From the Caribbean to the Scottish Highlands: Charitable Enterprise in the Age of Improvement, c.1750 to c.1820

Abstract

The growing Scottish Highland presence in the Caribbean after 1750 was indicative of two things. On the one hand there was a British imperial agenda intent on promoting economic development and security in the Caribbean. On the other there was a domestic agenda, with a focus on introducing the sweeping changes to Highland society that would complete the process of Highland pacification. There was also, however, a deep concern for the socio-economic and cultural survival of the Highlands which encouraged countless Highlanders to engage in myriad imperial pursuits. This article links the global with the local by considering the rise of charitable enterprise in the Scottish Highlands, one of Britain's most vulnerable regions. In considering the establishment of the region's first hospital, the Northern Infirmary at Inverness, and three academies at Fortrose, Tain and Inverness, it establishes the Scottish Highlands’ intrinsic link with the Caribbean's plantation economy.

Centring transatlantic slavery in Scottish historiography

“…Knowledge of the distinctive Scottish role in trafficking in enslaved people, the accumulation of wealth from Caribbean slavery and its repatriation, as well as influence on the development of Glasgow, the west of Scotland and other regions is increasing. Macinnes (1998) pioneered the model of capital in‐flow from the Caribbean to the Scottish Highlands, a position developed by Alston (2004), D. Hamilton (2005) and Kehoe (2015). Historians have long argued that Atlantic commerce and slavery was central to Scotland's transformation: this has been one of the key developments in Scottish historiography over the last half‐century, and with greater public discussion and embryonic civic recognition, these views are now mainstream.…”

“…David Alston's outputs have transformed understandings of the role of Highland Scots in the Dutch/British colonies of Demerara, Berbice and Essequibo (Alston, 2004(Alston, , 2015(Alston, , 2016(Alston, , 2021. S. Karly Kehoe's analysis of charitable enterprise reminds how the profits from Caribbean slavery often improved the wealth of families, as well as the economies and societies across the Scottish Highlands more broadly (Kehoe, 2015). The rise of John Lamont in Trinidad reveals major planting fortunes could still be made in the nineteenth century, although questions of representativeness remain (Mullen, 2018).…”

John Lamont of Benmore: A Highland Planter who Died ‘in harness’ in Trinidad

“…Secondly, the paths can be traced of those with more substantial fortunes who often reshaped regional economies and societies. 20 The present article adds nuance to the Caribbean aspect of the Kehoe analysis. Ideally, social backgrounds of individuals should be examined to ascertain if, and how, fortunes were actually made in the plantation economy.…”

Poor Relief as ‘Improvement’: Moral and Spatial Economies of Care in Scotland, c.1720s–1790s

“…As Kehoe has demonstrated, Inverness and its surroundings benefitted from the injection of capital gained by Highlanders in imperial ventures, who then invested into charitable institutions such as the Northern Infirmary of Inverness. 71 Poor Highland women were explicitly targeted as untapped labour pools who held the key to the success of the growing Scottish linen industry, which would in turn limit Scottish imports and generate a new export economy drawing on newly gained access to colonial markets.…”