of Bristol, as well as a ship owner and a merchant, who had an early involvement in the Caribbean trade. Redland Court was owned by Sir Robert Yeamans in the 1680s. He died childless.  Sir John’s grandson, Colonel Robert Yeamans of Barbados, eventually inherited Redland Court.

In the last two months of 1718, 49 pirates were hanged in Charles Towne, South Carolina 

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