Misplaced Pages

#646353

60-454: Robert Douglas elder (died 1736) was the son of William Douglas of Blackmiln, kirk minster of Aboyne , son of an Aberdeen merchant, and Marjory, a daughter of John Ross, Minister of Birse . The family claimed descent from Archibald Douglas of Glenbervie . Robert Douglas was known as Robert Douglas of Cruixton or Cruckstown, and he became Robert Douglas of Blackmill. Robert Douglas (elder and younger) were relations of Anna Douglas, Lady Boghall,

120-568: A charter of liberty to acquire lands in Scotland, and Walter Byset, Lord of Aboyne , gave the Templar preceptory the church of Aboyne. Then, between 1239 and 1249, the church was conveyed to the Templars adproprier usus by Ralph, Bishop of Aberdeen . According to the terms of the charter, the Templars would take charge of the temporalities of the church and maintain a vicar there, while

180-571: A Scot with an Edinburgh heritage, William McDowall, began managing a sugar plantation on Nevis as a slave overseer . He was able to develop his own plantations after the Acts of Union 1707 . Robert Douglas was described as a "soap boiler" in February 1684 when he was appointed a Master of the Hospital, Trinity House of Leith , in place of a Leith vintner, who also called Robert Douglas. The vintner

240-517: A companion of Anne Home, Countess of Lauderdale , who left a legacy to them. John Hamilton of Boghall, who was a resident in Leith in 1644, is known is have had an interest in the tobacco trade and chartering a ship to the West Indies . Robert Douglas was a merchant burgess of Edinburgh but lived and traded as an "indweller in Leith". As a "soap boiler" Robert Douglas made and sold soap. Some soap

300-580: A company of Scotland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aboyne Aboyne ( Scots : Abyne , Scottish Gaelic : Abèidh ) is a village on the edge of the Highlands in Aberdeenshire , Scotland, on the River Dee , approximately 30 miles (48 km) west of Aberdeen . It has a swimming pool at Aboyne Academy, all-weather tennis courts, a bowling green and

360-520: A geographic advantage in shipping crops throughout the transatlantic world. Sugar created a unique political ecology , the relationship between labor, profits, and ecological consequences, in the Caribbean. Imperial powers forcefully displaced West African peoples to cultivate sugar using slave labor. By exploiting labor and the natural world, imperial conflicts arose in the Caribbean vying for political and economic control. For example, conflicts among

420-409: A gunshot wound to the head. Unlike Douglas, who had merchant burgess status, Burd was not permitted to deal in wine, and his new Leith chandlery business was strictly regulated to ensure he did not undercut existing shops and manufacturers. Sugar plantations had English owners and some Scottish staff, and in the 1670s a Glasgow merchant William Colquhoun was settled on Saint Kitts . By around 1695,

480-652: A manufactory "to be erected and set up" as a "Suggar work at Leith and a sullarie for distilling of Rhum". The Leith sugar house received partly-refined sugar produced by enslaved labourers on plantations in the Caribbean via London and produced loaf, powder sugar, candy, molasses and rum. The Douglas business portfolio was diverse. Douglas was in touch with merchants in Hamburg, via Andrew Russell in Rotterdam and his own expert sugar refiner, and shipped coal to them. Douglas processed and barrelled 23 porpoises stranded on

540-648: A new parish church was constructed in Aboyne; then, in 1842, another church was built on the site of the eighteenth-century structure, and in 1929 at the Union of the Established Church , it was formally dedicated to St. Machar. In 1936, St. Machar's was joined with the United Free Church, and fifty years later, was linked with the parish church of Dinnet, a linkage which led to the 1993 union between

600-575: A quarter from Aboyne itself, with the remaining three quarters from surrounding villages. The school has access to a full-size swimming pool and gym run by the adjacent Deeside Community Centre. Belwade Farm , a horse sanctuary, is situated nearby. Sugar plantations in the Caribbean Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining

660-484: A variety of sugar products bought for his own household, but do not name the retailers. In December 1667, Clerk bought a "Barbados sugar loaf". It was recognised that "sugar boiling", the refining process, was a fire hazard. In May 1677, an Edinburgh confitmaker , Thomas Douglas, was forbidden to boil his own sugar in a cellar workshop in Tailfer's Close to make confectionery , as the potential "occasion of sudden fire in

SECTION 10

#1732786942647

720-582: Is attested by a Pictish stone cross called the Formaston Stone. The slab is inscribed with Ogham characters which have been transliterated as “MAQQOoiTALLUORRH | NxHHTVROBBACCxNNEVV.” These are the Pictish names Talorc (TALLUORRH) and Nehht (NxHHT), both of which were names of kings. In fact, the Pictish king Nechtan (d. 732) was said by Bede to have accepted the Christian faith in response to

780-537: Is heated. Once heated, the liquids evaporate until only the crystals remain. Each step is labor-intensive and requires technical knowledge and skill. These tasks were performed by enslaved individuals until emancipation. In 1807, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act , prohibiting the trade of slaves in the British Empire. This act extended to the Caribbean plantations under British control. Without

840-450: Is home to the oldest 18 hole golf course on Royal Deeside. Aboyne Castle and the Loch of Aboyne are nearby. Aboyne has many businesses, including a Co-Op supermarket, several hairdressers, a butcher, a newsagent, an Indian restaurant and a post office. Originally, there was a railway station in the village, but it was closed on 18 June 1966. The station now contains some shops and

900-596: Is today Brazil (the Dutch called this New Holland after they took over) and this territory included some sugar plantations worked by African slaves who had been brought to the territory earlier. Some of the slave plantation owners were Cristão-Novo , i.e. "New Christian" Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to the Catholic Church. As the Portuguese Inquisition was in operation and

960-563: The Dominican Republic in the 16th century; the Lesser Antilles in the 17th century; Jamaica and Haiti in the 18th century; and Cuba and Puerto Rico in the 19th century. In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the northern coast of Hispaniola and Spanish colonization began to establish itself. By the late 16th century, demand and production for sugar, one of the central exports of the island, had increased. Much of

1020-654: The Leeward Islands , Saint Domingue , Cuba , as well as many other islands that had been run by French , British , or Spanish owners. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, the sugar cane industry came to dominate Puerto Rico 's economy, both under the colonial rule of Spain and under the United States . After slavery, sugar plantations used a variety of forms of labour including workers imported from colonial India and Southern China working as indentured servants on European owned plantations ( coolie ). In

1080-507: The Loch of Aboyne . The close by pass of Ballater is a rock-climbing area. The village of Dinnet is a few miles west and is the first being located inside the Cairngorms National Park . Walkers and cyclists can ascend Mount Keen by cycling as far as they can from Glen Tanar forest before walking to the summit. There are two schools, Aboyne Academy and a primary school. The academy has around 800 pupils, about

1140-551: The bishop retained authority in spiritual matters. King Alexander II confirmed the donation on 15 April 1242, and Pope Alexander IV, in 1277, the same year that John of Annan, chaplain to Alexander III, was appointed vicar. Aboyne, along with other Templar possessions in Scotland, was held by the Torphichen Preceptory in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and remained so until the Reformation. In 1761,

1200-569: The 1550s off the coast of their Brazilian settlement colony, located on the island of Sao Vincente. As the Portuguese and Spanish maintained a strong colonial presence in the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula amassed tremendous wealth from the cultivation of this cash crop. Other imperial states observed the economic boom catalyzed by the plantation system. They began colonizing the remaining American territories, hoping to capitalize on

1260-645: The 1660s, Captain Edward Burd (or Baird) transported Scottish convicts from the tolbooth of Edinburgh to work in Barbados. He brought back sugar and tobacco, but the cargo of his Hopeful Margaret of Leith was lost when the ship was impressed by Francis Willoughby to fight with the English government navy. Edward Burd was badly injured in a sea battle with the French in 1666 at " Todosantes ", but recovered from

SECTION 20

#1732786942647

1320-652: The 1740s, Jamaica and Saint Domingue (Haiti) became the world's main sugar producers. They increased production in Saint Domingue by using an irrigation system that French engineers built. The engineers also built reservoirs , diversion dams , levees , aqueducts , and canals . In addition, they improved their mills and used varieties of cane and grasses. According to a 2021 study, "historical property rights institutions [in Haiti] created high transaction costs for converting land to cane production", relative to

1380-417: The 20th century, large-scale sugar production using wage labour continued in many parts of the region. The Europeans forced the indigenous peoples of various Caribbean islands to provide the physical labor necessary for the production of sugarcane. The indigenous populations of the Caribbean were decimated by illness after initial colonization and were left with few numbers. In order to continue production for

1440-478: The Caribbean island Nevis in particular, the island was nearly deforested during the mid-1600s and much of the topsoil quality deteriorated as a result of a large influx of plantations. Although these nations have taken measures to mitigate the impacts of the sugar revolution, in some there are still traces of what the environmental historian of the Caribbean and Latin America, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, describes as

1500-597: The Douglas sugar house. This seems to demonstrate that the operation was then a commercial success. However, surviving letters show that the Leith Sugar House was not yet fully exploiting the resource by distilling molasses to make rum in the years 1677 to 1683. The sugar houses in Glasgow were making rum by 1678. Some unprocessed sugar may have come to Leith directly from Barbados and the Leeward Islands . In

1560-761: The Dutch Calvinists were generally more tolerant of Jews, they were happy to side with them over the Catholic Portuguese and remained in the area operating their substantial sugar-orientated slave plantations, now under Dutch sovereignty. They even founded the first public synagogue in the Americas there in 1636; the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue . Further north in the Caribbean, the Protestant Kingdom of England

1620-411: The English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and various indigenous peoples manifested for territorial gain; regarding the region's political ecology, these European states exploited the environment's resources to such an extent that sugar production stagnated. Due to the loss of trees, needed for timber in the sugar refinement process, European imperial powers began competing and fighting over the Caribbean during

1680-535: The Netherlands, employed an English sugar boiler, and eventually in 1680 found a workman willing to come to Leith from Hamburg . At first, all the partly-refined sugar processed at Leith came from London, and had originated in the West Indies and Barbados . Analysis of port books, recording imports received at Leith, show that the amount of already refined sugar arriving dwindled in the first three years of

1740-539: The New World and had been improved to aid the sugar plantations in other ways, bringing their expert knowledge of technologies in cultivating rum from the sugar cane and working as merchants, supplying them with African slaves to work the plantations, helping to make Barbados the sugar capital of the Caribbean and the rum capital of the world. By 1706, the laws against Jews owning sugar plantations in Barbados were dropped, by which time Jewish involvement in rum production

1800-569: The airfield just outside the village. Aboyne has become popular with gliding enthusiasts from Britain and Europe due to its suitable air currents (due to the surrounding terrain). The airfield has two parallel tarmac runways running east–west, a webcam and small weather-monitoring centre on its premises. Aboyne contains a mountain biking facility at Aboyne Bike Park located in the Bellwood. The old Aboyne Curling Club had its own private railway station, Aboyne Curling Pond railway station , at

1860-613: The conflicts between Europeans and indigenous peoples. Although the sugar trade in the Americas was initially dominated by the Portuguese Empire , the Dutch–Portuguese War would cause a shift which would have knock-on effects for the further growth of the sugar trade in the Caribbean and particularly the production of rum (made from sugar cane juice ). In 1630, the Dutch seized Recife near Pernambuco in what

Leith Sugar House - Misplaced Pages Continue

1920-535: The crop, Europeans introduced African slaves to the island through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade . The time at which this happened varies from island to island. Sugarcane harvesting during the time of colonization in the Caribbean was a labor-intensive process. Firstly, it was harvested by hand, and the sucrose inside needed to be harvested quickly to not be spoiled. To extract the juice, it must be chopped, ground, pressed, pounded, or soaked in liquid before it

1980-512: The crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans . After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe , later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet . The Portuguese introduced sugar plantations in

2040-614: The evidence of this brutality towards enslaved women, " which may point towards greater levels of interpersonal abuse or even domestic violence for women". The brutality towards enslaved women is reflected in the archaeological evidence on the Newton Burial Ground. The sugar cane industry had an adverse impact on the environment as this industry grew in Caribbean countries. These included the destruction of forests, water pollution, and loss of fertility and erosion of soils. These problems were seen on various different scales in

2100-416: The heart of the town". This measure would also help establish the Leith works as the sole regional maker of refined sugar. A sugar house requires a number of ovens and some specialised equipment to run at capacity. Robert Douglas had a number of partners to help finance his sugar start-up, along with any family capital and the profits of the other family businesses. Robert Baird of Sauchtonhall (1630-1697)

2160-508: The indigenous population suffered from disease and famine, and many pre-colonial smaller-scale farms were replaced by larger-scale farms. These farms required more land and moist soil close to water sources, resulting in deforestation and water pollution. During the 17th century in the Lesser Antilles, many of the islands in the Lesser Antilles suffered ecological losses after the introduction of monoculture for sugar plantations. On

2220-442: The island. Women were integral in the social dynamic of the plantations and in the labor itself. "There was a gendering of health, wealth and energy on sugar plantations. The majority of field slaves were women and the majority of women worked in the field.". Women were heavily involved in the labor of the plantations and were also having children and going to work in the fields at the same time. The Newton Slave Burial Ground showed

2280-478: The labor influx of slaves through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the system became harder to maintain. Years later, in 1838, more than half a million people in the Caribbean were emancipated from slavery as a result of the 1833 Emancipation Bill. Slavery on Plantations in the Caribbean involved a series of interconnected relationships and power dynamics between the enslaved and the more elite population on

2340-462: The lucrative cultivation and trade of natural resources. Sugar was the most important crop throughout the Caribbean, although other crops such as coffee , indigo , and rice were also grown. Sugar cane was best grown on relatively flat land near coastal waters, where the soil was naturally yellow and fertile; mountainous parts of the islands were less likely to be used for cane cultivation. The coastal placement of commercial ports gave imperial states

2400-583: The mass sugar industry, sugar cane processing gave rise to related commodities such as rum , molasses , and falernum . The West India Interest was formed in the 1740s, when the British merchants joined with the West Indian sugar planters. The British and West Indies shared profits and needs. This organization was the first sugar-trading organization which had a large voice in Parliament . In

2460-523: The median-size plantation in Jamaica had about 150 slaves, and nearly one of every four bondsmen lived on units that had at least 250 slaves. For about 100 years, Barbados remained the richest of all the European colonies in the Caribbean region. The colony's prosperity remained regionally unmatched until sugar cane production expanded in larger colonies, such as Saint-Domingue and Jamaica. As part of

Leith Sugar House - Misplaced Pages Continue

2520-539: The middle 17th century. This process would not have been possible without the invention of windmills to produce sugar more efficiently. Following European settlers' entry into the Caribbean world, massive demographic changes occurred. Indigenous populations began dying at unprecedented rates due to the influx of old-world diseases brought by colonists. Estimates of these population losses vary from 8.4 million to 112.5 million. This extreme diminishment of native populations cleared room for plantation construction and lessened

2580-636: The number of people and vehicles increases dramatically. The Highland Games on the Village Green features in August. The green includes facilities for rugby and football and a play park as well as Aboyne Canoe Clubs storage facility 'The Canoe Cathedral'. The British Royal Family are residents in nearby Balmoral Castle during the Summer. Outdoor pursuits include golf, walking, cycling , mountain biking trails, kayaking, canoeing and gliding from

2640-502: The other Caribbean countries. As a result, Haiti lost its place as the leading sugar producer in the world. After the end of slavery in Saint Domingue at the turn of the 19th century, with the Haitian Revolution , Cuba became the most substantial sugar plantation colony in the Caribbean, outperforming the British islands. In the 19th century, sugar dominated Martinique , Grenada , Jamaica , Saint Croix , Barbados ,

2700-674: The same year, rebuilt the west wing of Aboyne Castle. The siting of the castle itself is related to the limited number of the crossings of the Mounth of the Grampian Mountains to the south. In 1715 Aboyne was the scene of a tinchal, or great hunt, organised by John Erskine, sixth Earl of Mar, on 3 September, as a cover for the gathering of Jacobite nobles and lairds to discuss a planned Jacobite rising . The uprising began three days later in Braemar . The former Aboyne Public School

2760-588: The sands at Cramond Island in February 1690. Robert Douglas, the younger, a son of Robert Douglas and Helen Hunter, had a brewery at Coitfield, near Leith, or at the "Coatfield Land" in Leith. In December 1709 he fought a legal challenge that he should pay a duty on his ale-making as if his brewery was in Edinburgh. A Swedish traveller, Henry Kalmeter, described Robert Douglas's Leith soap works in 1720, apparently situated in Rotten Row. The adjacent sugar house

2820-533: The teachings of Adamnan , abbot of Iona , eventually bringing his people to Christianity as well. Aboyne's first church was dedicated to Adamnan, and it was at the burial ground of this church where the Formaston Stone was first discovered. The stone was eventually removed to Aboyne Castle and is currently exhibited in the Inverurie Museum. In 1237, Alexander II granted the Knights Templar

2880-482: The tunnel running under the village is now home to a firearms club. The market-day in Aboyne was known as Fèill Mhìcheil (Scottish Gaelic for "Michael's Fair"). The name "Aboyne" is derived from "Oboyne", first recorded in 1260, in turn derived from the Gaelic words "abh", "bo", and "fionn", meaning "[place by] white cow river". The village of Aboyne was founded by Charles Gordon, 1st Earl of Aboyne in 1671, who, in

2940-576: The two, which is now known as the Aboyne-Dinnet Parish Church. In 2006, Aboyne-Dinnet was linked with the parish church at Cromar. Aboyne has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), similar to most of the United Kingdom . Due to its high inland position in Scotland, Aboyne can record some very low temperatures and some high snowfall. Conversely, temperatures can reach exceptional values for the latitude, particularly during

3000-580: The winter months due to the foehn effect ; it holds the January and March record for the highest temperatures in Scotland, with 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) on 26 January 2003 and 23.6 °C (74.5 °F) on 27 March 2012. The former is also the UK's highest January temperature on record, which it shares with Inchmarlo, Kincardineshire and Aber, Gwynedd. The February record for Scotland was broken on 21 February 2019 at 18.3 °C. In summer, when tourists visit,

3060-491: Was a recapitalization of the industry in 1751 as the Edinburgh Sugar House Company, trading with the "sugar colonies of British American Plantations". A new Leith Sugar House started in 1757 ceased trading in 1762. Adolphus Happel, who had married Amelia Gray in 1754, was described as a Leith sugar boiler in 1763 and 1766. A "New Edinburgh Sugar Company" founded in 1771 also ran into difficulty. Sugar

SECTION 50

#1732786942647

3120-743: Was also the Shore Baillie of Leith, and he sold brandy and sack to Clerk of Penicuik. In 1695, Robert Douglas, junior and senior, described as soap boilers in Leith, were investors in the Company of Scotland , the venture known as the Darien scheme . In 1695, the Parliament of Scotland recognised their flourishing trade with Greenland and Russia, and the setting up of soap and sugar works, and their plans for making porcelain. They were permitted privileges to make earthenware and distill rum. In 1703 Douglas applied to Privy Council for recognition for

3180-763: Was beginning to challenge the interest of the Catholic powers in the region such as the Spanish Empire and the Kingdom of France , taking control of a number of islands, including Jamaica and Barbados . One of these men, Colonel James Drax who had interests in Barbados, visited Dutch Brazil in 1640 and purchased a triple-roller sugar mill and a set of copper cauldrons (used for turning sugar cane into molasses , i.e. sugar cane juice used in rum production). This technology, although originating in Sicily had spread to

3240-549: Was made from fish and whale oil. The Douglas soap business is thought to have been the direct successor of Nathaniel Udwart's concession. Udwart's family is remembered by the name of a bar and venue in Edinburgh, "Nicol Edward's". Robert Douglas sold a firkin of soap to a landowner and merchant John Clerk of Penicuik for £11 Scots in February 1666, striking the bargain at the door of the shop or booth of another Leith merchant, David Boyd. A Margaret Douglas, who worked for Clerk, may have been his daughter. Clerk's accounts include

3300-503: Was most efficiently grown on large plantations with many workers. People from Africa were imported and made to work on the plantations. For example, prior to 1650 more than three-quarters of the islands' population were of European descent. In 1680, the median size of a plantation in Barbados had increased to about 60 slaves. Over the decades, the sugar plantations began expanding as the transatlantic trade continued to prosper. In 1832,

3360-420: Was now operated by Richard Morrow (or Murray) and partners. Sugar from Barbados was shipped to Glasgow and carted to Leith for refining and casting into sugarloafs and sugar syrup distilled into rum. The Douglas interest in sugar in Leith seems to have ended around 1725. Robert Douglas younger acquired an estate called Brockhouse. In the 1740s he converted his Coatfield premises into barracks for soldiers. There

3420-654: Was obtained at enormous human cost, and it can be argued that the industry in financial terms was not conspicuously profitable or a driver for Industrial Revolution and the growth of other sectors of the economy. In the nineteenth century raw sugar continued to be imported from Jamaica for processing in Leith by William MacFie and Co. of the Leith Sugar House in Elbe Street and the Leith Sugar Refining Co. in Coburg Street. This article about

3480-502: Was one of the merchant partners. Some of Baird's papers concerning his 1677 "copartnery" in the Leith "suggarie" survive, along with records of his involvement in the Carolina Company or Society and its failed colony at Stuart Town . Robert Douglas elder employed a factor, David Forrester, to run the sugar business in Leith. It was known as "The Leith Succar Work Company". They sought an expert in sugar boiling and refining in

3540-425: Was reduced to a nominal status. During the colonial period, the arrival of sugar culture deeply impacted the society and economy in the Caribbean. It not only dramatically increased the ratio of slaves to free men, but it increased the average size of slave plantations. Early sugar plantations made extensive use of slaves because sugar was considered a cash crop that exhibited economies of scale in cultivation; it

3600-480: Was used as a secondary school to the local area, but was notably used during WWII as an evacuee station for those coming from Glasgow. Local Aboyne children were educated in the morning and the evacuee children were educated in the afternoon. Any overflow evacuees were passed on to the nearby church hall, and as many as 1,250 were evacuated to the Deeside area in 1939. An eighth-century Christian presence in Aboyne

#646353