Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance, and Slavery in the Caribbean

by Miranda Kaufmann

From Jamaica to Charleston, Sierra Leone to India, Australia and back to England, this is the story of the heiresses—and the role they played in the history of enslavement.

Through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it was a fact universally acknowledged that any man in want of a great fortune ought to find himself a Caribbean heiress. Their assets, the product of the exploitation of enslaved African men, women, and children, enabled them to marry into the top tiers of the aristocracy and influence society and politics. They fell in love (not always with their husbands), eloped, divorced, squandered fortunes, commissioned art, threw parties, went mad and (in once case) faked a daughter’s death.

In her much anticipated follow up to Black Tudors, Miranda Kaufmann peers beneath our pastel-hued, Jane Austen inspired image of the Georgian heiress to reveal a murky world of inheritance, fortune-hunting and human exploitation. She also unearths the stories of the people the heiresses enslaved, whose labor funded their lifestyles with whom their fates were intimately intertwined.

Heiresses provides a compelling and often shocking account of how Britain profited and continues to profit from enslavement. In the vein of landmark books such as Empireland, Natives, They Were Her Property, and White Debt, Heiresses promises to expand and challenge our understanding of history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Historical

544 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 7, 2025

About the author

Dr. Miranda Kaufmann is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, part of the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She read History at Christ Church, Oxford, where she completed her doctoral thesis on 'Africans in Britain, 1500-1640' in 2011. As a freelance historian and journalist, she has worked for The Sunday Times, the BBC, the National Trust, English Heritage, the Oxford Companion series, Quercus publishing and the Rugby Football Foundation. She is a popular speaker at conferences, seminars and schools from Hull to Jamaica and has published articles in academic journals and elsewhere (including the Times Literary Supplement, The Times, The Guardian, History Today, BBC History Magazine and Periscope Post). She enjoys engaging in debate at the intersection of past and present and has been interviewed by Sky News and the Observer.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As in her Black Tudors: The Untold Story, Kaufmann uses the stories of nine Caribbean heiresses to personalise a wider history of slavery and exploitation that linked Britain (and certainly not just England) and the Caribbean with implications into our present. It's especially illuminating to have this focus on slavers as women, a gendered perspective that is frequently overlooked despite the presence in nineteenth century literature of Caribbean heiresses: Bertha Mason probably the best known as the 'madwoman in the attic' in Jane Eyre, or Miss Lambe in Jane Austen's Sanditon and Miss Schwartz from Vanity Fair.

Kaufmann takes a dual perspective: what it means to be the inheritor of slaves, slave-worked plantations and the huge wealth that was generated, and what it means that this inheritance passed into the hands of women. Some had to fight for their 'rightful' legacy; others were pursued by men keen to get their hands on this money. Perhaps the most shocking story for me is that of the biracial heiress, daughter of a white planter and a Black slave who then inherited her father's sugar business and became herself a slave owner. The way race was negotiated along with regulations of how being white was classified is fascinating and far more porous and mutable than we might expect.

For all the interest of these life stories, perhaps the most impassioned part of the book is when Kaufmann discusses how this history projects into our present: the question of apologies and reparations, the need for honest education about Britain's colonialist past which is still being resisted, the impact that huge influx of wealth had and still has on our built environment in the UK from monuments to ports and warehouses to the country houses that are everywhere - and the way that tainted money has created structures of wealth and inequality that continue to percolate through our society.

A must-read history that has found a new gendered angle on the continuing story of imperial Britain.

Many thanks to HighBridge Audio for an audiobook via NetGalley

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feminism is about the sexes being treated equally. Miranda Kaufmann's Heiresses is extremely feminist because she meticulously proves that women can be just as terrible as men when it comes to the slavery question. Buckle up.

Heiresses looks at nine different women who were, well, heiresses. Specifically, they inherited wealth which was often tied directly to the number of slaves on their Caribbean holdings.

If I may go almost entirely off topic for a tangent. My wife and I love the real estate shows like House Hunters. One of our favorite spinoffs is, you guessed it, Caribbean Life. (Note: Bahamas life is just okay. No, I can't explain why.) Anyway, often you will see the house hunters take in the culture of the island and a favorite stop is remains of sugar mills. Inevitably, the entire scene is a shot of the mill and one of the parents looking at a kid and saying, "They made sugar there." End scene. I realize there is a time and place for this, but sugar mills were a slight step above hell on earth. It is similar to showing a kid an old electric chair and saying, "They had really big electric bills in this room, anyway, let's go look at a condo!" Rant complete.

While I just indulged my historical rage at your expense, Kaufmann does not do that in this book! In fact, she does what I loved in another exceptional book The Zorg by Siddharth Kara. Kaufmann lets your mind wander from the horror and lulls you into the feeling that you are just reading a historical Pride and Prejudice. (Note: No, I did not pick that book at random. There is a direct connection.) You get this strange disassociation from slavery for a few pages and then wham! Kaufmann lists out the names of the slaves the women inherited and reminds you that Kaufmann, who is clearly a fantastic researcher, could find nothing about these people other than this one document. They barely existed to the people who owned them. Each of the nine women are very different, but the common elements are 1. They barely lived in the Caribbean for any length of time (if at all) and 2. Showed zero compassion for the lives with few exceptions and mostly only when emancipation made it beneficial for all involved.

It is all so strange to look at these people and realize that they were not all sociopaths. At least, not completely. In fact, there is a particular couple who were absolutely devoted to each other in a real, tangible way. However, they could not possibly care less about the fact that they owned people and took away their free will. You read about these people being so generous with each other and their friends while having one of the worst blind spots in human history. The husband was at least more consistent as he went to Australia and proceeded to attempt to exterminate the indigenous people there. (See: Appin massacre)

I love books that unearth a new perspective, and this book is one of them. The research is impeccable, and just as importantly, it is well-written in a way that any audience can appreciate. Admittedly, you aren't going to feel good at the end of it, but you will be much smarter and better for it.

(This book was provided as a review copy by Pegasus Books.)

[History Today]

Heiresses, as Miranda Kaufmann admits, is indebted to scholarship which has revealed, over many decades, the extent of the ties between the British establishment and Caribbean slavery. Founded in 2009, UCL’s Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery database has become an important touchstone for any researcher wishing to understand how men – and women – benefited from the £20 million paid out by the British government to compensate enslavers for loss of their ‘property’ after the abolition of slavery in 1833. In recent years, organisations including the Church of England, Bank of England, and the Guardian newspaper, and families such as the Gladstones and Trevelyans, have acknowledged their institutional and personal indebtedness to slavery. Some have taken active measures, issuing public apologies, making financial reparations, or curating exhibitions to account for the lasting harms of slavery. Attention has fallen, almost exclusively, upon men. But, as UCL’s Centre has shown, over 40 per cent of the beneficiaries of compensation were women, half of whom were resident in Britain.

Kaufmann invites us to explore the lives of nine women – the ‘heiresses’ of the title – who benefited from slavery. Born in the early decades of the 18th century, most of them lived into their sixties (and even nineties), and witnessed seismic shifts in societies on both sides of the Atlantic. But Heiresses is as much about how these women’s lives were shaped by the law and societal expectations as it is about their relationships with Caribbean slavery. Their fortunes hinged on their ability to inherit property, but this was curtailed by primogeniture and coverture and, sometimes, issues of illegitimacy. Often, it was women’s inability to inherit property (including enslaved people) that helped conceal their complicity in slavery. Kaufmann’s subjects all did inherit enslaved people in the Caribbean, and include women as different as Isabella Bell Franks (1769-1855), the daughter of an Ashkenazi Jewish ‘mercantile dynasty’, and Frances Dazell (1729-78), the mixed-heritage daughter of an enslaved mother and enslaver father.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Misha Ewen is Assistant Professor in American History at the University of Sussex.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

This audiobook is narrated by Jennifer M. Dixon as well as the author, Miranda Kaufmann. Jennifer has a rich voice with crisp pronunciation. She managed to convey emotion in a way that was not emotional. I always appreciate hearing a nonfiction author narrate their own text because you get to hear yourself what the author emphasizes.

I read Black Tudors by this author when it was released. I still use that history text as a reference in my studies on early chattel slavery in what's now the UK. So I was extremely excited to see this available for review on NetGalley.

I had extremely high expectations going into this and if possible my expectations were surpassed. This covers not just the women, overwhelming white, who profited off of the exploited labor of enslaved folks but also the politics of British colonies at this time. This covers how race was viewed, the 'formula' or generational math required to go legally from 'Black' to 'white'. How this occurred and why. This covers multiple cases through various time periods. This allows the reader to understand how slavery functioned to restrict even free Black folks. How policy and law shifted to restrict free Black wealth and autonomy. Just incredibly detailed.

This author uses the most current language when referring to enslaved peoples, she explains why she uses this language. She makes repeated mention of the unequal and in many instances unwilling 'situationships' between enslaved women and white men. Again the author provides full explanations for how and why this occurred. This was respectful without compromising accuracy. Various descendants of these 'situationships' between enslaved (or free) Black women and white men go on to profit off of and exploit labor of enslaved Black folks. The author calls out the hypocrisy and callousness of this behavior without being preachy or disrespectful. This is not always the case in historical books that deal with chattel slavery.

Thank you to authors Miranda Kaufmann, Highbridge Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own.

[Ana Camastro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense and long historical nonfiction books aren't really my thing but this book by Miranda Kaufman was fantastic. Very detailed and meticulous with facts, the book also exposes a lot of the more dramatic elements of the different stories. It's the kind of history book I think is really necessary because it exposes a hitherto unknown or at least not talked about perspective.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ALC!

[mya]

I’m looking forward to this release!

[Malik Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superbly written account of a series of selected heiresses who inherited fortunes form enslavers. This aspect of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans has been largely overlooked by historians, whose focus is usually upon the men involved. Kaufmann uncovers the elaborate lives of some of the women involved and how their slave fortunes shaped their lives and in some cases British society itself. A must-read factual historical book. Highly recommended.

[Meg Onthemove Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5

An interesting book but could have been improved by either focusing more on the heiresses (many of whom were very interesting characters in their own rights) or the plantations in the West Indies (too much of the information about these being in numbers/size, and who was running them for the heiress at any one time - rather boring information because much of it was contactless - would have been more interesting to have more information about the people, how exactly the plantations were run, more detail about the wars, etc).

So for me it ended up being a bit too superficial when there must be so much more information about eg Lady Holland as her salon really was intrinsic to early 19th century politics.

I also felt it took a very modern view of slavery rather than explaining and exploring the different viewpoints of the time, and where these views came from. Whereas the conclusion looked at slavery as a historic issue requiring education, rather than a modern issue that still requires huge amounts of input globally. My great grandparents were taken as child slaves by Russia in the 1890s, and Russia still takes child slaves from the Ukraine today that is where focus on slavery should be: countries and individuals putting people into conditions of slavery now, rather than remedying historical circumstances (save that for a later second stage ).

[Lisa Brooke Reads Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heiresses is a fascinating and insightful listen that pulls back the curtain on the lives of wealthy and influential women throughout history. Miranda Kaufmann delivers a richly researched narrative that seamlessly blends biography, social history, and storytelling, creating a narrative that feels both educational and compelling. The audiobook format works beautifully; the narration is clear, engaging, and brings these women’s stories to life with a steady, confident tone.

Some sections can feel a bit dense with historical detail, but the overall experience is rewarding and eye-opening. It’s the kind of audiobook that makes you pause, think, and appreciate the powerful and often overlooked roles women have played across generations.

A thoughtful, well-narrated listen for anyone who loves history, women’s stories, or learning something new.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Critter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio ARC.

This book was very well written and a very thorough look at the topic. This was written in a very interesting way. I felt like I could feel the Kaufman's passion in the subject. This was just so thorough, thoughtful, and interesting. I don't feel like I have the words to explain how much I enjoyed getting to read this book, even though this is often a tough and emotional topic. I really appreciate how many aspects were looked at in this book. It wasn’t just the heiresses that we look at, but the world and the various things that impacted the world at the time. This book really looks at why things happened and the people who were affected. I do appreciate the look at how this history still impacts the world.

[Jan - history lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book which gave a detailed account of slavery in the Caribbean. It was very educational and thought provoking. I listened to an audio book. In hindsight, I would have preferred to read it. Each chapter followed the lineage of each heiress, which was difficult for me to follow at times. But that may be because as an American, I have not been exposed to most of the people. I highly recommend this book.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Miranda Kaufmann's book. Ever since I read her Black Tudors I have been very interested in what her next work would be about. This book was very well written and researched and I hope Miranda has an opportunity to write another book soon.
I will add however that the term coined by the English 'fair play,' only ever counted for white people and in terms they were willing to tolerate.

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and hugely impressive. This book follows the history of slavery in the West Indies and makes one reassess the 'Stuarts' and 'Georgians' that we learnt about in history lessons many years ago. How awful it was and how shockingly careless the heiresses were with their fortunes....

[Linda Caswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history of little-known heiresses whose wealth came from enslavement. I learned a lot. Very well-researched and presented.

[Julie Bergley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating look at nine women who inherited wealth from Caribbean plantations. It was fascinating and eye opening. I learned so much.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery by Miranda Kaufmann

A powerful and eye-opening history that uncovers the hidden links between wealth, status and the realities of Caribbean slavery. Miranda Kaufmann brings the lives of nine heiresses into sharp focus, showing both their influence and the human cost behind their fortunes. The book is deeply researched and told with clarity, weaving together personal stories, economic history and the voices of those who were enslaved. An important and compelling read for anyone interested in the true foundations of Britain’s imperial past.