Description
This talk will reveal the Scottish Highlands’ earliest-known overseas slave-owning circle and the imperial entanglement with the Dutch Empire and its sugar on which this depended. It will highlight two intertwined, contemporary developments: a heavy reliance of the Highland ‘edge’ on the importation of sugar with origins in the Dutch Atlantic plantations; the engagement of Highland migrants or exiles in the sugar-based enslavement of African and indigenous populations in the South American colony of Suriname. A Highland-led circle of slave-owners will be shown to have grown prior to the formal creation of the British Empire, simultaneous with the commercial activity of Dutch Suriname-based sugar planter, Henry MacKintosh, who developed strong ties linking that colony with New England, Rotterdam, and his home burgh of Inverness.| Period | 27 Aug 2020 |
|---|---|
| Held at | University of the Highlands and Islands |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Documents & Links
Related content
-
Activities
-
Scotland's Involvement in Slavery - the local view
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
-
Press / Media
-
Scots were complicit in slavery long before Act of Union, says academic
Press/Media: Research
-
Research output
-
Sugar, Slave-Owning, Suriname and the Dutch Imperial Entanglement of the Scottish Highlands before 1707
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review