New book reveals historic links between slavery and the Highlands
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The book detailing a shameful chapter in Highland history is already being reprinted within weeks of its publication.
Black Isle writer and historian David Alston has put the spotlight on a shameful chapter of Highland history in his book, Slaves and Highlanders, Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean.
He explores the connections between the acquisition of vast wealth and the human suffering of slaves being shipped from Africa.
The initial print run of 1000 copies has already sold out and is now being reprinted by Edinburgh University Press.
To mark the book launch, Mr Alston led two walks around Cromarty visiting sites and buildings connected to the slave trade and the plantations of the Caribbean and South America.
Mr Alston, who has previously written about Scotland’s links with slavery, said his initial interest was prompted by realising there were local connections historically between Cromarty and Guyana.
“Gradually exploring all that led me to realise how extensive Highland involvement had been in the slave trade and plantations in South America and the Caribbean,” he said.
Delving into the subject, he studied local and national archive material and also visited Guyana to look at the country’s archives just before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
“I began this book with an account of an incident in my home town of Cromarty in which, more than 200 years ago, a white teenager named Hugh Miller fought with and stabbed an older black student outside the local school,” he writes in the book. “While they fought here in 1818, a number of men from Cromarty were engaged in – or were recently returned from – the oppression of thousands of Africans and their descendants on the coast of Guyana.”
He says the enslaved Africans had been involved in digging many miles of drainage canals, building 2176 miles of sea and river defences and moving 100 million tons of mud for the creation of plantations.
He notes the civil engineering works were the equivalent of 300 Caledonian Canals.
“There was another Cromarty – a plantation created on the coast between the Berbice and Corentyne rivers – which was but one part of that vast enterprise,” he continues.
“In 1818, it held in bondage 74 enslaved men, women and children.
“Fifty two of them had endured the Middle Passage from Africa. They were but 52 among more than seven million who survived that horror.”
The book has coincided at a time when racial issues have been in the spotlight through campaigns such as Black Lives Matter.
Mr Alston says reaction to the region’s connections with the slave trade are mixed.
“I think people are shocked by it and I am still shocked and surprised about it,” he said. “Increasingly, I come across aspects of this history which shocks me all over again.
“I think to some extent there is anger.
“There are other reactions, too. Some people still want to deny it.
“In general, I think there has been a creative reaction of beginning to accept this history and being prepared to talk about its consequences.”
He says in Guyana, there has been a welcome in that history is being opened up.
“A lot of people are angry that they were never taught anything about it at school,” he said.
“If you go back, it was very much a colonial education system and they were taught British history.”
But there is also interest in focusing on present problems rather than dwelling on the past.
“I think people feel acknowledging the past is important and try to see that as reparation,” he said.
He feels there needs to be discussion about reparation – financial and in other ways, too, and believes it should be part of the political agenda.
“I think what needs to happen is our governments both in Scotland and the UK need to be engaged in discussions with countries in the Caribbean,” he said.
“There are clear proposals from countries in the Caribbean – former British colonies – about what should be done.”
