Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world, 1750–1820

Download or read book Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world, 1750–1820 written by Douglas Hamilton and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book wholly devoted to assessing the array of links between Scotland and the Caribbean in the later eighteenth century. It uses a wide range of archival sources to paint a detailed picture of the lives of thousands of Scots who sought fortunes and opportunities, as Burns wrote, ‘across th’ Atlantic roar’. It outlines the range of their occupations as planters, merchants, slave owners, doctors, overseers, and politicians, and shows how Caribbean connections affected Scottish society during the period of ‘improvement’. The book highlights the Scots’ reinvention of the system of clanship to structure their social relations in the empire and finds that involvement in the Caribbean also bound Scots and English together in a shared Atlantic imperial enterprise and played a key role in the emergence of the British nation and the Atlantic World.