Remaining Forever at Plantage Alliance: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “At the Cemetery”

Margaret Shields: 1871-1902
John MacNiven: 1930-1930

 

Although the Shields family sold Plantage Alliance, their sugar plantation in Suriname, in the 1950s, and cut their ties to the country, two members of the family will remain at the plantation forever. In the gardens of the large plantation house, in the shade of a large tree, lie two graves.

The Dutch history of the plantation notes that while there was no official plantation cemetery, “In the garden for the plantation house are two tombs”, and the inscriptions read as follows:

In Loving Memory of Margaret S. Shields who died Alliance 14 February 1908.

John, infant son of John and Ruth Shields Macniven. Born and died at Paramaribo 28 September 1930.

The photo above shows the two graves, with the plantation’s guest houses in the background. The guesthouses were torn down shortly after the photo was taken, much to the annoyance of the Dutch researchers, who reported that the buildings could have easily been repaired and used to house tourists. They felt the Suriname government, the current owner of Alliance, was mismanaging the plantation and its assets. However mismanaged, at least the graves have thus far remained undisturbed.

So who are Margaret Shields and John MacNiven?

Margaret Shields was the fifth child of Thomas and Margaret Sutherland Shields. She was born May 20, 1871. As an adult, Margaret Shields traveled to Alliance Plantation, one of the Suriname plantations her father Thomas managed and invested in. She contracted yellow fever there and died in 1902 at age 31, having never married. This must have been a terrible blow to the family, as her brother Robert had died less than a year before. Margaret was buried at Alliance.

It is hard to find any records that shed further light on Margaret’s life. After her birth, she appears on no Scotland census forms (nor does her mother). I have found no ship records that show when she left England for Suriname, or whether her 1901-02 visit was her first or one of many.

There is a photograph of the Shields family on the steps of the Alliance Plantation house. The Dutch researchers have assigned it a date of 1903, but I wonder if that is accurate. Could the real year be 1901? If you look closely at the figures on the bottom step of the house, the woman in the center appears to be Thomas Shields’ wife, Margaret Sutherland Shields. So who is the woman to her left? I wonder if it might be her daughter Margaret, who had been her companion once the other daughters had married. Without additional photos of the family that might help us identify the people in this photo, we may never know.

The second headstone marks the grave of Ruth Shields MacNiven and Jack MacNiven’s firstborn child. Ruth and Jack had married March 31, 1930 in Demarrara, Guyana. Jack was working for his uncle, Archie Shields, who was the administrator of Alliance, so the newlyweds moved to the plantation following their honeymoon. Jack and Ruth’s son was born September 28, 1930 and died the same day. The baby would have been at least three months premature, so was too small to survive. They named him in honor of his father, John “Jack” MacNiven.

No matter what happens to the remnants of Plantage Alliance in the future, I hope this tiny cemetery will continue to be preserved and maintained. These two members of the Shields family should be remembered even though their lives were cut tragically short.