News

Churches march to mark ‘regret’ over slavery

February 4 , 2007

By David Christie, Sunday Herald

Scottish Church leaders and politicians will mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by retracing the steps an illegitimate son took to confront his father - a Scots slavemaster.

On March 25, Action of Churches Together in Scotland (Acts), which unites nine denominations, has asked its members to express their "regret" at Scotland's role in slavery by walking from Musselburgh town centre to Inveresk Lodge, once home to Jamaican plantation owner James Wedderburn.

Wedderburn, who with his brother John amassed a fortune in Jamaica before returning home, notoriously fathered a string of illegitimate children while abroad, including Robert, whose mother was Wedderburn's slave Rosanna and who was threatened with jail when he came to Inveresk Lodge in 1779.

Communities minister Rhona Brankin and Edinburgh's lord provost Lesley Hinds are expected to join the walk, which will include people dressed in period costume. Tom Moyes, Acts Network Officer, said: "It's important to make people aware Scotland has a history of involvement in the slave trade. Some of our prosperity comes from the slave trade; we weren't just a location for ships coming and going."

Ships packed with sugar and tobacco regularly docked in Glasgow, while mortality rates on Scottish slave ships were twice as high as average.

Acts has also organised a service on June 16 at the David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre. The centre is run by the National Trust for Scotland, which has set up a travelling display outlining links between their west coast houses and the slave trade as well as the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment, which propelled Scotland to denounce slavery 30 years before the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807.

Award-winning author James Robertson, whose novel Joseph Knight tells the story of the slave who took his master - James Wedderburn's brother John - to the Scottish courts and won his freedom, said: "It is right not just to mark the fact it is 200 years since the slave trade was abolished but that for several hundred years before this, the British, the Scottish included, were explicit in running the slave trade. What happened to so many Africans was the nearest thing to the Holocaust in our history."

Two 700-mile walks, organised by the Lifeline Expedition, will be held between March and July to mark the final stage of a seven-year mission to reconcile Africa and Europe. Walking 250 miles from Hull to Westminster, then 470 miles linking former slave ports London, Bristol and Liverpool, descendents of slaves and white people in yokes and chains, wearing t-shirts reading "so sorry" will march together.

Lifeline Expedition director David Pott explained: "Trying to heal the wrongs of history are issues people don't want to talk about, but a meaningful apology can help to reduce the bitterness and anger still felt today."

In December, Tony Blair expressed "deep sorrow" at the enslaving of millions of Africans, angering many people who believed a full apology was in order.

The UK government has announced a series of events to mark the bicentenary and the Scottish Executive will follow suit. However, the Rev Iain Whyte, author of Scotland And The Abolition Of Black Slavery and a campaigner for asylum seekers, wants politicians to think carefully before they take praise for Scotland's role in abolition.

He said: "We still treat people in an inhumane way, taking them from their homes and sending them to countries where they face persecution and imprisonment. The lessons are not so remote we cannot learn from them today."