Dawson-Donovan-Smith Website

Attached hereto you will find a picture of the island Great Thatch.  Great Thatch is part of the British Virgin Islands.  It is situated due west of the island of Tortola.  The BVI is comprised of hundreds of islands, the main ones being Tortola (the capitol), Virgin Gorda, Anegada, and Jost Van Dyke.  The islands of Camanoe, Necker (owned by Sir Bronson of Virgin Records), Peter Island, Cooper Island, Salt Island, Dog Island, Scrub Island, Norman Island, Little Thatch Island and Guana Island are also inhabited, but by a few folks.

Today, Great Thatch is uninhabited.  It's owned and managed by the BVI National Parks Trust.  However, in the 18th century (1700s) and early 19th century, the island was very much inhabited.  It was a thriving slave plantation, owned by a Rev. Richard Callwood.  Upon his death, the plantation passed on to his daughters, who also owned plantations on Jost Van Dyke and other parts of Tortola.

The relevance of this island to our history is that it is the birth place of most of James John Donovan and Julianna Ledlow's children.  They were born on that island after the emancipation of slavery (1834-38), but it is apparent their parents worked on the plantation in the production of sugar.

At some point in time, they migrated to the island of Tortola, where some of the younger siblings were born in Carrot Bay.  It is from this locale that our Donovan clan began to flourish and spread out to where we are today.

James John Donovan:

There is much speculation about the birth place of this man.  Some family members indcate that he came from St. John, in the then Danish West Indies, today known as the United States Virgin Islands.  Others have said he came from the island of Lovango, off the north western tip of St. John; yet others have said he came from the Smith Bay area in St. Thomas.

I believe he came from Tortola.  I'm not suggesting that he was born there, but I do believe he got to Great Thatch Island from Tortola.  If you look at the picture of Great Thatch Island, note the proximity to the island of Tortola on the right.  That is the western most point of Tortola and, according to a map dated 1798, there were three sizeable plantations in that area.  That western-most point was part of a plantation owned by a Dr. Dawson; next to that was a plantation owned by a S. Brabston, who cultivated cotton.  The plantation bordering Brabston was a large one owned by a Dan Donovan, who used the land for pasture.  All of these plantations, and others in the west, are in close proximity to Great Thatch Island.

Another piece of the puzzle:  If one reseaches in the birth records of the Methodist Church in Tortola, you will find that children born during slavery were listed as "of the estate of _____".  For example, if I were born at that time, I would be listed as Maurice of Donovan Estate, Donovan Estate being the place of my abode.  In the years following the emancipation of slavery, if I were born, it would be common for my name to be listed as simply Maurice Donovan.  I think you got the idea.

Another piece of the puzzle:  Slavery was abolished in the British Empire (Tortola included) in 1834.  However, it was abolished and an apprenticeship period of 4 years was instituted.  It was a new form of slavery.  Although free, the enslaved population was forced to work for their former enslavers for an additional 4 year period.  Only children 5 years and younger were freed outright.  The British had anticipated that many of the enslaved population would not take too kind to this.  In Antigua, the population rebelled and the Brits were forced to free the entire population straightaway.  I ran across a piece of correspondence while researching in the archives in London, where an official in Tortola wrote to his superior in Antigua that there was no real uprising on Tortola as they had anticipated, only on the Donovan plantation.  The officer did not go into detail, but it is interesting to note that it is at this time that we see individuals with the Donovan surname begining to appear in Carrot Bay and elsewhere.  It's as if they just walked off the plantation, refusing to continue under the guise of an apprenticeship.  Of course this is all speculation.

Let me land with this.  Here it is we have James John Donovan on an island a stones throw from a huge plantation owned by a Dan Donovan on the island of Tortola. We have documentation that he carried the surname Donovan while on Great Thatch, prior to his documented appearance in Carrot Bay.  Many of the enslaved with the surname Donovan migrated to Carrot Bay from that plantation.  James has children on Great Thatch, then migrates to Carrot Bay where other Donovans went.  I believe it is very probable that he was enslaved on that plantation and migrated to Great Thatch after emancipation.  He then moved back to Tortola and headed to Carrot Bay where others from that plantation had relocated to.  Were they all blood relatives?  Only God knows.  But I'm confident that many of them were indeed related.  We can ascertain this if more Donovans from the other clans undertook DNA analyses.

For those of you that may not be aware, I took a patriclan DNA test some time ago.  The test examined the ethnicity of my Y chromosome.  The Y chromosome passes from father to son for generations before there is a mutation.  My Y came down to me from James John Donovan, because he passed it to one of his sons i.e. John Osborne, who passed it to one of his sons, Maurice Walter, who passed it to my father Maurice Antonio.  Based on their findings, the ethnicity of my Y chromosome matches with the Yoruba of present-day Nigeria.  This is another story all together.  Let's just digest this for now.