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From: Richard Bond< >
Subject: [CARIBBEAN] Re: Emigration from Scotland ca 1800-1860
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 17:29:25 -0400 (EDT)

An increase in the price of wool caused many Scot landlords to offer
their tennants known as crofters money for transportation at the same
time that they became harder on rent. More income could be made from
grazing property using a few hands as could be made renting to
subsistance farmers.

Many landlords had been stuck with rents which did not reflect the
amount that they might otherwise have received, and were legacies of a
time when labor not land was in short supply.
It was cheaper to pay the incumbent crofters to go and then raise rents
or graze than keep the status quo.

Wool was in short supply because the invention of more efficient looms
in the late 1700s caused the price of cloth making to go down increasing
demand. Such was the fruit of the Arkwright loom and Watt steam engine.
Then towards the end of this period the cause was more family reunion
among the more successful. The Scots were sometimes mechanics as the new
steam mills were often made in Scotland There were more jobs in Scotland
by the 1860s and better opportunities elsewhere..

As to why they would go to the West Indies the answer at the beginning
sugar was still very profitable and the slave trade was banned so labor
had to be gotten from elsewhere. Many of the colonies also had civil
codes requiring the presence of whites on plantations to monitor the
prepondrance of blacks. Scots often came in during this early period to
hold jobs as stock herds and inventory takers.

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• [CARIBBEAN] Re: Emigration from Scotland ca 1800-1860 by Richard Bond< >