Col. William McDowall I

Father of William McDowall II (q.v.) and founder of the family fortune. Born in 1678, the fifth son of William McDowall, 17th of Garthland, Galloway.

1. The Glasgow histories claim that he commanded a regiment on St. Kitts, married the daughter of a planter's widow, and returned to Glasgow as a successful merchant. In fact he emigrated to Nevis c.1695, and worked his way up as an overseer on the plantation of Col. Daniel Smith.

2. Following the French invasion of 1706, he crossed to St Kitts. In 1707 he purchased 12 enslaved people to work on his plantation there. By 1712 he had been granted Canada (Candau) Hills, formerly a French plantation two miles north of Basseterre. His rank of Colonel came from his position in the island militia.

3. He returned to Bristol in 1724, but decided to focus his interests in Glasgow. In 1726 he purchased a slave ship, The Fair Parnelia, but it overturned on its first voyage from Africa, drowning 272 Africans held below decks. The Glasgow histories celebrate him as 'the darling of the city, who did much to shape its social and human qualities'.

We are grateful to Stuart M. Nisbet for compiling this entry.

1. Andrew Brown, History of Glasgow (1795) Vol. 2, p.331; Stuart M. Nisbet, 'A Sufficient Stock of Negroes', Renfrewshire Local History Forum Journal, Vol.14 (2008), available for download at rlhf.info/wp-content/uploads/14.6-Negroes-Nisbet.pdf.

2. Stuart M. Nisbet, 'Early Scottish sugar planters in the Leeward Islands, c. 1660-1740', in T. M. Devine, Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past: the Caribbean Connection (2015) chapter 3; Stuart M. Nisbet, 'A Sufficient Stock of Negroes'.

3. Stuart M. Nisbet, 'A Glasgow slaving tragedy', Scottish Local History vol. 82 (2010); Charles Allen Oakley, The Second City (1946) p. 9.