Historians point to Highland links with slavery
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As debate continues on whether the Highlands has a racism problem – highlighted by the Black Lives Matter campaign – historians have spoken of the area’s almost hidden slavery roots.
Wealth accumulated via opium, coffee, sugar and slavery is known to have funded buildings in Inverness, including the University of the Highlands and Islands executive office in the city's Ness Walk, and schools across the region.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Highlanders clamoured to travel for five or six weeks from the Clyde across the seas to destinations such as Jamaica to “pick up gold”. In turn, they would prove their new-found wealth by making donations to improve the Highlands.
In some cases, when they returned home they would bring their illegitimate children and slaves back to be educated, and to live and work.
Alison Mason, an archivist for High Life Highland, said: “Men believed that if they could go abroad they could make their fortune. All walks of life – lawyers, doctors, bankers and even tradesmen – believed they would become wealthy if they set out for the Caribbean.
“In some cases this was true, but others suffered illness and quite often died thousands of miles from home in poverty.
“But a large portion of the bricks and mortar of the Highlands were built on slavery. The records we hold at Highland Archive Centre show that there was a multi-level network of Highlanders in the Caribbean who were sending money back to invest in significant large institutional buildings such as the Royal Northern Infirmary and schools as well as to make improvements to many Highland estates.
“All of this was possible because of their involvement in the slave trade.
“Slaves were a commodity for their owners. In our archives, documents show the value of each slave on one page, and on the next page the cattle are also given a value. The death of slaves is recorded as a loss, while the birth of new slaves adds some money to the balance sheet.”
In 1804, some 10 per cent of the school roll at Inverness Royal Academy was Caribbean, five students were from Canada and one was from Calcutta.
Historian Dr David Alston said that by the late 1820s it was increasingly difficult for people with African ancestry to feel accepted in Scotland and black people disappeared from school records.
He believes it is the fabric of the Highlands and time for everyone to recognise the past.
“To its credit, the university has placed a plaque on its headquarters indicating that the money for the building came in part from the slave plantations of the Caribbean,” he said.
“We need a wider debate about how we acknowledge this history in our public buildings, public institutions and public spaces. Black Lives Matter has provided the impetus. It is up to us all to make sure that it happens.”
How Richard Oswald profited from slave trade
Caithness-born merchant Richard Oswald played a part in the slave trade and it made him a wealthy man, writes Valerie Forsyth.
Oswald was born around 1705 at Dunnet, the son of the Rev George Oswald and his wife Margaret Murray. After his education, he made his way to Glasgow where his cousins lived.
They owned a successful export/import business dealing in tobacco, sugar and wine, and it was as a salesman that he was first sent to Virginia, the Carolinas and Jamaica. He spent six years in Virginia before returning to London where established his own business.
In 1746 he went into partnership with Alexander Grant and Augustus Boyd. Two years later, the three men bought the island of Bunce on the Sierra Leone River. They cleared overgrown land, rebuilt a ruinous fort and repaired existing buildings, extending them so that newly captured slaves could be held there until they were transported to the plantations.
It went on to become one of the most profitable areas during the 18th century thanks to slavery. Many Scots found work on the island, but they were usually relatives of the three partners. It is estimated that 25 per cent of its white staff were Scots, as were nine out of the company’s 13 agents. During its heyday, over one million slaves were forcefully transported to the island.
By 1763 Oswald had been appointed as a government contractor for the British Army and during the Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763 was commissary-general. The money from these posts together with his other wealth allowed him to build a large mansion, Auchincruive, Ayrshire.
He split his time between Auchincruive and his home in Westminster.
