Slavery - The Scottish Connection
We have made two films on this subject which reflect the increasing interest in Scotland's slavery past and the ways in which the nation benefitted from the enslavement of West African men and women in Britain's Caribbean empire.
This film builds on recent work by historians about the role of Scots in Caribbean slavery . It focuses on the Gordon family of Cairness near Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire in the late eighteenth and early 19th centuries and describes the links between Cairness House, one of Scotland’s greatest neo-classical country houses and the Georgia sugar plantation on the island of Jamaica. Cairness House and many other country houses in Scotland reminds us of a dark period in our history and of our common, shared heritage with people of West Africa and the Caribbean.
This film explores nineteenth century connections between the Cluny estate of Colonel John Gordon in Aberdeenshire, the Colonel's slave estates on the Caribbean island of Tobago and the clearance of Barra in the Western Isles during the Highland potato famine of 1846-1851.
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