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Scotland and the Atlantic slave trade

The role of Scots—predominenty Lowland Presbyterians—in the Atlantic slave trade took place from the 17th century through to the early 19th century, during what is known as the "second Atlantic system" (the "first Atlantic system" prior to this, which laid the foundations, had been dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish Empires, including Sephardic Jews). While there were Scots involved in the triangular trade before the Acts of Union 1707, most of their activity took place under the Kingdom of Great Britain as the British Empire became prominent. Glasgow in particular owed a signficant part of its growth to the "Tobacco Lords" who were involved in the slave trade in the British North America, as well as this they were involved with slave plantations in the Leeward Islands, Jamaica and Guyana dealing with sugar cane and coffee. Scottish diaspora merchants were also heavily involved in trade operating out of Liverpool, Bristol and London.

Following the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 and the paying off of the slave owners who had sugar plantations in the Caribbean, Scottish slave owners were disproportionately represented among the recipients of financial compensation. This included individuals such as George Rainy, John Gladstone, George Parker, James Blair and James Gordon. Professor Tom Devine has stated that "the extent of Scottish slave ownership relative to population size was more than England's and much more than that of Ireland and Wales.” An analysis backed by records kept by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at University College London.

General[edit]

In the 17th and 18th centuries the British Empire’s ships carried more than 3.4 million Africans to a life of servitude in the plantations across the northern Atlantic. This was as many as were carried by the ships of all other European nations combined: the empire of Portugal dominated the trade in the south Atlantic, to Brazil, which was numerically larger. As Devine writes in his Introduction, “As far as the history of black slavery in the northern Atlantic was concerned, Britain by all measures was the dominant force.”

Philip Morgan says, “Scotland’s connections to slavery were extensive, Scots participated fully in slave trading from ports such as Liverpool, Bristol and London. … If Scotland can boast of its abolitionists, it should also take ownership of the many Scots who defended and profited from the institution.”

Scottish owners of slave plantations in the Leeward Islands, Jamaica and Guyana. Devine notes, “modern scholarship has identified the islands of the British West Indies as the location of the most deadly and destructive systems of slavery in the New World.”

Morgan observes, “slavery was important to Scotland’s development.” Devine agrees: “the economic effects of slavery in all its aspects may have been more important to industrialisation north of the Border than in England.” He points out that, “In the decades before 1776 the tobacco trade was by far Scotland’s largest source of imports and re-exports. After 1783 it was mainly replaced by sugar and cotton from the West Indies as the centrepiece of the nation’s maritime commerce. Both these sectors, however, could not have flourished without human bondage on a massive scale.” He sums up that there was indeed ‘a close and enduring engagement between Scotland and transatlantic slavery’.

Nicholas Draper, of the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership project at University College London, writes, “Slavery and slave ownership permeated the whole of the City of London and the evidence suggests that it also permeated Scottish commerce and finance.” And, “On a per capita basis … there were proportionately many Scottish absentees and Scotland played a disproportionately large part in the story of British and Irish slave ownership.”

At emancipation in 1834 the British government paid £20 million compensation to 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their ‘property’. This was 40 per cent of the Treasury’s annual budget and, in today’s terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around £16.5 billion. The Glasgow merchant house of John Campbell, senior, & Co., got £73,000, making it the eighth-largest beneficiary in Britain and the highest in Scotland.

As Draper writes, “Ireland was … wildly under-represented among slave owners.” Scotland had 1,000 awards, 15 per cent of the total, to absentee slaveowners of the total 7,000 awards. Ireland, with a population three times the size of Scotland’s, had only 170, 2 per cent of the total. Devine summarises the UCL team’s findings: “the extent of Scottish slave ownership relative to population size was more than England’s and much more than that of Ireland and Wales.” He sums up, “some evidence in the study points to an even greater per capita Scottish stake than in any of the four nations of the UK in British imperial slavery.”

Scotland produced one of slavery’s most persistent defenders, the reactionary Archibald Alison, who wrote that ending the slave trade would mean ‘the dismemberment and dissolution of the empire’, that the colonies were ‘menaced with destruction’ and that Britain itself would be mortally wounded if the colonies gained independence. He also claimed that the ‘madness’ of the 1832 Reform Bill would mean the ‘destruction of the Constitution’.

Scotland’s ruling class gained hugely from the Empire’s exploitation of the colonies in Asia and Africa and it profited hugely from the slave trade. This confirms Alex Salmond’s claim that Scotland was not oppressed and ‘had no need to be liberated’. Scotland’s rulers were colonisers, but Scotland itself is not and never has been a colony.

Payout[edit]

The fortune – the equivalent of £2.5 billion today – was given to Scots slave owners for the loss of their “property” when the trade was shut down in 1833.

Inverness business baron George Rainy was the top earner from the compensation payments.

The slave master was paid £146,295, the equivalent of £124m in 2017, to free 2794 slaves from his 30 plantations in British Guiana.

Merchant George Parker, from Ayrshire, was paid £91,000 to free his 1741 slaves from nine sites in British Guiana – which works out at £77m today.

John Gladstone, father of former Prime Minister William Gladstone, had nine plantations in Jamaica and British Guiana totalling 2500 slaves. The knighted slave owner banked £106,000 in compensation when he was forced to give up his slaves – £90m in today’s money.

Boyd Alexander, of Mauchline, Ayrshire, and David Lyon Jr, of Balintore Castle, Forfarshire, were also beneficiaries of the payouts. Alexander received £43,259 and Lyon Jr £46,854, the equivalent of £36.7m and £39.8m respectively in 2017.

People[edit]

Legacy[edit]

Slave-descended populations[edit]

As a legacy of slavery, especially in Jamaica, where the Scottish slave owners were prominent, many of the Afro-Jamaican slaves took on the surname of their former masters, as did some of the mixed-race people (descended from Scottish slave masters and their African female slaves) surnames which they maintain to this day.^[1] According to The Herald, in 2015, as a result of this, 60% of Afro-Jamaicans living in Jamaica today have Scottish surnames: this is more than any other nation in the British Commonwealth of Nations, including Canada and New Zealand where the Scottish diaspora settled in large numbers. In Jamaica, there are more people per head with the surname "Campbell" than in Scotland itself: other common names derived from Lowlanders include Wedderburn, Lyon, Whyte and Newland.^[1] A similar pattern can be observed among the Afro-Caribbean people from other parts of the British West Indies, such as the Afro-Barbadians, Afro-Kittitians and Nevisians, Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans, Afro-Trinidadians and Tobagonians, and Afro-Guyanese people. Some prominent examples of Afro-Caribbean originated people with Scottish surnames include Marcus Garvey (from "Garvie"), Grantley Herbert Adams, Denzil Douglas, Lewis Hamilton, Trevor McDonald, Claude McKay and Stokely Carmichael.

References[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

^ ^a ^b Herald Scotland (10 September 2019). "Jamaica: the country with more Campbells per head of population than Scotland".

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

Bibliography[edit]

Devine, T. M. (2012). Scotland's Empire: The Origins of the Global Diaspora. Peguin. ISBN 978-0718193195.
Devine, T. M. (2012). To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010. Peguin. ISBN 978-0141015644.
Devine, T. M. (2015). Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1474408806.
Draper, Nicholas (2013). The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107696563.
Hamilton, Douglas (2010). Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, 1750-1820. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0719071836.
Meighan, Michael (2015). Glasgow: A History. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1445647197.
Morris, Michael (2008). Scotland and the Caribbean, c.1740-1833. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138325326.
Mullen, Stephen (2009). It Wisnae Us: The Truth About Glasgow and Slavery. The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. ISBN 978-1873190623.
Norman, Nicol (1967). Then & There Series: Glasgow & The Tobacco Lords. Longmans.
Thomas, Hugh (1997). The Slave Trade - The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870. Picador. ISBN 033035437X.
Whyte, Iain (2006). Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756-1838. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0748624333.
Whyte, Iain (2012). Send Back the Money!: The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery. James Clarke and Co Ltd. ISBN 978-0227173893.

External links[edit]

Category:Scottish slave owners Category:Scottish slave traders

[surnames-1] Herald Scotland (10 September 2019). "Jamaica: the country with more Campbells per head of population than Scotland".

[1]