Cumnock to Demerara

By Kay McMeekin

Demerara is now part of Guyana on the north coast of South America. It was under the Dutch until 1815 when the British took over. There were many sugar plantations, worked by slaves until the abolition of slavery in 1833. *

Our story starts in 1847 when Cumnock born Marion McCowan Crawford married sugar planter Alexander Stewart in Felicity House, Demerary. He was 12 years her senior. Marion was the youngest daughter of James Crawford 1773 -1860 a banker in Cumnock and his wife Mary Wylie. I have found out little about him other than this;

 "Jas. Crawford, Esq., Banker, Cumnock, a Director of the Ayr and Dumfries Junction Railway." Glasgow Courier - Thursday 13 November 1845 accessed via British Newspaper Archive.

How Marion came to meet her husband Alexander Stewart who was born in Comrie, Perthshire is unknown. His father was Peter Stewart an innkeeper.

Their first known  daughter Marie Antoinette was born at the Lusignan plantation in 1850. Their next daughter Annie Marion was born in Cumnock in 1853 and their third daughter Elizabeth Stewart was born in Lusignan. n 1858, son Alexander Robertson Stewart was  born at 10 Scotland Street, Edinburgh Newington. His father, Alexander, was a sugar planter in Demerara and the birth was registered by a nurse. This suggests that Marion crossed the Atlantic at least 4 times. 

By the 1861 census Alexander was a retired sugar planter aged 60 and they are all living Northumberland House, 5 Gallowgate Street in Largs, Ayrshire

In 1871 Mary Antoinette is staying in Cumnock with Crawford aunts and uncle. The rest of the family is at Galvelmore Street, Crieff in Perthshire.

By the 1881 census the family is settled at 6 Dryden Place in Edinburgh.

Alexander died in Dryden Place in Edinburgh in 1879 of gout. Marion died at the same address in 1892 aged 68.

* From http://www.jahajeesisters.org/our-history.html

1838:  Approximately 17,439 slaves gain freedom in Trinidad.  Approximately 69, 579 slaves gain freedom in British Guyana. – An exodus of the ex-slaves off the plantations. – A critical shortage of labor - Without cheap labor the plantations would collapse.

1834:  Immigration schemes are introduced to Trinidad and Guyana to try to solve the post-emancipation labor shortages in the British West Indies (BWI).  Laborers were brought from other parts of the West Indies, Portugal, Europe (Ireland, Scottland, Germany, Sweden, France), Americans from Pennsylvania and Baltimore, China, Manderia, Azores, Malta, West Africa and India.

1838 (May 5):  The first ship of Indians aboard the Whitby and Hesperus land in Guyana with 396 Indians, 22 of which are women.

1845:  In Trinidad, imported labor from British West Indies, Madeira, and Europe is halted and Indians are brought there for the first time.

1850’s-1900’s:   Indians are coerced by Estate Owners into staying in Guyana through the exchange of their return passage to India after their 5 year contracts have expired, for a plot of land and a cow.  Most oblige, although some do return back.