page_title: Ferdinand Paleologus
section_title: Life on Barbados
hierarchical_section_title: Ferdinand Paleologus / Biography / Life on Barbados
caption_attribution_description: Português: A Igreja Paroquial de São João de Bridgetown Barbados
context_page_description: Ferdinand Paleologus was a 17th-century English-Italian freeholder, sugar or cotton planter and churchwarden and possibly one of the last living members of the Palaiologos dynasty, which had ruled the Byzantine Empire from 1259 to its fall in 1453. Ferdinand was the fourth and youngest son of Theodore Paleologus, an Italian soldier and assassin who moved to England in the late 16th century.
  Ferdinand supported the royalist side in the English Civil War, but emigrated to Barbados during the conflict, perhaps fleeing punishment as the royalists were being defeated or perhaps seeking his fortune with relatives of his mother, who lived on the island. Ferdinand is first attested on the island in 1644 and he quickly integrated himself with its elite. He cultivated cotton or sugar and possibly pineapples and was influential in the affairs of the local St. John's Parish Church, for which he became a vestryman and then a churchwarden. Ferdinand constructed a great mansion called Clifton Hall, named after the home he had lived in with his family in Cornwall.
context_section_description: Ferdinand's presence on Barbados is first attested on 26 June 1644, when he and his older brother John Theodore are attested as witnesses to a deed. Ferdinand gradually integrated himself with the Barbadian elite. Some time before 1649, he had become a freeholder, probably with the support of the Balls family, and he married Rebecca Pomfrett, daughter of a local landowner. He built and owned an estate called Clifton Hall, named after the home he and his family had lived in while in Landulph, and owned a small cotton or sugar plantation. Clifton Hall is located on the heights of Saint John, near St. John's Parish Church, which Ferdinand supported throughout his life.
  Clifton Hall still stands today and remains recognised as one of the largest, grandest and oldest great houses on Barbados. Clifton Hall has changed radically since Ferdinand's time, most of the rooms and exterior dating to renovation and construction projects in the early 19th century. Only the kitchen and staff quarters, alongside two small rooms currently used as changing rooms for the swimming pool, remain intact from the 17th century.
  In 1649, Ferdinand was elected to the vestry of St. John's parish. In the early years of the island, such vestrymen were powerful establishment figures. Over the years, he gradually added to his property, being recorded as purchasing more land in July 1662. On a 1685 map of Barbados, a plantation labelled the "Paleologus and Beal" plantation, to the west of St John's Church, is marked with the drawing of a pineapple, meaning that Ferdinand might have cultivated pineapples in addition to cultivating sugar or cotton. Like other owners of plantations, Ferdinand would have employed slaves at his plantation. In the late 17th century, at least 2000 slaves were imported to Barbados each year.
  By 1655, Ferdinand was a churchwarden and in 1656 and 1660 he was a trustee. He also concerned himself with affairs unrelated to the church, being attested as a lieutenant in 1654 and as a surveyor of the highways in 1660. He became known on the island as the "Greek prince from Cornwall", and was long remembered by that nickname after his death.
caption: St. John's Parish Church, Barbados, which Ferdinand supported throughout his life
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