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"Edinburgh slavery map offers glimpse into city’s dark past"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

  2. gembo
    Member

    New town built on surplus valu extracted from slaves in the west and east indies

    Old town built on smaller degree of surplus value extracted from Scotland's indigenous peasantry.

    Fascinating map. Combine it with census data and trace forward to see who inherits what from slavery?

    Posted 7 years ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

    Almost similar!

    https://cllrjimorr.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/corr-map

    Posted 7 years ago #
  4. gembo
    Member

    Well a bit different but ice cream and candy floss is made from sugar which is the other key factor.

    The rise of mercantile class linked to surplus value extracted from slavery in the production of sugar cane undercutting the more local sugar beet. Collateral being the development of the Scottish sweet tooth. Lot of dentists in the new town too. There is also a link to art via Tate and lyle sugAr company founding art galleries

    Posted 7 years ago #
  5. kaputnik
    Moderator

    surplus value extracted from slavery in the production of sugar cane undercutting the more local sugar beet

    Sugar beet was not commercially produced in the UK on any scale until after WW1, and did not prove profitable until late 1920s when government began to subsidise it to ensure a domestic supply of sugar.

    I seem to recall that one of the by-products of sugar beet production is the pulp, which is one of the main ingredients of "white" ciders, along with desert apple pulp. Never seen a cider apple in their life.

    The West coast ports, i.e. Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, were where the spoils of Caribbean and American slavery were landed; sugar and tobacco. Glasgow had some big tobacco barons. A lot of the dirty money then came to Edinburgh thanks to all the banks based here. Leith as a port mainly dealt with trade with Europe, but also became important in the fortified wine trade. Esparto grass was an important cargo for the paper industry of the Esk and Water of Leith. At one point Leith was instrumental in wine bottle production, the glass works took up most of the north side of Salamander Street. European wines came in on the ships and they went back ballasted with bottles. The common green wine bottle was known as the "Leith pattern", such was the dominance of the wine bottle industry.

    Pan tiles were another common ballast, ships that carried coal to Europe from the Fife and Lothian coalfields usually came back ballasted with tiles. That's one reason that a lot of the East Lothian and Fife coastal villages have such a prevalence of red tiled roofs. Notably places like Dysart, Culross etc. Red tile roofs were also common in Newhaven and Leith.

    It was hard to get your hands on coal in Edinburgh, despite the proximity of the Lothian, Lanarkshire and Fife coalfields as so much of it went to Europe or west to Glasgow. The Midlothian coalmasters in particular (the local aristocracy, Duke of Buccleuch, Marquess of Lothian) had an iron grip on the trade; they owned the land from which it was dug and set the tolls on the roads for carters. It was the threat of the canal from the west that finally prompted them to begin developing railways from Midlothian into Edinburgh to try and keep their grip over the city's coal supply. The Edmonstone Waggonway was one such aristocratic coal railway.

    Now where was I?

    Posted 7 years ago #
  6. ih
    Member

    Wonderful stuff @kaputnik. Thank you.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  7. gembo
    Member

    Mangelwurzel

    Posted 7 years ago #
  8. gembo
    Member

    Sugar beet, e.g. Sucrose extracted from beetroot or other wurzels possibly actually kick started by Britain ending slavery. But protecting their sugar cane ownership via blockades / trade wars ??

    Originally enlightenment/industrial revolution chemistry experiment by landed gentry scientists in Silesia?

    Some suggestion the sugar beet crop can fail. Whereas the cane is more robust. Just as the cane makes rum the beet makes some crazy Silesian beet spirit that has not caught on so much

    Posted 7 years ago #
  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Tuzemák

    Posted 7 years ago #
  10. gembo
    Member

    Yeah that was the stuff I saw on the Wikipedia sugar beet page

    The original map of Edinburgh set out the addresses of slave owners receiving compensation.

    Not sure what a similar map for Glasgow would look like? Maybe west end / merchant city?

    The east coast ruling classes all congregated nicely in the Newtown. More spread out in the west.? So th east coast map can be more detailed using a larger scale for a smaller area whereas west coast might be all of lanarkshires and renfrewshires and Ayrshires.?

    There was an interesting Jane Austen film. I can never remember which of her novels is which. Anyway Harold Pinter played the lovely father figure but the screenplay veered from the novel by pointing out that the money for the estate in England was extracted from the slaves' labour in Jamaican plantation. More obvious example being mr Rochester in Jane eyre.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  11. chdot
    Admin

    Not slavery as such, but another 'another way of looking at history' -

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/new-plaque-on-melville-monument-will-record-dark-deeds-1-4227731

    Posted 7 years ago #

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