Introduction by Brian Weightman
2007 was the two hundredth anniversary of the passing of the Abolition of Slavery Act but there is another anniversary we need to remember. 300 hundred years ago, in 1708, Parliament gave permission for Scottish merchants to enter the slave trade and trade directly with the American sugar and tobacco plantations. This was an extremely lucrative business for merchants such as George Buchanan, Alexander Spiers and John Glassford. They amassed fortunes that are incredible even by today’s standards, for instance Buchanan Street was once a tree lined avenue to George Buchanan’s mansion!
However, it was not just the few rich tobacco merchants who were involved in the trade. Manufacturers and craftsmen across Scotland benefited as they produced items to be exported; one tobacco lord even complained that Scotland did not produce enough for his needs.
Scotland also exported people – sailors to transport the slaves from Africa, overseers on the plantations to make sure the slaves worked hard enough (often working them to death), and also as slave traders. Robert Burns, Scotland’s bard, planned to work on a plantation himself. It was only the success of his poetry that persuaded him otherwise.
The most visible sign of East Renfrewshire’s connection to the slave trade is the elegant mansion built by Robert Allason at Greenbank. Robert Allason and other members of his family were heavily involved in all aspects of the trade. The profits from his dealing in human misery were enough to allow him to buy the land and build his house. He also kept slaves in the house itself – as did many other rich families across Scotland. Only after cases were brought to court were slaves freed in Scotland.
The trade involved buying slaves in West Africa, transporting them in appalling conditions across the Altantic Ocean to Virginia, trading them for sugar and tobacco and then bringing the goods back to Glasgow to sell at vast profits. Allason and other tobacco lords would then fill their ships again with cloth and ironwork made in Scotland to take to Africa or to sell to the plantation owners in Virginia.
The plantation owners lived a life of luxury. Records from Robert Allason’s shop in Virginia show the fine china, luxury fabrics and other expensive European items bought by the planters. This was in complete contrast to the lives of the slaves. Treated like animals with no rights, fed only just enough to keep them alive and working, slaves were seen as ‘chattels’ – objects to be bought and sold, less than human.
These slaves were of course fully human – ‘Just Like Us’. Archaeologists have found evidence of African magic rituals taking place on the plantations and contemporary literature mentions slave healers. Artefacts excavated also indicate survival of traditional skills of pottery showing that even in such terrible circumstances, these proud people continued to keep their culture and traditions alive; they were never just chattels.
This project aims to remind us of these 10 million human beings whose lives were destroyed by this evil trade.