Remote & Rural Remedies

Slavery and the Highlands

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Scotland and Slavery

In recent years, Scotland’s links with the slave trade have come into sharp focus, with the impact in Edinburgh and Glasgow particularly highlighted. For example, the University of Glasgow published a report in 2018 which acknowledged the receipt of financial support from individuals involved in the slave trade and in Edinburgh a much-publicised campaign was successful in adding a sign next to the statue of Henry Dundas on the Melville monument to reflect his position on slavery more accurately. Although the financial benefit from slavery elsewhere in Scotland has received less attention, it was also a significant contributor to the Highland and Islands region.

The slave trade was ended in the majority of British-held colonies under the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. One of the terms of this Act was the creation of a fund to compensate slave owners for their loss of ‘property’, which was realised through the Slavery Compensation Act 1837. The fund comprised £20m (more than £16bn in today’s terms) which was issued to people in both Britain and the Caribbean who owned slaves. This fund, along with the wider financial benefits realised from the plantation and enslavement economies, increased the wealth of certain individuals in Highland society and enabled the purchases of large areas of land in the area.

Highland Connections with Slavery

In 2020, a research report by Dr Iain MacKinnon and Dr Andrew Mackillop highlighted the scale of land purchases in the Highlands that were likely to have been funded by direct or indirect benefits from slavery, including slave ownership. Their analysis revealed that individuals who benefitted significantly from slavery purchased at least 63 estates in the West Highlands and islands between 1726 and 1939. They estimate that these purchases total over one million acres, around one third of the total area and more than five percent of Scotland’s entire land mass. The research also illustrates the relationship between wealth from slavery, estate purchases and Highland clearances as these events occurred during the same time period and there was a similar focus on resource extraction from the land in both the plantation and estate economies. Extensive research by Dr David Alston also highlights large networks of links between Highland Scots and plantations in the Caribbean, particularly Guyana.

Slavery and the Surveys

A number of the heritors referenced in this collection of surveys had direct or indirect involvement with the slave trade. Some are specifically identified in the above research, such as Colonel John Gordon of Cluny whose compensation and land purchases are discussed extensively in the data analysis which accompanies the report. Colonel Gordon was also notorious for poor treatment of tenants and cleared thousands of people from his estates. Another heritor, William Campbell, was the son of Farquhard, a slave owner in Demerara and Sir George Gunn Munro of Poyntzfield married into a plantation owning family and subsequently owned an estate and slaves in Jamaica for a number of years. Others such as McKay of Bighouse, McDonald of Glenaladale and Alexander Mackintosh of Mackintosh are all specifically referenced in the research, where connections are highlighted between their compensation payments and purchases of large estates in the area.

The number of heritors mentioned in the surveys who had involvement with slavery serves to illustrate the scale of the impacts from the slave trade, and although these connections are not the primary focus of this collection it is important to recognise the pervasive nature of the trade on the lives of many people all across Scotland. As Drs MacKinnon and Mackillop explain, the patterns of land ownership in the Highlands illustrate how reliance on external forms of capital can mean that the needs of local people and economies are subordinated to these wider market demands. Simply put, the priorities of these landowners were accumulation and resource extraction rather than the care of their tenants or local communities, perpetuating societal inequalities and having a real impact on the everyday lived experience of people in the Highlands.

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References:

MacKinnon, I. and Mackillop, A. (2020) Plantation slavery and landownership in the west Highlands and Islands: legacies and lessons - A Discussion Paper, Community Land Scotland. Available at: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Plantation-slavery-and-landownership-in-the-west-Highlands-and-Islands-legacies-and-lessons.pdf

MacKinnon, I. and Mackillop, A. (2020) Plantation slavery and landownership in the west Highlands and Islands: legacies and lessons, ANNEX: Data and References, Community Land Scotland. Available at: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ANNEX-report-data-references.pdf

University College London Department of History (2021) Legacies of British Slave Ownership. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/

Alston, D. (2021) Slaves and Highlanders. Available at: https://www.spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/index.asp

Mullen, S., Newman, S., Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow - report of the University of Glasgow History of Slavery Steering Committee (2018). https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_607547_smxx.pdf

City of Edinburgh Council, (June 2020) New wording for plaque at Melville Monument agreed https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/12885/new-wording-for-plaque-at-melville-monument-agreed

History of Parliament Trust (2020) Member Biographies - John Gordon. Available at: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/gordon-john-1776-1858