The legacy of slavery

As World Anti-Slavery Day approaches this month, Jackie Macadam considers the action being taken by the Church of Scotland in reflecting back and looking forward.

WE don’t even notice it. We never think about it. To a large extent we assume it doesn’t really apply to us.

But everywhere in Scotland we are walking streets and using buildings, even passing statues and money dedicated to, and sometimes built by and named after, people whose fortunes were at least partially made on the backs of slaves and the slave trade.

In recent years there has been a general movement to recognise the debt owed to the men, women and children who were bought and sold and subjected to untold horrors throughout the 18th century. Slavery was made illegal in Scotland in 1778, in the British Empire in 1807 and on plantations in the British West Indies in 1834 – 38.

The 2020 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland tackled the issue and agreed a deliverance:

Reaffirm that racism is a sin, and declare that Black Lives Matter; instruct the Faith Impact Forum, in partnership with the Faith Nurture Forum, Assembly Trustees, and General Trustees to report to a future Assembly on the issue of racial justice and the legacy of slavery and the Church of Scotland and to consult widely with people of colour in the Church of Scotland and with Black Majority churches in Scotland.

But sometimes, the Church played a more direct role, and many churchgoers recognised the slave trade for the horror it was.

The National Records for Scotland records:

“In 1756 a slave called Jamie Montgomery was brought by Robert Sheddan of Morrishill from Virginia to Ayrshire. Sheddan’s plan was to have Jamie trained as a joiner so that he could then sell him back in Virginia for a larger profit, now being a skilled man. Jamie was baptised by Rev John Witherspoon in Beith (who would later sign the American Declaration of Independence). Jamie was forcibly removed by his owner to the docks at Port Glasgow and put on a ship to Virginia, but escaped, finding his way to Edinburgh, where he was recognised due to a newspaper advert about this runaway slave and imprisoned in the Tolbooth Prison. Sheddan, annoyed at the costs of keeping his slave in the prison, requested that the case be held quickly, but Jamie’s health was deteriorating fast. By December 1756 both sides were still trying to be heard but by the time the case was finally given a date for the hearing, Jamie had died in prison.”

The National Records for Scotland also mention another case to reach the Court of Session involving a slave called ‘Black Tom’. Tom was brought to Scotland to Methil in Fife to be personal attendant to Dr David Dalrymple. Tom stayed in Scotland when his ‘master’ fell ill, and asked to be baptised. He was baptised by the minister of Wemyss Parish Church and given the name David Spens. Next morning, newly- baptised Spens was due to be returned to the West Indies but instead, took refuge in the home of John Henderson, a local kirk elder and nearby farmer.

Spens protested that as he was now a Christian he was liberated from ‘my old yoke bondage and slavery’. Dalrymple claimed Spens was ‘a pious fraud’. Dalrymple lodged papers claiming right and title to Spens and his services, him now being worth ‘sixty pounds’. He petitioned the court for Spens’ incarceration and Spens was captured and sent to Dysart jail. Two Edinburgh lawyers put up the thirty pounds security to get Spens out. The paper trail ends there, though it’s known that Dalrymple died later in the year and Spens gained his freedom as a result.

David Bradwell and Dr Robyn Knight are spearheading the report to the 2023 General Assembly.

“The lasting impacts of the British Empire, and British involvement in slavery, has been a recurring theme in the study of history and heritage for a great many years,” says Robyn. “Scholars and historians over the last two decades have contributed more and more to research on Scotland’s role in transatlantic slavery, and we are now seeing a wider debate in society and recognition of the issues.

“The ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrations across the world can now be seen as a major moment in the ongoing campaign for racial equality. Many people who had not previously encountered issues such as institutional racism and White privilege began to become aware of the systemic nature of racism in British society.

“We are gathering evidence and stories where church property – including churches – were financed with the proceeds from the slave trade or slavery, where there are monuments or memorials in our churches that honour people who were involved in the business of slavery, or where Church leaders were themselves ‘owners’ of slaves. These of course are historical questions, but we feel that they still have relevance in our modern society – hence we talk about the legacies of slavery, not just slavery itself. In the Church we speak about being the body of Christ – that we are all members of the one body. It is therefore not sufficient to say ‘it wasn’t me’ or ‘it wasn’t my congregation’.”

David adds: “Additionally, a recent paper published by the Theological Forum posed several questions around apology and how this relates to historic wrongs. Considering how we respond to historic wrongs not only allows us to think more closely about our current values and institutional structures, but also express solidarity and respect with those who have been harmed.”

One outcome which is linked to slavery particularly for the Church of Scotland, is the emergence of the Mission to Calabar (Nigeria). Many will be familiar with the Mission to Calabar through the activities of Scottish missionary Mary Slessor. What is perhaps less well known is that the origins of the Mission were not in Scotland, but in Jamaica.

Information from the ‘Annals of the Calabar Mission 1846-1945’, compiled by Rev W MChristie, BA Missionary in Calabar 1913-45, reports: “The Rev George Blyth of the Scottish Missionary Society had been appointed in 1824 to minister to the enslaved population at the Hampden and Dundee estates, Trelawny, Jamaica. As part of the appointment half of the expenses for the chapel which was built at Hampden were paid for by Scots Archibald Stirling (the younger) and William Stothert, owners of the Hampden and Dundee estates respectively. Blyth was soon joined in Jamaica by a small number of other missionaries, including the Irish minister Hope Masterton Waddell. By 1841 the Jamaican Mission Presbytery had adopted resolutions in favour of a mission to Africa, which had been ‘eagerly taken up by the [now] freed slaves’ in Mr. Waddell’s congregation, however in Scotland the resolution was ‘chillingly received’ by the Scottish Missionary Society and United Secession Church. Nevertheless, an invitation to the missionaries from King Eyamba of Old Calabar arrived in 1843, arranged through the captain of a trading ship from Liverpool, England. Owing to an ‘increasing desire to introduce the Gospel to Central Africa’ campaigning for the mission took place both in Jamaica and Scotland by Blythe and others, but it was not until 1844 that the United Secession Church and the Scottish Missionary Society agreed to award Mr Waddell a two-year absence to initiate the mission to Calabar. Funds were raised in Jamaica and across Scotland with £600 raised in Jamaica, a large proportion coming from the Hampden congregation and Mr Waddell’s congregation at Mt Zion. A further £4000 was raised by congregations across Scotland from all denominations.”

The Rev Dr Karen Campbell, minister at Edinburgh: Marchmont St Giles says that the legacy of slavery can be found even in our present-day graveyards.

In the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh lies the grave of one such young slave.

The stone simply says: ‘Tom, an African Slave boy, died at Edinburgh April 19th 1884 aged 13. Redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Erected by children of Rosehall U.P. Church’.

“The story is intriguing and very sad. It links to the missionary activities of the time,” says Karen.

“A Scotsman, Joseph Clarke was born in Aberdeenshire, on 1 July 1856, and worked first as a clerk in Stoneywood Paper Works and then in Aberdeen Customs house before training as a missionary in London and going to the Palabala, Congo in 1879 with the Livingstone Inland Mission,” she says.

“There he took part in an expedition up the Congo in 1880. Even long after slavery had ended in Britain, it still had currency in Congo and was of great concern and the missionaries traded goods to free children, with bales of cloth sometimes exchanged for the liberty of girls and boys.

“Joseph paid for the release of Tom and another child called Theo. They came to Scotland with Clarke and accompanied him on his lecture tours, raising money for the Mission.

“Tom did not have good luck in his new home. He died in Lochrin House in Gilmour Street, Edinburgh, which at that time was a small home for orphans. His death was recorded both in The Scotsman and Dundee Courier.

“The Dundee Courier, Friday 25 April 1884 reported: ‘Death of a Congo Lad in Edinburgh. On Tuesday the remains of Black Tom, a little Congo lad, were interred in the Grange Cemetery. On Saturday morning he burst a blood-vessel, and in the evening he died. He had a companion named Theo, also from Congo. Mr Clark, who was sent by the Livingstone Inland Mission to the Congo about six years ago, returned on furlough last year, bringing with him the two boys. The one who died had been purchased by himself, while the other was also a slave, claimed by three different chiefs.’

“A few days after Tom died, Clarke married and the couple spent much of their married lives in the Congo where five of their six (known) children were born. Their future lay in America where they spent their later years.” Karen explains.

“In 1926 Joseph and Eliza his wife headed back to the Congo where he died on March 8 1930.”

Karen pauses, then says: “It’s still not yet known what happened to Theo. Did he remain in Edinburgh, return to Congo or travel on with the Clarkes to America? Why did the children of Rosehall Church (now Priestfield) raise the money for Tom’s stone in the Grange Cemetery? It was a Church which had close connections with Mary Slessor, so a further chapter may still yet be written in the story of Tom the Slave Boy.”

The Rev Iain Whyte has long held an interest in the history of slavery.

“My interest in the unrecognised history of slavery started when I did in 1963 a special subject in my first degree on ‘Slavery and Secession’ in pre-Civil War America. When studying Divinity in Glasgow I spent a summer in the Southern States doing pulpit supply in Alabama and becoming involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, encouraged by Dr Martin Luther King. Staying with a 95-year-old man whose father had been in slavery all his life made the connections for me. It was an enlightening yet shocking experience to see at hand the brutal system of segregation and it persuaded me that historical campaigns against racial oppression often had to be fought again in every generation. Eradicating the cancer of racism is a lifelong struggle whether in apartheid South Africa (I was active since schooldays in the Anti-Apartheid Movement) or the less obvious signs in Scotland today.

“I took up the study of slavery again when Chaplain to the University of Edinburgh when I completed a PhD on the lesser known story of Scotland’s role in the abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery and my book on this was published by Edinburgh Unversity Press in 2005. Most people know the names of William Wilberforce, John Newton, and even David Livingstone in this field but I researched and wrote Zachary Macaulay – The steadfast Scot in the British Abolition Movement. Macaulay was a son of the manse in Argyll and himself worked as an overseer in Jamaica. He became editor of the Anti-Slavery Reporter which gathered vital evidence for the Parliamentary Campaign and he was hated by the slave owners for exposing the truth.

“I have always believed that historical research exposing our past is useless if we have no concern to change the present.

“A highlight of my life was to do a sponsored walk with Civil Rights veterans from Selma to Montgomery in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King march for voting rights. This raised money for Anti-Slavery International’s work throughout the world.

“I have been a supporter of ASI for some years, took part in a campaign against Human Trafficking during the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and am currently a member of the Cross Party Group at Holyrood of Trafficking and Asylum.”

Though the Church of Scotland commission is focusing on slavery in the 18th century, one of the Guild’s selected projects recently was International Justice Mission UK. They target modern slavery.

Scotland Lead for IJM UK, Zoe Anderson, says: “Although slavery is now illegal almost everywhere, an estimated 40 million people around the world are still trapped in exploitation today. Modern slavery takes many forms, from people forced to work in factories or brothels, to sexual exploitation over the internet.

“I work for International Justice Mission (IJM), one of the world’s largest antislavery charities, and we’ve seen the devastating impact of slavery on individuals, families and communities. “Ending modern slavery will take a movement: with survivor leaders, justice systems, governments and communities all playing their part. It will also take the support of the global church – and encouragingly, we’ve already seen incredible change through church involvement. Through our Freedom Church project, we’ve seen churches help identify and refer cases of trafficking, as well as supporting IJM’s aftercare programmes through providing support to trafficking survivors.

“Together, we can stop slavery for good.”

"Ending modern slavery will take a movement: with survivor leaders, justice systems, governments and communities all playing their part. It will also take the support of the global church – and encouragingly, we’ve already seen incredible change through church involvement.