] Mrs. Elton was Augusta Hawkins from Bristol, and I believe John (?) Hawkins was a notorious slave trader based in Bristol.

Just put Hawkins and slave and Bristol into any search engine and hey presto! About 500 references to John Hawkins sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Slave Trade".

I don't think JA's choice of names is coincidental.

I am currently awaiting a new Australian publication called "Jane Austen, A Century of Wills" with about 15 wills from her paternal and maternal lines. One of the reviews suggested that these wills indicated JA must have known more about the slave trade than previously thought. I don't have the book yet so can't comment. However I will say that I support Caroline; our reading of slavery today has one simple judgement. Readers contemporary with Jane Austen would have known which islands did and did not use slavery and those with a reputation for more or less inhumane practises Readers would have had a view on how heartily they followed Wilberforce and Pitt's anti-slavery action and would have viewed Americans as pro-slavery. The moral drive to abolish slavery was part and parcel of the evangelical movement.

Jane Austen must have known about Bermuda; her brother Charles' father-in-law was Governor of Bermuda which has a very different slave history to that of other places.