John Ystumllyn (–1786), also colloquially known as Jac Du or Jack Black, was an 18th-century gardener and the first well-recorded black person of North Wales.
John was of uncertain origin, possibly a victim of the Atlantic slave trade, and from either West Africa or the West Indies. Early in his life he was taken by the Wynn family to its Ystumllyn estate in Criccieth, where he was christened with the Welsh name John Ystumllyn. Here he was taught English and Welsh by the locals. He learned horticulture and craftsmanship, at which he had some natural skill, in the estate garden. He worked as a gardener at the estate and eventually "grew into a handsome and vigorous young man", his portrait painted at around this time. Doted upon by several local girls, he began a romance with the local maid Margaret Gruffydd.
As Margaret moved to different employments Ystumllyn followed her, eventually running away from his job as gardener to marry in 1768. They had seven children, five of whom survived, with several of their descendants still living in the area . They initially worked as land stewards, but Ystumllyn eventually re-entered into the employment of the Wynn family. In recognition of his service Ellis Wynn gave Ystumllyn a large garden and cottage at Y Nhyra Isa. Ystumllyn died in 1786; his wife, Margaret, lived for more than forty years more.
Ystumllyn was well-liked in his lifetime and met with little racial prejudice, though locals often expressed surprise at his unfamiliar appearance. Several years after his death, a small monument was constructed in his place of burial St Cynhaearn's Church. Over a hundred years after Ystumllyn's death, the Welsh writer Robert Isaac Jones published an account of Ystumllyn's life compiled from various local oral records. This work, while also criticised for its "forgetfulness" and "racial stereotyping", serves as "the most informative" extant source of Ystumllyn's life. According to Jones, Ystumllyn was "a very honest man, with no malice, and was respected by the gentry and the common people alike".
Sources
Several Black Welsh individuals are recorded as living in Wales before Ystumllyn, mainly employed as servants and musicians to landowners and the aristocracy, following the vogue in Britain. Welsh historian David Morris has identified 29 black people in South Wales parish registers between 1687 and 1814, including a horn player of Erddig whose master had his portrait painted. Ystumllyn's biographer, Andrew Green, speculates that yet "more remain to be discovered" in North Wales, even if "their absolute numbers were small". Despite this, Ystumllyn has been described as the first black person of North Wales "about whom we have detailed knowledge" by Green, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ystumllyn's life is known from three sources, "all of them remarkable", according to Green.
The earliest is a small oil painting on wood produced by an unknown artisan artist, with a date and identification at the foot: "John Ystymllyn, 11 May 1754". This portrait shows his features as a young man, wearing a green jacket, green buttoned waistcoat and white neckband, garments typical of his working position.
The next is his simple sandstone memorial in the graveyard of St Cynhaearn's Church, Ynyscynhaearn, a former parish church now under the administration of the Friends of Friendless Churches. Here, Ystumllyn was possibly baptised, and was certainly buried in 1786. The memorial was erected posthumously. In 1999, it was made a Grade II listed building "as of special interest in commemorating a slave in service in Wales in the later years of the C18 [18th-century], who must have been well enough thought of that he was provided with a handsome memorial". The memorial's inscription gives his age at the time of death as forty-six, but incorrectly gives his date of death as 1791. It bears a bleak, biographical , composed by the Penrhyndeudraeth musician and poet Dafydd Siôn Siâms (1743–1831):