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 |
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| Held at | University of the Highlands and Islands |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Documents & Links
Related content
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Activities
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Scotland's Involvement in Slavery - the local view
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference
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Press/Media
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Scots were complicit in slavery long before Act of Union, says academic
Press/Media: Research
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Research output
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Sugar, Slave-Owning, Suriname and the Dutch Imperial Entanglement of the Scottish Highlands before 1707
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review