Here is every mention of Antigua that is indexed in `Black Ivory; a history of British slavery', by James Walvin, Fontana, 1993.

-- [An example of a slave ship, `Duke of Argyle', crossing the Atlantic from Sierra Leone to Antigua: date - 1751]

-- [Discussing absentee landlords who returned to Britain after making their fortune in Jamaica, it then says]:`On the smaller islands, too - St Kitts, Nevis and even Antigua - the plantocratic elite often absented itself when its fortunes had been secured. Returning `home' to Britain, these absentee planters left their affairs in the hands of agents and overseers. This change of management has often been thought responsible for the inefficiencies which developed on the plantations. Slaves may have been more harshly treated on absentee plantations, roughly managed and handled by men who had little incentive to see the the slaves' well-being.' [no specific date given here]

-- `Of slave rebels in Antigua in 1729, three were burned alive, one hanged and quartered.'

-- `Both in Barbados and Antigua the nature of the slave population had begun to change. The rise of a new, local-born (Creole) slave force working alongside their African forbears was not enough to deflect the persistent violent threats and rebellious plots which issued from the slave quarters. [no specific date given, but the paragraphs before and after deal with events in the 1730s and 1760s]

-- [When slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, some islands required slaves to serve a transition period, but]: `Some islands (Antigua and Bermuda) decided to free their slaves immediately.'

Caroline, I don't see anything to make me change my conclusion; the only difference this book says between Antigua and elsewhere in the West Indies is that it was one of the smaller islands. And that bit about the absentee plantocracy fits Sir Thomas perfectly.

Of course Sir Thomas might have owned a non-slave plantation: he might have been running a gang of jewel thieves disguised as Avon ladies for all the explicit evidence there is in Mansfield Park. But I have seen no evidence to doubt my original conclusion, which is that JA sent Sir Thomas off to Antigua because her readers would assume that he owned slaves, and that if she hadn't wanted them to do this, then she would have sent him somewhere else.

If you have any further evidence to prove the contrary, I'd be delighted to see it. But I hope you'll understand why, on a disputed area like this, I'd like something more than a quote from a remembered pamphlet with no further details.

As you said, let's get the history right.