Slavery: Scotland's hidden shame

There was a lad called Indian Peter who was sold into slavery along with maybe 600 other children from Aberdeen/shire in the 18th C. It wasn’t true slavery, though, as although they were indentured, they’d be free after serving their time and they weren’t anyone’s property.

aberdeenvoice.com/2011/05/child-slavery-in-aberdeen-the-story-of-peter-williamson/

My ancestors originally went to the W Indies as indentured servants. The deal was that after 10 years they were given land. It wasn't all toffs out there!

A lot of Scottish merchants had shares in or owned outright slave plantations in US States, as well as the West Indies.

I’ve seen the first programme now. Sobering stuff. I think it’s the tentacles of slavery that astounded me the most. I wanted to find out more and Googled it. We used to live in an area of Scotland that was well-known for having had many cotton and linen works. The cotton came via Glasgow from the colonies and the linen was made into Osnaburg cloth, a coarse material used to clothe slaves. Even so, the clothes still belonged to the owner and could be removed as punishment, forcing the slave to be humiliated by having to work naked.

When I lived in West Africa I visited a former slave trading post. It had a melancholic air to it, with its wall and a gate with something like ‘the point of no return‘ inscribed above it. We heard that the captives were given a drink, presumably alcohol, and told it would make them forget about their former lives, which enabled the traders to herd them through the surf and onto the ships waiting on the other side of the lagoon.

I watched last night. Grim viewing.
Having watched the David Olusoga programmes I was struck by how so many of the old ledger books had been preserved at Kew revealing the evidence, unlike the records in Sierra Leone which have mainly gone.

Sorry, where they were. Autocorrect is driving me potty.

Thank you. I knew of the programmes but wasn’t sure whether they were.

David Olusoga's programmes on slavery and the longer term outcomes was very interesting indeed. I found them on the BBC I-player.

Thanks. I shall look out for it.