Over recent decades, Scotland's involvement in colonialism has become increasingly prominent in scholarly and nonscholarly deliberations about Scottish history. Conversations about the Scottish contribution to expanding and buttressing the British Empire—and the manifestations of colonialism that linger in Scottish society today—took on increased urgency in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. The nation's historical connections to enslavement in the Caribbean and its enduring legacies have become a central aspect of the historiography of modern Scotland. In 2015, Scotland's most prominent historian T. M. Devine put the question succinctly: Did slavery make Scotia great?Devine's question is not entirely new. Decades earlier, Eric Williams examined the links between economic development in Britain and capital accumulation in the Caribbean. For Williams, there was a discernible link between the proceeds of enslavement and the emergence of industrial capitalism. Stephen Mullen's The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy is one of the recent—and ongoing—responses to Williams's work. Placing Glasgow's West India merchants at the heart of its analysis, Mullen demonstrates this group's facilitative role in Scotland's economic development. The book's primary historiographical contribution is testing this aspect of the Williams thesis in a Scottish context.The "sugar aristocracy" on whom Mullen focuses belonged to the elite tier of Glasgow's mercantile community. In chapter 1, Mullen provides an overview of this group's formation. Drawn from both the middling ranks and the lower gentry, they formed connections through marriage and financial relationships. Chapter 2 underscores the importance of family ties, borrowing and lending to the development of the sugar aristocracy. Drawing on sources of credit in Scotland allowed these merchants to undertake business ventures in the Caribbean. The capital that Glasgow's West India merchants repatriated—derived from enslaved people's labor—catapulted them to the upper echelons of Scottish society.Thousands of Scots made their way to the Caribbean between 1750 and 1834. In chapter 4, Mullen provides a new estimate of the scale of Scottish immigration to the Caribbean. Between 1750 and 1834, somewhere between thirty-six thousand and forty-seven thousand Scots arrived in the West Indies. This group comprised primarily young men. They included artisans, merchants, and medics. The lure of relatively high wages enticed agricultural workers to the Caribbean; their skills were valuable on plantations and the cattle pens that supported sugar monoculture.Chapters 5, 6, and 7 offer case studies that detail Scots' activities in Jamaica, Grenada, and Trinidad, respectively. In these chapters, Mullen problematizes the scholarly consensus concerning the seemingly temporary nature of Scottish migration to the Caribbean. While the archetypal Scot in the West Indies may have been a temporary migrant—or so-called sojourner—Mullen offers examples of Scots who remained in the Caribbean for prolonged periods. Moreover, he emphasizes that success was far from assured for the thousands of Scots who vied for financial and social advancement. The cohort of Scots who achieved considerable financial success through their involvement in the plantation economy—undergirded by enslaved people's labor—were not as likely to invest in burgeoning industries as their Glasgow-based mercantile associates.Mullen uses chapter 8 to synthesize conclusions from his various case studies. Most significantly, he argues that Glasgow's West India merchants made a discernible contribution to the process of industrialization in Scotland. Furthermore, this chapter offers valuable insights for scholars interested in Scotland's agricultural history. Half of the merchants Mullen examined in his study owned landed estates, mostly smaller parcels of land in the West of Scotland (although many produced significant rental incomes). Although some West India merchants Mullen analyzed inherited their landed estates from relatives, most bought them directly. Capital accumulated before the abolition of enslavement in 1834 rather than the compensation received by enslavers after this juncture appears to have facilitated the bulk of these land purchases. Moreover, it was only after 1800 that rural areas felt the effects of improvement schemes connected to capital linked to enslavement.This well-researched and carefully argued book represents a significant milestone in the historiography of modern Scotland. Its findings about the nature and extent of slavery-derived capital's influence on industrialization have important implications for Scottish economic history. By clarifying the scale of the impact that the proceeds of enslavement had on economic and social developments in Scotland, Mullen provides a revision of the more general understanding of Scotland's past. This book is required reading for anyone interested in Scotland's past links to enslavement in the Caribbean and how these connections have shaped the nation into the present day.
M. L. Lee (Wed,) studied this question.