Scotland and Jamaica

The Editor, Sir:

The long-standing relationship between Scotland and Jamaica has been the subject of renewed public discussion recently. Among the most recent participants in the discussion were Earl Moxon and Professor Brian Meeks, both of whom have rightly implicated the Scots in the claim for reparation for slavery.

As a result of this renewed interest, I decided to flip Scotia Bank's 2010 calendar to the month of November to see what the narrative on the Scots contained. Let me admit upfront that Scotia Bank's effort to use this calendar as a medium to contribute to public history education (however sanitised) is a positive move. However, I must say I was a bit surprised that 'Out of Many One People: The Scots' had no explicit mention of the pre-emancipation history of the Scottish presence in Jamaica. Rather, the two paragraphs on the Scots give the impression that the Scottish presence was a post-slavery phenomenon.

But, on the contrary, the Scots were in the island from the 17th century and played a fundamental role in the island's brutal slavery past. Some fled religious and political persecution; some to seek their fortune, others to work as indentured servants. Some came voluntarily, others were rounded up and forcefully relocated (gypsies, idlers, criminals). While many were administrators, overseers, estate attorneys, bookkeepers, doctors, land surveyors and military personnel, others were enslavers who used hundreds of enslaved Africans on their properties scattered over several parishes in the island.

A 'darker' history

Well-known Scottish sugar planters were Archibald Campbell, John Cunninghame, George Malcolm, Lewis Hutchinson (the so-called "mad-Master of Edinburgh Castle"), James Dawkins (Dawkins Caymanas), James Ewing (Ewing's Caymanas) and James Wedderburn.

The Scottish landowners were not only involved in the sugar industry; over 50 per cent of the pen-keepers in Jamaica in the era of enslavement were probably Scottish, with men like Charles Stirling, George Forbes, Hay Haggart, James McIntosh and Benjamin Scott-Moncrieffe (of Soho and Thatch Hill pens) being among them. They were as pro-slavery as the English and their enslaved Africans, to whom they also passed on Scottish names, were as brutally punished for their role in the final emancipation war of 1831-32, with James Malcolm of Knockalva Pen, e.g., being sentenced to death.

It was this pre-emancipation history that was the subject of a recent symposium hosted by the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland as the Scots continue to own up to their slavery past. The symposium focused on the Scottish participation in the transatlantic trade in Africans and plantation slavery in the Caribbean and introduced participants to sources and repositories in Scotland, England and the Caribbean that facilitate the detailed study of these themes.

So, while it is true that in the post-slavery period renewed efforts were made to attract Scottish settlers to Jamaica as part of the indentureship scheme that also targeted Germans, Africans, Irish and Asians; that some were merchants and that they expanded Presbyterianism in the island, the Scots have a 'darker' history in Jamaica that needs to be exposed.

Thankfully, that exposure has been advanced by the work of Prof Palmer, Earl Moxon and the activist historians and archivists in Scotland.

I am, etc.,

VERENE SHEPHERD,

Professor of Social History,

UWI, Mona