What is the relationship between what happened in the past and how we find the present? What moral obligations, if any, does this present inherit from that past? And what long-held myths (such as ‘it wisnae us’, or the notion of Scotland as an oppressed colony of England - the two are not unconnected) and false comparisons (plantation slavery with, for example, the Highland Clearances) must be challenged?ĭavid Alston quotes the Caribbean writer Jan Carew (1920-2012), who was descended from both slaves and Highland slave owners (his mother was a Robertson) on the Kiltearn plantation in Berbice (like neighbouring Demerara and Essequibo, a former Dutch colony ceded to Britain in 1815, and now part of Guyana). It interweaves global history with local history, and while it interrogates in great detail the available evidence, it does not shrink from asking broader questions. More than this, it enlarges the existing narrative to include the stories of the enslaved, of free people of colour, and of mixed-race children who had to negotiate hard paths between countries, classes, cultures and social attitudes. It is a major piece in the emerging jigsaw that shows the extent of Scottish involvement in the slave trade and especially in the slavery-based economies of the Caribbean. Reshapes our understanding of Highland and Scottish histories, and - as the subtitle indicates - places those histories in an international context.
This is a mighty book, the product of more than twenty years’ research by David Alston, who has over that time generously shared his findings on a website, also titled Slaves and Highlanders ( It is a book that Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean Review by James Robertson A Review by James Robertson
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