Author: Mathews, Samuel Augustus
Biography:
MATHEWS, Samuel Augustus (c 1745-1825: ancestry.com)
His surname is sometimes given as Mathew but he published as Mathews. He was the son of Mary (Gacey) and Samuel Augustus Mathews of Basseterre, in the West Indies. His father died in 1760 but he and his brothers had some schooling. He worked as a carpenter and later as a merchant. In 1776 he married Mary Clarkson, with whom he had at least one son. The Lying Hero (1793) was a prose contribution to a controversy about slavery and West Indian culture in which Mathews defended the slave-owners. Debts and other difficulties eventually drove him out of the islands to Guyana, where The Willshire Squeeze was published, and where he died two years later. He is chiefly remembered for his pioneering interest in Creole languages. (ancestry.com 18 Mar. 2020; Adrienne Bruyn et al., St. Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles [1999]) HJ
Other Names:
- Samuel Augustus Mathews, Sr.