Scotland and Slavery
Slavery was never mentioned in my education in Glasgow, except as something that happened way out there in Africa and the USA.
We knew there were streets in Glasgow named after plantation owners in the Caribbean: Oswald Street, Buchanan Street and the rest. I knew because someone told me that the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art was lodged in what had been a townhouse built by a rich Scottish merchant who traded with the USA. We knew the Merchant City (if anyone talked about it at all - it was a pretty run down part of Glasgow till the 1990s) was build on trade with the USA and the Caribbean.
But trade in what? Sugar and cotton figured. People? No.
It has taken us a long time in Scotland to face up to our past. My first inkling of what had happened back then in the 18th century came from a novel by James Robertson: Joseph Knight. The novel described in great - and sometimes horrible detail - the slave plantations of the Caribbean, often owned by Scottish men who had been on the wrong side in the 1745 Rebellion and had had to flee abroad till the fuss died down. Joseph Knight is a slave, brought to Scotland by his 'owner'.
The real Joseph got the help of men of the Enlightenment who had discussed endlessly the nature of 'freedom' and suddenly, with Joseph, found themselves facing reality in the person of a black man who had no idea who he was or where he had come from, having been transported as a child from west Africa to a Caribbean slave plantation and then to Scotland as a slave-servant. Joseph wanted his freedom. He got it. Through the courts in Edinburgh. I believe his case is still studied in Scottish law faculties.
Sadly, Joseph then went to work as a coal miner in Fife, where he found out about a different kind of 'slavery': wage slavery, working long hours in the dark for pitiful wages, living in housing provided by the boss, buying food from the boss's shop. The universality of Joseph Knight's situation is clear: if you are born poor, life will be a struggle.
As a child, I lived about 200 yards from the docks in Govan. I have wondered how we couldn't have known about this awful trade. Tonight's TV programme by David Hayman 'Slavery: Scotland's Secret Shame' explained that. The trade in slaves never came to Scotland. Slaves went from west Africa, where the trade was often controlled by Scots, to the Caribbean. There, the slaves were disembarked and prepared for sale to Caribbean and American plantation owners, who were sometimes Scots. Goods like cotton and sugar were picked up by the same ships and brought to Greenock and Port Glasgow.
A few people got very rich on this trade but the 'trickle-down' is clear: the raw materials were transferred from the ports to factories in Glasgow where they were turned into goods for the UK and the Empire - and sometimes, as in the case of cotton and linen cloth, the Caribbean, African and American markets. People made their living from these goods.
I believe Scotland also did well from the abolition of slavery: genteel ladies living quietly in rural areas of Scotland had no bother investing in the slave trade and no bother taking the compensation from the UK government when it was abolished. These were middle-class Presbyterian women who went to church every Sunday but saw no problem in owning slaves - as long as the slaves were at one remove - and somewhere else.
We've been in denial for a long time in Scotland. We're not alone: some years ago, a friend and I visited Savannah, Georgia where there is statue on the waterfront (where the slaves were unloaded form slave ships). But this statue shows a family of four African Americans after emancipation:
We knew there were streets in Glasgow named after plantation owners in the Caribbean: Oswald Street, Buchanan Street and the rest. I knew because someone told me that the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art was lodged in what had been a townhouse built by a rich Scottish merchant who traded with the USA. We knew the Merchant City (if anyone talked about it at all - it was a pretty run down part of Glasgow till the 1990s) was build on trade with the USA and the Caribbean.
But trade in what? Sugar and cotton figured. People? No.
It has taken us a long time in Scotland to face up to our past. My first inkling of what had happened back then in the 18th century came from a novel by James Robertson: Joseph Knight. The novel described in great - and sometimes horrible detail - the slave plantations of the Caribbean, often owned by Scottish men who had been on the wrong side in the 1745 Rebellion and had had to flee abroad till the fuss died down. Joseph Knight is a slave, brought to Scotland by his 'owner'.
The real Joseph got the help of men of the Enlightenment who had discussed endlessly the nature of 'freedom' and suddenly, with Joseph, found themselves facing reality in the person of a black man who had no idea who he was or where he had come from, having been transported as a child from west Africa to a Caribbean slave plantation and then to Scotland as a slave-servant. Joseph wanted his freedom. He got it. Through the courts in Edinburgh. I believe his case is still studied in Scottish law faculties.
Sadly, Joseph then went to work as a coal miner in Fife, where he found out about a different kind of 'slavery': wage slavery, working long hours in the dark for pitiful wages, living in housing provided by the boss, buying food from the boss's shop. The universality of Joseph Knight's situation is clear: if you are born poor, life will be a struggle.
As a child, I lived about 200 yards from the docks in Govan. I have wondered how we couldn't have known about this awful trade. Tonight's TV programme by David Hayman 'Slavery: Scotland's Secret Shame' explained that. The trade in slaves never came to Scotland. Slaves went from west Africa, where the trade was often controlled by Scots, to the Caribbean. There, the slaves were disembarked and prepared for sale to Caribbean and American plantation owners, who were sometimes Scots. Goods like cotton and sugar were picked up by the same ships and brought to Greenock and Port Glasgow.
A few people got very rich on this trade but the 'trickle-down' is clear: the raw materials were transferred from the ports to factories in Glasgow where they were turned into goods for the UK and the Empire - and sometimes, as in the case of cotton and linen cloth, the Caribbean, African and American markets. People made their living from these goods.
I believe Scotland also did well from the abolition of slavery: genteel ladies living quietly in rural areas of Scotland had no bother investing in the slave trade and no bother taking the compensation from the UK government when it was abolished. These were middle-class Presbyterian women who went to church every Sunday but saw no problem in owning slaves - as long as the slaves were at one remove - and somewhere else.
We've been in denial for a long time in Scotland. We're not alone: some years ago, a friend and I visited Savannah, Georgia where there is statue on the waterfront (where the slaves were unloaded form slave ships). But this statue shows a family of four African Americans after emancipation:
At the time I saw this statue, I wondered: Can't you face the reality of slavery, people? I'm afraid the answer is no - and it applies as much to us in Scotland as to the USA.
Of course, not everyone tried to cover up the truth. I prefer this statue. I believe it's from Alabama.
Now imagine these men being circumcised on arrival, just to weaken them so they couldn't fight back. Then having their bodies 'polished' with oil so they look good. Having bits of old rope stuffed up their anus to hide the fact from buyers that they had dysentery. And these are the people who survived the voyage. Half the people loaded on to slave ships in Africa died during the voyage, and were thrown overboard to be eaten by the sharks that followed the ships.
Up to now, I haven't been big on guilt from previous centuries. It's easier to say: that was then; this is now. But the legacy of slavery continues. Societies in many parts of the world still suffer from a refusal to accept 'people of colour' as citizens. There's an injustice to be fixed here.
If you didn't see David Hayman's documentary, I think you should - and watch the second part next week. We have a long way to go with this in Scotland. It's a worry to me that Scotland can't even accept its Gaelic ancestry, so how on earth can we expect people to admit our responsibility in what is a terrible catastrophe that countries like Sierra Leone have never recovered from? It rivals the Holocaust - and Scotland is involved.
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