Scots in the West Indies in the Colonial Period: A View from the Archives

In the incipient historiography of Scotland and the West Indies in the colonial period, historians have adopted distinct methodologies and approaches to archival research. First, some have taken a metropolitan-based approach and used source material accordingly. For example, T. C. Smout’s early work on sugar houses and the development of Glasgow are classic cis-atlantic studies based on Scottish records such as port and customs records.1 Secondly, other historians have adopted a trans atlantic approach and utilised material generated and stored in institutions in both Great Britain and the Caribbean. Alan Karras’s pioneering book Sojourners in the Sun (1992) utilised material in the National Library of Scotland, National Records of Scotland (then the Scottish Records Office) as well as archival sources located in America and Jamaica.2 This strategy was followed by Douglas Hamilton in Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, 1750–1820 (2005).3 Records revealing activities across the Atlantic world were generated in both Scotland and the Caribbean at the time. For example, the ledgers and journals of Alexander Houston & Co. – the premier Glasgow–West India firm before bankruptcy in 1805 – reveal much about mercantile practices in eighteenthcentury Glasgow.4 Plantations records were also systematically generated in the West Indies to be sent back to Great Britain to absentee owners. The Stirling of Keir papers in Glasgow City Archives is one of Scotland’s most comprehensive collections related to Scots in eighteenth-century Jamaica. The records often reveal hitherto unknown activities. Using planter William McDowall’s letter book, Stuart Nisbet has explored the origins of fortunes accumulated in the Leeward islands of St Kitts and Nevis and the impact on pre-industrial