AVON RIVER HERITAGE CENTRE
  • About
    • Avon River Heritage Society
    • Artifacts & Archives
    • The Avon River
    • Meet the People in our Neighbourhood >
      • Dawn Allen, August 21st, 2020
      • Sara Beanlands, July 22nd, 2021
      • Carolyn Connors, July 30th, 2020
      • Carolyn Connors, July 21st, 2021
      • Louis Coutinho, August 13th, 2020
      • Sean Coutinho, January 13th, 2021
      • Eva Evans, July 24th, 2020
      • Elizabeth Ferguson, July 27th, 2020
      • Nicholas Hughes, August 6th, 2020
      • Olwynn Hughes, August 11th, 2020
      • Kim Lake, January 18th & 21st, 2021
      • Trudy Lake, March 13th, 2022
      • Raymond Parker, August 12th, 2020
      • Raymond Parker, July 7th, 2021
      • Zacchary Paul, August 21st, 2021
      • Tacha Reed, August 27th, 2020
      • Allen Shaw, January 18th, 2021
      • Carolyn vanGurp, July 16th, 2020
      • Abraham Zebian, August 24th, 2020
    • Avondale Walking Tour
    • Fundraising
    • Book an Appointment
  • History
    • Natural History >
      • Highest Tides in the World
      • Tidal Bore
      • Avon Peninsula Ecology
      • Birds of the Avon
      • Marine and Freshwater Species of the Avon
      • Karst Environment
      • Gypsum
      • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society >
        • Avon Peninsula Watershed Preservation Society, Interview with President, Raymond Parker
        • Avon-Shore Seed Library
    • Mi'kmaq >
      • Mi'kmaq Birch Bark Canoes
      • Mi'kmaq of the Avon River >
        • Treaty Truckhouse 2 & Zacchary Paul
    • The Coming of the Europeans
    • The North American Colonies
    • Acadians >
      • Pisiquit
      • Acadians of the Avon River >
        • Babin
        • Breau
        • Cheverie
        • Forest
        • Landry
        • LeBlanc
        • Rivest
        • Thibodeau
        • Trahan
        • Vincent
        • Other Families
      • Village Thibodeau (Poplar Grove)
      • Acadian Families After Expulsion >
        • Broussard
        • Brun
        • Comeau
        • Deveau
        • Girouard
        • Johnson
        • Leger
        • Pellerin
        • Poitier
        • Robicheau
        • Suret
    • New England Planters >
      • New England Planters in Avondale >
        • Genealogy
        • Samuel Bentley
        • Benjamin Borden
        • John Chambers
        • James and John Harvie
        • Caleb Lake
        • James and Lydia Mosher
        • Nathaniel Reynolds
        • Benjamin Sanford
        • James Smith
        • Henry Tucker
        • James Weedon
    • Loyalists
    • African Nova Scotians
    • Local Home Histories >
      • 28 Chip Hill Road
      • 51 Avondale Road
      • 38 Avondale Road: The Clifford Mosher House
      • 58 Avondale Road
      • 60 Avondale Cross Road
      • 71 Avondale Road: The John A. Harvie House
      • 354 Belmont Road: The Yellow House
      • 603 Belmont Road: Wallace Point
      • 801 Avondale Road
      • The Acadia House
      • The Avondale Church
      • The Avondale Parsonage
      • The Church Farm
      • The Fred Robart House
      • The Henry Lyon House
      • The House Across From The Church
      • The John E.F. Mosher House
      • The Knowles Homestead
      • The Mounce Mansions >
        • Captain George R. Mounce House
        • The Thomas A. Mounce House (Honeymoon House) >
          • Interior of the Honeymoon House
      • The Mrs. Dunham Hotel
      • The Old Newton Mosher House
      • The Old Stone House >
        • The Mystery of the Fieldstone House
      • The Roley Mosher House
      • The W.H. Mosher House
    • The Avondale School
    • Avondale Wharf & The Landing
    • The Avon Spirit
    • Golden Age of Sail >
      • The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Sail in Newport
      • The Mosher Shipyards
      • Sailing Ships, Sugar, and Salt
      • Vessels of the Avon River
      • Shipbuilding Process
      • Shipbuilding Tools
      • Ship Directories
      • Kings Wharf
      • The Hamburg >
        • Obituary Capt. Andrew B. Coldwell
        • The Hamburg and Alice Coalfleet’s Diary
      • Captain George Richard Mounce Sr
      • Annie Armstrong Mounce Correspondence 1875-1892
      • Captain Daniel William Dexter & The Emma Payzant >
        • Captain Daniel William Dexter and Family, Interview with Debbie Siler, July 21st, 2021
        • Diary of Sarah Dexter, 1892-1893
      • The Rotundus
    • Community Orchard
    • Edmund McCarthy
  • Arts & Culture
    • The Great Little Art Show >
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2021 - Artwork
      • Great Little Art Show 2022 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2022 - Artwork
      • Great Little Art Show 2023
      • Great Little Art Show 2024 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2024 - Artwork
      • Great Little Art Show 2025 - Artists
      • Great Little Art Show 2025 - Artwork
    • Artists Landing Art Gallery
    • Open Studio
    • Full Circle Festival >
      • Sofa Sundays
      • Solstice Market
    • Paint Avondale
    • Avondale Wharf Day
    • Honey Harvest Festival
  • Events Calendar
  • Planters Sea Chest Gift Shop
  • Lydia & Sally Cafe
  • Venue Rentals
  • Volunteer and Employment Opportunities
    • Summer Employment Opportunities
    • Volunteer Teams
    • New Horizons for Seniors
  • How to find us!

Sailing Ships, Sugar, and Salt

During the 1800s, the Golden Age of Sail, over 165 large wooden ships were built in two shipyards near this museum. While ships were built for many purposes, from transporting gypsum to ferrying passengers, the growth in ship-building was driven in part by the demand for timber and sugar from plantations in the Caribbean. Locally-built ships would carry salt fish to the West Indies, pick up sugar and its by-products (molasses and rum) to transport to England, and there load up on manufactured goods and salt for preserving the fish that fed sugar plantation workers. This cycle or Triangular Trade was built on the Transatlantic Slave Trade that saw over 12 million women, men, and children captured, enslaved, and shipped from Africa to the Americas on 36,000 voyages before this transport was halted in 1891. 

At first, British-made, but later North American ships were used for the transport of enslaved people. Before the American Revolution in 1776, about 1,000 voyages left Rhode Island to purchase and sell enslaved people. Ship-building shifted to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution. The schooner and sloop were preferred for speedy cross-Atlantic transport of enslaved people. While the larger brig was able to carry more people, its slower speed resulted in increased deaths and thus lower profit for the ship-owners. The last known slave ship to transport Africans into the U.S., the schooner Clotilda, which carried 110 enslaved people, was captained by Nova Scotian-born William Foster in 1860.
        

After the abolition of slavery in British colonies, Nova Scotia increased trade with French and Spanish colonies. Sugar from Cuba was imported to Nova Scotia and re-exported to the United Kingdom until the early 1900s. Locally built ships were lost at sea near Savannah, Cuba, The Turks, Mauritius, Brazil, Santo Domingo, Saint Thomas, Jamaica, Bahamas, and Delagoa Bay, all of which had economies connected to the labour of enslaved and indentured people.

Slavery made sugar cheaper and the cheaper it was produced, the more central it became to the British diet. In England, per person sugar consumption increased from 4 pounds in 1700 to 90 pounds in 1900. Four-fifths of the sugar consumed came from British and French colonies in the West Indies, produced by the labour of enslaved and indentured people.                                    
       
When the Suez Canal was completed in 1869 and the world turned to iron- and steel-hulled sailing ships and steamships, the age of wooden ships declined. By 1895 local builders were out of the big-ship business, although construction of fishing schooners and coasters continued for some years. Many local workers skilled in sail making, wood shaping, etc., were put out of work, and in the next hundred years the population of Newport Landing decreased by about 80%. Relics of the ship-building period can be found in the grand houses in this area, in oral histories, and in artifacts in this museum.

Avon River Heritage Centre, 17 Belmont Road, Avondale/Newport Landing, West Hants, Nova Scotia, B0N 2A0
Email us at [email protected]
Telephone us, May through October, at (902) 757-1718

The Avon River Heritage Society would like to thank the Municipality of West Hants and the Province of Nova Scotia for their generous support.

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