UCL

Sugar Loaf

Dominica

Estate Details

Associated People (5)

The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Here is a key to explain those letter codes:

  • SD - Association Start Date
  • SY - Association Start Year
  • EA - Earliest Known Association
  • ED - Association End Date
  • EY - Association End Year
  • LA - Latest Known Association
26/03/1818 [SD] - 1831 [LA] → Joint owner
John Laidlaw

Shown as owner in the 1820, 1823 and 1826 registrations. In his will made in 1826 and proved in 1831, he described himself however as owning one moiety (half), with his brother Dugald Stewart Laidlaw and the heirs of his former brother-in-law John Bruce. The estate was shown as co-owned between 1829 and 1832. See indenture dated 1823, below.

26/03/1818 [SD] - 1823 [EY] → Joint owner
John Bruce
26/03/1818 [SD] - → Joint owner
Dugald Stewart Laidlaw

See indenture dated 1823, below.

1768 [EA] - 1814 [LA] → Owner
Sir Richard Neave 1st Bart.
1817 [EA] - 26/03/1818 [ED] → Owner
John Neave

Associated Claims (1)

Dominica 1 (Sugar Loaf)
£4,826 7S 4D

Sources

This estate has been the subject of archaeological work and research: Z.A. Cossin and M.W. Hauser, 'Sugar Economics: a visual economy of the plantation landscape in Dominica', in Mark P. Leone, Jocelyn P. Knauf (eds.) Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism 2nd ed. (2015).

Estate Information (8)

What is this?

1817
[Number of enslaved people] 137(Tot) 67(F) 70(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf Estate  
 

Return of John Meave [= Neave], owner; returned by Edmond McCasey, manager. This entry includes some of the names of enslaved person's mothers. St. John.

 
T71/342 400-404
1820
[Number of enslaved people] 140(Tot) 67(F) 73(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf  
 

Returned by John Laidlaw, owner; 30 enslaved people were purchased. St. John.

 
T71/353 280 - 282
1823
[Number of enslaved people] 128(Tot) 63(F) 65(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf Estate  
 

Return of John Laidlaw, owner; the decrease list shows assumed cause of death of the enslaved people listed. St John.

 
T71/358 211 - 212
1823
[Name] Sugar Loaf  
 

Indenture dated 09/07/1823 between John Laidlaw of Dominica Esquire and Mary his wife on the one part and John Bruce late of the said island now at Sierra Leone and Dugald Laidlaw of the same island of the other part. Whereas by indenture of 26/03/1818 between John Neave of Exeter Esquire of the one part and John Laidlaw of the other, John Neave in consideration of £8,500 paid by John Laidlaw confirmed to him that sugar plantation in the parish of St John called Sugar Loaf and slaves and one moity was for John Laidlaw, one quarter for John Bruce and one quarter for Dugald Laidlaw. John Laidlaw confirms one moity to them.

 
Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919) vol. III p. 309.
1826
[Number of enslaved people] 116(Tot) 54(F) 62(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf  
 

Returned by D S Laidlaw, attorney for an unnamed owner. St. John.

 
T71/360 178-179
1829
[Number of enslaved people] 116(Tot) 60(F) 56(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf  
 

Returned by Dugald S Laidlaw as part owner; includes a full return of the enslaved. St. John.

 
T71/362 415 - 419
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 26(Tot) 11(F) 15(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf Estate  
 

Return of John Laidlaw, deceased owner; returned by Dugald S. Laidlaw, acting executor. The majority of enslaved people in the 'increase' section were 'Purchased. From Mr. Roquette, one of the Heirs of Bruno Marceau late proprietor of the Piton Est. in the parish of St. Peter'. St. John.

 
T71/363 175
1832
[Number of enslaved people] 262(Tot) 132(F) 130(M)  
[Name] Sugar Loaf Estate  
 

Return of Dugald S. Laidlaw, joint owner. The increase list shows that enslaved people were purchased "from the Cottage Estate in the Parish of St. John, the property of the late John Trotter'; 'from Mt. Boyer Estate in the Parish of St. Paul, the property of J.B. Bermingham'; and 'from Dublane Estate, the property of J. B. Bermingham in the Parish of St. Peter'. St. John.

 
T71/363 182-187