Francis Levett

Francis Levett was an English trader, who worked as factor at Livorno, Italy, for the Levant Company until he lit out for East Florida in 1769 where his brother-in-law Patrick Tonyn of the British Army had been appointed Governor of the English colony. Wielding connections from a lifetime of overseas trading, as well as family connections from a powerful English mercantile family, Levett built one of the first plantations in Florida, and then forfeited his investment when the English lost their foothold in Florida, forcing him to flee to the British colony in the Bahamas. Eventually his son returned to Georgia, where he (or, perhaps more accurately, his slaves) became the first to plant Sea Island cotton in America.

Born in the Ottoman Empire, the son of Francis Levett, a tobacco merchant who as a descendant of the trading house built by two brothers, Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, and his brother Francis Levett, planter Francis Levett was well-connected in the tight world of English trading overseas. Piggybacking on the exploding British Empire, these early English traders built juggernauts, trading everything from tobacco to indigo to textiles. The early Levett brothers, sons of a Puritan rector in Ashwell, Rutland, built their empire from scratch, intermarrying with other powerful merchant families. Francis Levett followed in their footsteps.

Having established his connections with such powerful London merchants as Sir Richard Oswald, Levett gave up his position with the Levant Company and returned to London. But having spent his career abroad, Levett wasn't accustomed to the damp weather in the capitol. Having inherited a fortune from an uncle, Levett decided to move to the British colony in East Florida. Levett planned initially to import Greek labourers from Smyrna into the fledgling British colony to do the work of planting. That scheme was apparently soon abandoned.

In the meantime, Levett exploited all his connections. He was named in 1771 to a position helping oversee the Russian fur trade.

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