Books by Douglas Hamilton
Islands and the British Empire in the Age of Sail, 2021
Papers by Douglas Hamilton
International Journal of Maritime History , 2024
While the actions of foreign navies and enemy privateers in the Caribbean have occupied the minds... more While the actions of foreign navies and enemy privateers in the Caribbean have occupied the minds of maritime scholars, the role of the Royal Navy as an instrument of counterinsurgency to be used in suppressing self-liberation struggles by the enslaved has received much less attention. Yet, across the Caribbean, the Royal Navy was instrumental in securing victory for the colonial elite. In addressing this lacuna, this article revisits Fédon's rebellion in Grenada and the Second Carib War in St Vincent in 1795–1796, and the Jamaican Rebellion in 1831–1832, to suggest the extent of naval activity in confronting internal threats, and how responses to revolts illuminate the complex relationship between the navy and enslavement. In adopting its counterinsurgency role, after 1815 the navy found itself in the seemingly paradoxical situation of protecting enslavement and suppressing the slave trade.
Britain and the World, 2019
In his inaugural lecture at Lancaster University in 1992, John MacKenzie outlined the importance ... more In his inaugural lecture at Lancaster University in 1992, John MacKenzie outlined the importance of the connections between Scotland and the British Empire. Ever since, many scholars-including some who evinced little previous interest in the world beyond the Tweed-have been inspired to map out in ever-more critical terms the extent and durability of Scottish relationships with the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. 1 MacKenzie himself has played a central role in the efflorescence of this scholarship. 2 Not content merely to make a point about the distinctiveness of Scottish experiences of empire, he also emphasised the importance of national variations across Britain and Ireland, and stressed the need for a 'four-nation' approach to the study of empire. For MacKenzie, alert as ever to the symbiotic relationship between Britain and its overseas territories, the Empire also shaped 'vital ethnic distinctions' at home. 3 In
Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World 1750–1820, 2010
International Journal of Maritime History, 2010
factors are mostly restricted to the 1895 census). This part also includes information about tren... more factors are mostly restricted to the 1895 census). This part also includes information about trends in female and child labor. In Chapter 3, Pineda ingeniously gauges trends in Argentine investment in industrial capital goods by tracing the import of machinery, parts, and fuel, using British, North American, German, and French export data. The consistent growth in the importation of machinery, with an unsurprising dip during World War I, increased productivity in almost all of Argentina’s industrial sectors, but it is also seen by the author as evidence of the country’s inability “to develop the technological capabilities needed to sustain industrialization” (56). Chapter 4 offers an equally inventive analysis of merchant anance groups that fuses quantitative and qualitative sources using a prosopographical method. It shows that the problem was not a lack of capital per se but stringent bank lending that limited credit to dominant groups and provided incentives for investment in mercantile rather than industrial activities. Together with the next chapter on entrepreneurial strategies and manufacturing proats, this section offers an excellent sociocultural history of business. The last chapter deals with industrial legislation. The tales of interest groups, lobbying, political pusillanimity, legislative myopia, and lack of long-term planning sound eerily like current international news. Le plus ça change. . . ?
The MacKenzie Moment and Imperial History, 2019
In 1762, two Scottish brothers were among the British investors who had bought plantations in Dem... more In 1762, two Scottish brothers were among the British investors who had bought plantations in Demerara. Despite the challenging circumstances of the Seven Years’ War, they saw opportunities for profit in the fledgling Dutch territory. Drawing on archival material in Britain and the Netherlands, this chapter suggests that the activities of these men reveal much about the operation of empire in the eighteenth-century Caribbean. Lines between official roles and private enterprise were blurred, and imperial boundaries were routinely crossed, as they sought to safeguard their investments and to pursue their imperial ambitions. Just as John MacKenzie’s work challenged historians to think carefully about a ‘four-nation’ approach to empire, so does the experience of these men push us to conceive of eighteenth-century empires as transcending European as well as British jurisdictions and traditions.
Journal for Maritime Research, 2004
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Although they were small, the islands of the Caribbean were central rather than peripheral to the... more Although they were small, the islands of the Caribbean were central rather than peripheral to the idea of empire. By the seventeenth century, the islands of the Antillean archipelago were already integral to European imperial rivalry and—as a result—came to shape European notions of what empires were and what they were for. This chapter explores the shifting nature of these islands as they emerged to become imperial powerhouses in the eighteenth century. This transformation was set against the backdrop of the great upheavals of war and revolution. The shifting demography of the West Indies and their economic and strategic importance exposed them particularly to the threats created by the geopolitical maelstrom around them. This chapter argues that their island nature intensified how they were affected by, and responded to, the profound and unprecedented uncertainties of the Age of Revolutions.
Slavery & Abolition, 2017
John Perkins was the most senior black officer in the Royal Navy during the American War of Indep... more John Perkins was the most senior black officer in the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He rose through the ranks from a carpenter's enslaved servant in 1759 to post captain in 1800, and went on to be one of the very first British officials to land in newly-independent Haiti in 1804. His career as a spy, gun-runner, naval officer and land owner was one of almost implausible adventure and speaks to the capacity of the maritime service to challenge and subvert race and slavery in the Caribbean. His very uniqueness, however, highlights the profound challenges for slaves and ex-slaves in trying to remake themselves as free people. A few months after the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in May 1791 John Perkins, a Royal Navy lieutenant on half pay, was arrested by the French authorities in Saint Domingue and 'confined in a dungeon … under the pretext of his having supplied the people of colour with arms.' His arrest promoted a vigorous response from the Royal Navy, and two ships-the Diana and the Ferretentered Jérémie harbour in southwest Saint Domingue to negotiate his release. 1 Captain Thomas Russell of the Diana argued there was no evidence for the French accusations of collusion with the rebels. Instead he believed-somewhat implausibly-that Lieutenant Perkins was being held in revenge for his actions off Saint Domingue during the American War of Independence, which had ended nearly a decade earlier. Despite receiving formal requests from the governor and naval commander at Jamaica, the French refused to budge, informing the British that the 'Law imperiously commands us to retain Mr Perkins'. Unofficially, Russell was told by the president of the Council of Commons at Jéremié that Perkins would be executed. After more than a week of fruitless diplomacy
Imagining Transatlantic Slavery, 2010
The bicentenary of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in 2007 was marked by an extrao... more The bicentenary of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade in 2007 was marked by an extraordinary array of commemorations across the United Kingdom. Exhibitions sprang up from Scotland to southwest England, and in often in places not traditionally associated with the slave trade. For university academics, the slave trade, slavery and their abolition have, of course, been at the heart of decades of detailed and groundbreaking research. Until comparatively recently, however, these issues had not been regarded as central to the work of museums and galleries. A corollary of museums' increasing engagement with these issues was a growing interest by slavery scholars in the work of museums, both as advisers to exhibitions and as commentators in the increasingly fertile field of public history. 1 2007, then, was not just about commemorating the bicentenary, but fostering a much closer dialogue between academics, museums and their audiences. This dialogue, however, should not imply that there was consensus; indeed, it is clear that representing slavery was about finding acceptable compromises between competing voices and interests. Slavery or, more accurately, abolition, has been displayed in Britain since 1906, when Wilberforce House in Hull opened as a museum. Despite this century-long tradition, however, a widespread museum engagement with issues of slavery and abolition took a great deal longer to develop. Wilberforce House opened two new galleries-'The slave trade' and 'Wilberforce and abolition'-in 1983, but it was not until the 1990s that the sector as a whole began seriously to take an interest. 2 Major new exhibitions, firstly 'Against Human Dignity' at Merseyside Maritime Museum in 1994 and then, in 1999, 'A Respectable Trade?' initially at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, then the Bristol Industrial Museum, showed the potential for this subject to provide C. Kaplan et al. (eds.), Imagining Transatlantic Slavery
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Books by Douglas Hamilton
Papers by Douglas Hamilton