Moving from Spanish East Florida in 1784, the Stafford family was personally involved with Cumberland Island for almost 87 years. As the largest planter and landholder on Cumberland, Robert Stafford's influence in the surrounding area of Camden County must have been considerable. While he was the major planter on Cumberland, he did not inherit his holdings but acquired them in an effort to better his family.  His wealth made him a popular moneylender in the area, but his fortunes were stimulated by northern investments as well as through Sea Island cotton.  A difference in his social background and financial methods may have resulted in a dislike of Stafford by other island plantation owners, especially Phineas M. Nightingale, of the [General] Nathanael Greene family.

During the the late 18th century, Cumberland Island was a sanctuary from Indian attacks. Although the island was not completely secure against Indian attack, its distance off-shore had attracted a substantial community. Various situations involving judicial and land tenure decisions were handled on Cumberland Island at an area called Indian Springs.

By 1800, the financial problems of the estate of General Nathanael Greene had reached a state in which a lien was put on his Georgia land, and sales of portions of it, conducted by a federal marshal, were held throughout that year.  At one such sale on August 8, 1800, Lucy Stafford, Robert's mother,  purchased 125 acres on Cumberland Island, paying $187.OO (see map below). 

In 1813, the Staffords' first major purchase of land on Cumberland Island took place when they purchased all of Tract No. 5 (map), comprising the entire southern half of what is now called Swamp Field, then "Great Swamp."  The seller was Cornelia Lott Greene, daughter of General Nathanael Greene and Catherine Greene. On this tract, using recently purchased slaves, Robert Stafford cultivated rice. The advantages of "inland swamp" for rice planting have been summarized by a famous rice planter, Duncan Clinch Heyward, in his Seed From Madagascar.  "Swamp Field" or "Great Swamp" on Cumberland Island fits his description of advantages perfectly. 

The British occupied Cumberland Island for three months during the War Of 1812 and for most of that time (January-March 17, 1815) Stafford was imprisoned or confined to Ray Sands' house on the site of the present-day Greyfield Inn. 

By 1830, Stafford administed 1360 acres with 148 slaves.  By 1840, Robert Stafford had acquired the reputation of an unusually successful planter of Sea Island cotton with 160 slaves,  85 of whom were engaged in agriculture. 

As did other coastal planters, Stafford had some of his hands trained as boatsmen. The races were at St. Marys. Colonel Dubignon rewarded Stafford's oarsmen with $50: 

"I sent them to Cumberland at night, highly pleased with the result of the race.  I won (betting on the Goddess) $65. in cash, 4 prs of gloves and 1 penknife from the ladies, and a box of segars." (Floyd: January 11, 1836)

On August 4, 1843, Stafford made his biggest coup in land acquisitions on Cumberland Island. On that date at the Sheriff's Sales at St. Marys he purchased two contiguous tracts of land from P. M. Nightingale that formed a unit of 4200 acres (map). More significantly, they bridged the gap between Rayfield and Great Swamp Field .  That day Stafford became owner of the northern part of Great Swamp Field with its natural outflow to Brick Kiln River and Cumberland River. 

Stafford's expansion southward on the island had continued before the outbreak of the Civil War.  In accord with Stafford's usual technique, John W. Gray of "Spring Plantation" (sometimes known as "Spring Garden Plantation" and the site of present-day Greyfield) put up as security his 500-acre plantation on Cumberland Island with its 31 slaves to Robert Stafford, promising to pay $3,500.00 within eight years with interest payable annually.  Had Gray lived Stafford might not have acquired Spring Garden, but upon Gray's death, his widow and children moved away; and the mortgaged plantation and slaves were sold at public sale to Stafford on August 6, 1850.

In 1850 Stafford reported himself as slave owner, with a total number of 348 slaves (125 males and 223 females), all black except for one female mulatto, age 32.61  In the decade before 1850, Stafford's purchases of slaves had dwindled to only a few occasional purchases from a neighbor; or alternatively, he would acquire another handful or two from debtors whose collateral had included chattel property. The most logical cause for the increase in his holdings of Negro slaves is "natural increase."

More acreage was obtained by Stafford on the island.  Stafford, as executor of Mrs. Margaret Bernardey, offered 300 acres at Public Sale which had been her land on Plum Orchard (July 12, 1853).  James H. Downes, husband of Mrs. Bernardey's granddaughter, Margaret, bought it for $250.00 as highest bidder.  The same tract was sold the same day by Downes to Robert Stafford for $250.00.  James H. Downes was possibly acting as a "straw" for Robert Stafford.

On December 28, 1841, Stafford received a mulatto girl named Elizabeth, and her child, about two years old, named Mary in a deed of gift from Mrs. Margaret Bernardey.  Mrs. Bernardey stipulated in the deed that Elizabeth should remain her property during her (Mrs. Bernardey's) lifetime, or, if Stafford should take her away, he should furnish Mrs. Bernardey a house servant in lieu of Elizabeth. Although Robert Stafford is not known to have married, he had six children by his mulatto slave, Elizabeth.  Robert Stafford built a house for his family  in Connecticut, which was razed in 1979, and from at least 1852 on, he and Elizabeth went north to spend the summers.  His children attended northern schools in the winters, where friends acted as foster parents.  At no time did Robert Stafford abandon his career as planter; indeed, according to some local reminiscences, he spent much of his time in New York attending to cotton business and, presumably, his investments.

On the eve of the Civil War (1860), Stafford declared himself as a planter.  The value of his real estate or farm had dropped from $45,000.00 to $25,000.00.  The may be attributed to a real loss (fire, storm, etc.) or was in some way related to the Panic of 1857.  A value was given for his personal estate for the first time:  it was very high--$99,334.00. By 1863 almost all Stafford's slaves had left Stafford Plantation. In 1863 he reported possession of 17 slaves in Camden County, where the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) would have had no effect.  Possibly these were older men and women who feared the rigors of occupied nearby Fernandina, and possibly some of the more elderly slaves had once been property of Mrs. Margaret Bernardey.  By 1866 even these had left, for in that year Stafford reported the presence of "2 hands." Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Stafford may have sold many of his slaves outside Camden County. Some hints as to their date of removal from the county may be found by contrasting Stafford's total of 348 slaves in 1850 (U. S. Census) with his reported total of 79 in 1852 (Tax Digest, Camden County).  A possible sale date may have been between 1856 and 1858.

In 1866 Robert Stafford was visited by a reporter.  The interview is fascinating for the light cast upon his household and its effect upon the visitor.

I called on Mr. Stafford last Sabbath, and found him 'at home,' as he has been for the last fifty years.  I really forget where he was born, but he went to school in New London, Conn., when quite a boy and got a 'right smart' Yankee education. Mr. Stafford is about 70 years old; as tall as a chimney and has a voice like a trip-hammer.  He fairly made the chairs move when he spoke.  His only companions are an aged negress, a decanter of choice brandy, the Journal of Commerce, and thirty-four dogs.. Mr. Stafford opposed the war from the start, and has been uniformly kind to Federal soldiers.

In 1870 Stafford reported himself not a planter but as a farmer of 78, whose real estate was valued at $100,000.00, and whose personal estate was valued at $250,000.00.  In his house lived Catherine Williams, black female of 65, housekeeper, and two black females, apparently her daughters, 18 and 16 respectively, as servants.  Adjacent lived Elizabeth Bernardey, mulatto female of 55, housekeeper, with a black female named Maria Bernardey, age 35, apparently a deaf mute.  At Dungeness, where Stafford had once contemplated putting a steady man, lived a Scotch gardener of 42, with what appears to have been one or two Negro families.  Very few other persons lived on Cumberland Island, although a small community of whites persisted at High Point, and five to six black families lived at various sites.

Stafford died in 1877. He left instructions that all the real estate belonging to him at his death should go to his daughters and to certain named trustees to act for his daughters, provided that the real estate be situated in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island or New York.  He left similar instructions with regard to stocks, bonds, and any other obligations belonging to him, of the United States of America and of every State of the United States which are north of the Ohio River or of the latitude of the south line of the State of Pennsylvania; similarly he instructed that all personal property, including money, in those states and above that latitude go to the aforesaid legatees. Stafford's real estate in the South (and some securities with him in his house, mentioned in an 1867 appraisal) was not mentioned in his will. Stafford died intestate as far as his southern nephews were concerned, and Stafford's holdings on Cumberland Island became theirs. Remembering the origin of the 1813 Littlefield purchase, Stafford may well have felt that his Cumberland Island properties should go to the heirs of his two sisters.

The Stafford properties were sold in 1882 to Thomas M. Carnegie and Leander M. Morris, a cousin of Carnegie's, for $40,000.00. Stafford's roles with regard to his slaves may be summarily described as follows:  infant master of an infant body-servant; yeoman farmer with a few field hands; specialized planter of Sea Island cotton with a large work force, itself in the process of becoming specialized; capitalist with surplus slave property with which to generate new forms of income; arbitrator in property disputes involving assignments of slaves; appraiser of chattel property for estates; and father of children whose slave status was irrevocable, at least in the South.  The transition from his role as slave holder to employer was both voluntary and involuntary:  through a possible sale at a single date; through desertion by the chattel property; and through personal relinquishment. His lifetime encompassed a complete gamut of philosophies and legislation regarding emancipation and manumission.  His actions speak louder than his words.

Slavery was an important institution on Cumberland, with the production of Sea Island cotton probably being the impetus to the large number of slaves working there.  Because of its location, slave life and style on Cumberland may have had its own unique character. 

While there were other plantations with slaves on Cumberland in the mid 19th century, Stafford Plantation controlled the major portion of the island and had the largest number of slaves.  The ruins of slave cabins on Stafford's holdings are a mute testimony to slave life on Cumberland and it is unfortunate that historical accounts of slave quarters, life styles, and customs are almost nonexistent.  An account by James R. Silva, who as a teenager lived in St. Marys, gives a vivid and probably somewhat nescient description of slave conditions on Cumberland.  He states that slaves:

were comfortably housed in small cabins, each with sufficient ground for a garden, 
hen house and pig pen.  Married couples and their children were quartered together and 
the unmarried males and females were located separately in different sections....Rations 
of corn or grits, meal, bacon, salt and articles of food grown on the plantations.. were 
issued weekly. Oyster, fish, crabs and shrimp were abundant... Coons and 'possums 
stocked the marshes so with the products of their little gardens, these people fared 
sumptuously... There were houses used as hospitals, where the sick were cared for and 
given medical attention... They planted little patches of sugar cane, pumpkins, melons, or 
whatever they cared for and raised chickens and hogs (Silva 1976:10-11).

having a street, or common, two hundred feet wide, on which the cabins of the negroes 
fronted.  Each cabin was a frame building, the walls boarded and whitewashed on the 
outside, lathed and plastered within, the roof shingled; forty-two feet long, twenty-one 
feet wide, divided into two family tenements, each twenty-one by twenty-one; each 
tenement divided into three rooms--one, the common household apartment, twenty-one 
by ten; each of the others, (bedrooms), ten by ten.  There was a brick fireplace in the 
middle of the long side of each living room, the chimneys rising in one, in the middle of 
the roof. Besides these rooms, each tenement had a cock-loft, entered by steps from the 
household room.  Each tenement is occupied, on an average by five persons.  There were 
in them closets, with locks and keys, and a varying quantity of rude furniture. Each cabin 
stood two hundred feet from the next, and the street in front of them being two hundred 
feet wide, they were just that distance apart each way.  The people were nearly all absent 
at work, and had locked their outer doors, taking the keys with them.  Each cabin has a 
front and back door, and each room a window, closed by a wooden shutter, swinging 
outward, on hinges.  Between each tenement and the next house, is a small piece of 
ground, enclosed with palings, in which are coops of fowl, with chickens, hovels for nests 
and for sows with pig.  There were a great many fowls in the street.  The negroes  swine 
are allowed to run in the woods, each owner having his own distinguished by a peculiar 
mark.  In the rear of the yards were gardens--a half acre to each family.

Archeological Investigations