Scotland and the Caribbean: Freedom and Slavery

3 Credits.

This course focuses on the 18th century, a seminal period in Scottish, European and Caribbean history. The flourishing of ideas and innovations placed the small country of Scotland in the forefront of the Enlightenment with its emphasis on reason, freedom, and happiness. Edinburgh’s transformation from “Auld Reekie” (a reference to the smoking chimneys of the crowded old city) to the “Athens of the North” is a remarkable story of urban planning, thriving academic debate, innovative medical ideas, and geological discoveries. A short distance away, the city of Glasgow was also a heartland of intellectual rigor centered around its university. Glasgow began to grow exponentially as it benefitted from its location on the river Clyde and its access to the east Atlantic Ocean. After the Act of Union of 1707 united Scotland with England and Wales, Scottish merchants had access to English colonies. The ensuing story of the “Glasgow tobacco lords” of the 18th century and their monopolistic relationship with Virginia tobacco production is well known. Until the 21st century, however, Scottish historiography rarely explored the links between Scottish transatlantic trade, the transatlantic slave trade, and sugar plantations in the Caribbean. In the 18th century, the Caribbean was divided mainly among Dutch, English, French and Spanish colonists. After 1707, they were soon joined by Scots. As the sugar industry grew in the 18th century, 80% of the population in the Caribbean was Black, transported from west Africa, and some areas, such as Barbados, became part of an intra-American/colonial slave passage. A strange contrast ensued: Scotland, a country that was building its glittering historical reputation on the ideals of the Enlightenment also had a significant number of individuals who were directly involved with the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of peoples in the Caribbean. How do we explore such contrasts in the ideals of freedom with the realities of slavery?