Scottish serfdom

A site on Scottish serfdom

Here is a Internet site saying what is to be said about the reintroduction of serfdom, by James VI.Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

In the late 16thC the whole of Britain was still trying to cope with the large increase in beggars. Possibly caused by more capitalism, pushing feudal peasants off land, or maybe this sort of thing happened every so often in less efficient feudalism, too. You can hardly say Scotland was that much less feudal than capitalist. Anyhow, in the late 16th the increasing number of beggars was seen as a problem by many even nobles were recieving their annoying begging, and at times thefts.

Meanwhile James the Sixth saw the wealth to be made from more industry,Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

Under his reign there was some increase in coal mining, and industry, even salt pan, uses.
Well some lords were wanting even more employees for their mines.
So they asked the king for some more labour. The king decided he would help make a law where beggars were sent into mines as serfs, barred from escaping, and in cases having their legs shackled together.
Added to this he agreed with a change that their kids, would be serfs, partly on help of the local church leaders, who were bribed by local business men, to make their kids, and babies slaves.
Serfdom was illegal in England and Wales in 1617, In Scotland it had disappeared in the 14thC plagues, and independence wars, just as it had decreased in England.

You might ask how many serfs were in Scotland, 20,000 would have been about 2% of the population, in the 17thC, which would be a total not that much smaller than the 5% given for most aristocracies. Most of the rest of the people, were in some sense oppressed by feudalism, and were peasants, or town dwellers.

On average there were 20,000 serfs in Scotland.

Right up to 1640 this remained, the same,
With more acts in 1660s increasing this way.
The main owners of the mines supported the king.
This terrible thing did not end till the late 18thC.
When a African slave was introduced to the mines, he with fellow miners went to law claiming serfdom should be illegal ion Scotland, He and parliamentry votes won the freedom of the miners.
The coal industry had found it hard to attract new employees, with serfs finding themselves discriminated against.

Scotland started industrialising, after 1799.
So then caught on industrialising Wales and England.

The Isle of Man had a form of corvee too 1777, when a petition to Westminster, that had recently bought the isles ended the conscript labour of there.

The Shetland Isles, had slavery in the 17thC under Scottish nobles.

Ireland had sharecropping style ways for long under English aristocrats.

The Isles of Man, had very high amounts of slavery after 1660. When a lord who surrendered to Cromwell was executed by new royal occupiers.

The last major famine in Scotland was in the 1690s when 5 to 20% of the Scottish people died.

The last major famine in England was in the 1620s in North West England, killing tens of thousands

There were dearths in Scotland and the rest of Britain till the 1800s, and food crisi ones till the 1860s, which killed small amounts.

A list of sites with many Scottiosh History subjects

.100s of great websites http://www.lonympics.co.uk/, go to the history links, to find loads of sites on Scotland.

A site stating when 100s of lands ended slavery or serfdom, and a longest list I have ever seen of slave and peasant revolts

A Multiple Choice Quiz on Scottish History

A part definition, part history of serfdom

Massacres of 1640s Scotland by Royalists